In the last article, I mentioned Reishi, a powerful anti-aging, stress busting fungi that can be safely taken throughout life.
This time I will be looking at Turkey Tail, or trametes versicolor, a fast growing mushroom commonly found all over the world. Turkey tail is probably one of the most studied medicinal mushrooms since it also has a long history of use in Asia and has been shown to help greatly in cases of various cancers and in helping the immune system to recover from the damage done from treatments of cancer like chemotherapy and radiation.
It is also a great overall immune booster and can be taken as a tea or in capsules. If you or someone you know is suffering from poor immunity, this is an easy way to help nourish and strengthen the immune system.
As a fungi to grow yourself, Turkey tail is probably one of the easiest to grow. Just put some wood dowels in some logs, seal it up with wax and a few months later there should be dozens of mushrooms popping out of the logs as they digest the woody material and transform it into powerful medicinal compounds. If that isn't magic, I don't know what is. It's also not as picky as most mushrooms about what type of wood it is eating. If you think the cost of prepared powders, tinctures or capsules is too expensive for you, consider this... You could take old branches that fall, say after a wind storm (which seem to be getting pretty common these days) and just buy a bag of wood plugs and cheaply grow the medicine yourself from what otherwise will become municipal yard waste or maybe firewood. Transform a problem into a solution.
If you are really curious to learn more, check out Mycomedicinals or Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets or Radical Mycology by Peter McCoy
To your health!