Chaga & Frank

Content created for 2020 Telluride Mushroom Festival

Meet Franklin – my lucky charm foraging through mushrooms. Every time I’ve found Chaga this season, he’s been with me and this time he was clearly just as excited as me!

Chaga is a parasitic polypore. Although Innotus obliquus is usually found on birch trees, but can also be found on oaks, poplars, alders, ashes and maples according to the research article linked at the bottom of the post discussing Chaga growing across the northern hemisphere. It’s found in Canada, the northern part of the United States, Kazakhstan, in Siberia, in Ukraine, in Japan, in South Korea, in China and in mostly northern and eastern parts of Europe. 

It’s given its name, obliquus, due to it having oblique pores. Chaga has been used in Siberia throughout history. The Khanty people, an enthnic group from Siberia used it as an anthelmintic, as an antitubercular, to cure digestive disorders (gastritis, ulcers, etc), or even to prevent cardiac or hepatic illnesses. They even used charcoal from burning Chaga as an antiseptic to make body soap. How cool?! Here are a couple of excerpts from the article linked here: 

“This use of the Chaga in Siberian gulags is mentioned in Alexandre Soljénitsyne’s book Le Pavillon des cancéreux (Cancer Ward).12 Soviet health authorities noticed a decrease of the incidence of cancer cases in this population and assumed that the consumption of this infusion was a protective factor against cancer. In 1955, the USSR Ministry of Health recognized the therapeutic interest of I obliquus used as a decoction and wrote it down in the Soviet Pharmacopeia under the name of Befunginum.”

“Inonotus obliquus extracts were found to inhibit hepatitis C virus14 and human immunodeficiency virus15 and demonstrated strong antioxidant and immunostimulatory activities in vitro.16,17 At the same time, animal studies revealed that aqueous extracts of I. obliquus exhibited anti-inflammatory effects in experimental colitis18–21 and promoted lipid metabolism.22 The mushroom has the ability to increase peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors γ transcriptional activities, which are expected to be therapeutic targets for dyslipidemia and type 2 diabetes.23”

If you notice, both of these examples are using different extraction methods. The first uses a decoction. The second the excerpt discusses an extraction ways its been shown to heal medicinal. When you’re a scientific study like the one linked, it’s best to read with an objective lens. For example, the water decoction method used in this study was done using “The Khanty Method,” where, “The asexual form was cut in small pieces from 5 to 10 g then put in boiling water for 15 minutes. We used carded cotton and filter paper Whatman No. 3 for filtration.”

This is not how an herbalist today would advise a decoction: they would likely recommend a multiple-hour, slow, low temp decoction in a crock pot to pull out the most medicinal constituents with a water extraction. 

It’s extremely important to be aware of how mushroom medicine we are foraging from sacred lands was traditionally used by indigenous people. It helps us be more connected to fungal allies and ensures that we spread knowledge about their history when we discuss their healing powers. It’s also really important to be somewhat skeptical when reading information from a new source and form your own opinions and beliefs.