Foraged local mushrooms have medicinal benefits

MEREDITH — It’s cold season and time to start thinking about winter wellness and keeping healthy. Herbs are an excellent way to do that. In tea, syrup, encapsulations or extracts, herbal medicine offers up nutrition, immune support, stress relief and any other imbalance that may make people more susceptible to colds and flus.

Medicinal mushrooms are a favorite remedy for Sara Woods Kender, a clinical herbalist with over 15 years experience with herbal medicine. She said all mushrooms are excellent sources of nutrition and immune support, and some even offer stress relief.

Some New England fall mushrooms are Hen-of-the-Woods (Grifola frondosa), and the Late Fall Oyster (Sarcomyxa serotina, syn. Panellus serotinus — formerly in the Pleurotus genus). Hen is a forager's favorite and is typically easy to spot growing on the ground near oak trees. Its gray-to-brown color and cauliflower-like shape is an easy one for beginner foragers. Late Fall Oyster is olive to dark green on its cap, a half moon shape and has light yellowish to orange gills. It grows on hardwoods and likes to bloom when it's cold, October through December.

Kender loves to cook with these mushrooms as they make a great side dish or addition to soups and stews; she also uses them as the main dish since mushrooms are chock-full of protein. Mushrooms are particularly good at stimulating the immune system, increasing white blood cell counts and killing off pathogens.

Other mushrooms that are not so edible but are medicinal due to their hard and/or rubbery consistency, are Reishi (Ganaderma Tsuga, almost all gone by now), Artist Conk (Ganaderma applenatum, still harvesting), Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor, still harvesting until the frost). Kender uses these mushrooms in immunity blends and other medicinal blends for people. The affect on the body varies with each mushroom. Reishi and Artists Conk are for lungs/stress and Turkey Tail is for neuropathies.

Kender said herbal medicine has extraordinary health benefits, and especially so when taken daily. She loves to formulate custom blends in her shop, Sacred Tree Herbals, and is excited to offer an open house event on Nov. 4 for returning customers and clients and anyone new to the shop.

Drinking tea daily is a ritual in some countries, and has become one in her life as well. Custom formulated blends using herbs picked just for you is a great way to start off this cold season. 

Kender is a Reiki master and intuitive. Her shop is at 169 Daniel Webster Hwy, Unit 1, and she's online at sarasherbs.com.