Mushroom Tinctures VS. Powdered Extracts: Which are Better? | Lions Mane Mushroom VS. Extract Powder

Mushroom Tinctures VS. Powdered Extracts: Which are Better? | Lions Mane Mushroom VS. Extract Powder

Mushroom Tinctures vs. Powdered Extracts: Which are Better? 

What are Tinctures?

  • Tinctures are similar to teas except that instead of soaking something in hot water to release its flavor and other constituents, the thing is soaked in alcohol (or sometimes vinegar). 
  • The method works well in herbal medicine, because many (not all) medicinal substances in plants are soluble in alcohol, and alcohol can break down cellulose, freeing whatever is held inside the plant cells. 
  • Tinctures are much more concentrated than teas, making them a convenient way to take herbs—especially herbs that don’t taste very good as a tea.
  • Unfortunately, alcohol does not break down chitin, so technically “mushroom tincture” is a bit of an oxymoron; tinctures are extracts, but the process of tincturing won’t extract anything from fungal tissues.
  • Products sold as mushroom tinctures are either the result of attempting to tincture mushrooms (i.e., mostly mushroom-flavored alcohol), or they are some other kind of mushroom product diluted in alcohol. 
  • In either case, the product has little to no bioavailable medicinal substance. While it is possible to make a bioavailable liquid mushroom extract (powdered extracts always go through a liquid stage in production), such a product would be much more dilute than a powdered extract.  
  • In fact, most liquid mushroom products on the market are not bioavailable.

Mushroom Tinctures VS. Powdered Extracts: Which are Better?
Mushroom Tinctures

What Are Powdered Extracts?

  • Powdered mushroom extracts are, ideally, the result of a multi-step process that breaks down the chitin. 
  • These are distinct from powders that are simply dehydrated and pulverized raw mushroom tissue—those are not bioavailable. 
  • The form of the product, powder or liquid, is not important. What is important is bioavailability. However, bioavailable extracts are generally powders (often packed into pills).
  • Powdered extract production begins with making a hot water extract (a tea) in a pressurized container. 
  • The heat melts the chitin. The pressure prevents some otherwise volatile medicinal substances from evaporating in the heat. 
  • Sometimes a second extraction process using alcohol follows the first—once the chitin has been melted, the alcohol picks up substances that are not water-soluble and would otherwise be left behind. Then, the liquid is concentrated and finally dried into a powder.

Mushroom Tinctures VS. Powdered Extracts: Which are Better?
Powdered Extracts
Why Are Powdered Mushroom Extracts Better than Tinctures?

  • Powdered mushroom extracts are bioavailable and concentrated. Tinctures are usually neither and never both.
  • Again, the issue is not that the product is in a powder; raw, whole mushroom can also be sold dried and powdered, but in most cases is nearly useless from a health perspective. 
  • Most people cannot digest raw mushroom because of the issue with chitin, and most mushroom species are not concentrated foods—even if properly cooked, serving sizes have to be very large for most mushrooms to deliver significant nutritional value, let alone medicinal value. 
  • The medicinally important substances are usually present only in small quantities. 
  • There is a reason why virtually all studies showing the medicinal effectiveness of mushrooms have used concentrated extracts, not whole mushroom.
  • Unfortunately, no supplement is going to be labeled “not bioavailable,” or anything else similarly useful. 
  • In fact, vague terms, such as “high bioavailability,” or “full-spectrum,” or “high quality” are perfectly legal to put on any sort of product. 
  • Identifying which products are the real deal can be challenging—the key is to look for detailed ingredient lists that include breakdowns of the specific medicinal substances involved. 
  • Purveyors of low-quality products either can’t provide such information (their production process may be such that their product is inconsistent) or do not want to provide it because it would make them look bad.
  • It’s important to recognize that fungi are not plants and that the “rules” for recognizing strength and quality for herbal products may not apply to mushrooms. 
  • Herbal tinctures are fine, mushroom tinctures are not. 
  • Measures of quality familiar from herbal medicine also sometimes appear on mushroom-based products, despite being irrelevant, as a means to distract from poor quality. 
  • It is perfectly legal to put irrelevant information on the packaging; it’s up to the customer to avoid being misled.
  • On a related subject, not all powdered mushroom extracts are quality, in part because not all fungi are alike. 
  • While it is common enough to use “mushroom” as a synonym for “fungus” in most contexts (and the word has been used that way for much of this article), technically the word “mushroom” refers only to the fruiting body and not to the mycelial network that gives rise to the fruiting body. 
  • In some species, the entire fungus—the mycelium and its fruiting bodies—contain medicinal substances, but in others only the fruiting body does.
  • In others, only the mycelium contains those substances. 
  • Some products are made from the wrong part of the fungus, or they may include both mushroom and mycelium even if the species in question doesn’t invest both with medicine. 
  • The key here is to understand what one is buying and not to be taken in by advertising.
  • So quality medicinal mushroom products are almost always extracted powders, but that does not mean all powders, or even all extract powders, are quality. The key is to become an educated buyer and to read labels carefully.

Mushroom Tinctures VS. Powdered Extracts
Mushroom Tinctures VS. Powdered Extracts

So which Mushroom Supplement is Best?

  • This is a bit of a loaded question. However; either a dual extract or hot water-extracted mushroom supplement is almost always the best.
  •  A tincture, tea, or a mycelium-based supplement is never best. You almost always want a hot water-extracted mushroom supplement that states Beta-D-Glucans on the label. 

Where to find it?

You can find this type of mushroom at some grocery stores, health food stores, or Asian grocery stores. You can also find it at farmer’s markets.

Mushroom consultants in India.

Biobritte is a top mushroom supplier company.

You can buy all types of mushroom products from the Biobritte cart.

Top mushroom company.


Contact on a phone or WhatsApp 9923806933 or 7709709816

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