With a long, storied history of medicinal usage in Asian traditional medical practices, the reishi mushrooms, also known by their scientific name, Ganoderma lucidum, are believed to promote longevity and good health. Relatively rare in the wild, this species, nicknamed “the immortal mushroom,” was once reserved for royalty. Now, reishi is regularly grown, making it available worldwide in various products.
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One of the most readily available is Reishi Coffee: an easy way to include the benefits of this healthful superfood in your daily routine. By pairing the health benefits of reishi with the drink many people start their day with, you can easily incorporate the habit into your routine. Heres how the benefits of reishi coffee stack up.
Benefits of Reishi Coffee
The benefits of reishi coffee stem from the nutrients and bioactive compounds in Ganoderma lucidum mushrooms. When dried and ground into powder or extract, reishi provides an array of health benefits. Although tens of thousands of species of mushrooms exist, only a select few are considered to be superfoods, known as functional mushrooms. These species offer benefits beyond just their nutritional value.
Immune system support: In addition to being high in vitamins and minerals, which support immune function, superfood mushrooms are also high in beta-glucan polysaccharides. When consumed, these complex sugars support immune modulation, increasing the body’s immune response when challenged by pathogens, but helping to de-regulate overactive responses when needed. The human body does not produce beta-glucan, so eating them regularly, every day, provides the best immune support.
Prebiotic fibers for gut health: Scientists are learning more about the importance of gut health to overall wellbeing, but a healthy gut requires an appropriate balance of beneficial bacteria and pathogenic bacteria. Prebiotic fiber, which is found in functional mushrooms, helps to keep that balance, feeding good bacteria and supporting species diversity. A healthy gut flora supports the immune system, as well as benefits several physiological functions and systems of the body.
Reishi belongs to the subset of functional mushrooms considered adaptogens. These mushrooms, much like their botanical counterparts, support the body’s ability to keep its homeostatic balance while resiliency against the harmful effects of stress. Rather than merely increasing or decreasing a body’s reaction, adaptogens are thought to help a body modulate, or “right-size,” a bodys response system, thus enabling it to properly handle various stimuli.
In addition to Reishi’s benefits as both a functional mushroom and an adaptogen, it offers advantages due to the species unique bioactive compounds.
Stress Relief: Through its adaptogenic properties, reishi is a functional mushroom that helps your body heal from stress and supports stable mood.
Cardiovascular support: Reishi’s antioxidant potential and polysaccharides can exert cardioprotective effects, supporting healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Restful sleep: Through its support of stress relief and the reduction of anxiety, reishi may aid in the promotion of a more restful sleep, without the effects of sedation.
Healthy skin: Reishi contains antioxidants and other compounds that support the body’s inflammatory response, which helps to combat the damage caused by free radicals and supports healthy skin aging.
Accessing the benefits of reishi depends on taking a small, but regular, dose every day. Making it a part of your routine is easier than you would expect, particularly if you are adding it to morning coffee.
Finding The Best Reishi Coffee
If you decided that you need benefits from ganoderma in your life, then you want to find the best product available. One consideration is what is included in your reishi coffee product. A coffee containing a carefully selected combination of fruiting bodies and mycelial biomass will deliver every bioactive compound that is possible in functional mushrooms in every stage of their development.
An extract containing specific desired attributes of the species of mushrooms. As a natural product, ganoderma mushrooms are also subject to safety and purity concerns.
This means that when growing, they decompose and absorb organic material from dead plants and animals. If mushrooms soak up hazardous materials from their growing environment, those toxins can get passed on to the end product. For this reason, mushrooms grown on organic substrates with filtered air and water will produce a safer product, free of environmental toxins such as pesticides and heavy metals.
Another consideration is the purity of the species of mushrooms contained in a coffee product. When grown under expert mycologists, you can rest assured that your coffee contains appropriate species of mushrooms. A company that submits their products to third-party testing is committed to providing you with the best quality.
To include reishi bioactive compounds into your health regimen, adding one portion of reishi powder (Ganoderma) into your daily coffee routine will give you the benefits of many. For immune and gut health support, the encouragement of stress relief and restful sleep, or for cardiovascular support provided by reishi, your source should be your source of convenient, portable ways to incorporate it into a daily routine.
The ganoderma coffee brand we recommended above delivers 100% arabica-bean coffee with all the benefits of a high-quality, functional mushroom blend enhanced with reishi and Ginkgo Biloba extract. You can reap the benefits of reishi in coffee in one of two ways, either by adding a spoonful of single-species powder into morning coffee, or by replacing your morning coffee with a carefully-curated mushroom coffee blend. Whichever way you go, embracing this superfood drink will give you the benefits of this ancient mushroom that has been revered for centuries.
Additional Resources:
Does Reishi Mushroom Lower Blood Pressure?
Updated 1/10/2023
