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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

NATURAL PHARMACY

Heal thyself, from nature

Fungus known as "chaga" is one of nature's most healthful substances

Marshall Helmberger
Posted 3/4/15

friend from Ely was in the office recently. He’s been into folk remedies and medicinal plants for a while, so it didn’t surprise me when he got on the topic of a fungus known commonly as …

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NATURAL PHARMACY

Heal thyself, from nature

Fungus known as "chaga" is one of nature's most healthful substances

Posted

A friend from Ely was in the office recently. He’s been into folk remedies and medicinal plants for a while, so it didn’t surprise me when he got on the topic of a fungus known commonly as “chaga,” which grows in our region and is supposed to have a number of significant health benefits.

I was surprised that I hadn’t heard of it before, or at least if I had it didn’t click at the time. But he was excited about it, and so after he left I went online to find out more.

And, wow, did I find out more. It turns out chaga really is an amazing fungus, with health benefits that have been widely-known in Siberia, northern China, and northern parts of Eastern Europe for millennia. It contains a wide variety of beneficial compounds, including potent anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatories, as well as chemicals that in recent scientific studies have been shown to kill cancer cells in mice as well as humans. I read some of the actual studies online. It appears to be the real deal.

Indeed, certain preparations of chaga have been used for years in Russian hospitals as a cancer chemotherapy. Unlike most of the cancer chemotherapies used in the U.S., however, the chaga-derived compounds have virtually no toxic side effects.

Ten years ago, virtually no one in North America had heard of chaga, which means most of the medical studies come from Eastern Europe. But word has spread quickly in the past decade, and in some parts of North America, there’s now significant competition among chaga hunters.

Anyone who has spent time in the woods up here has seen chaga before, probably without knowing it. It’s that blackish growth that looks like burnt charcoal that grows on the sides of birch trees. It’s found almost exclusively in very cold parts of the world, which is why its use over the years was largely limited to those who lived in far northern forests. It looks like a woody tumor, but it’s actually a fungus and you can knock the “conks” off pretty easily with a hatchet. Inside, the fungus appears an orangish-brown and is a bit softer than the blackish exterior.

The chaga can grow on a birch tree for years— in fact, chaga hunters prefer the very large, old growths that can take 20 years to develop. These fungi are believed to have the highest concentrations of the beneficial compounds.

I’m not going to go into great detail about how to prepare the chaga, once you’ve harvested it. If you’re interested, you could read descriptions or watch YouTube videos on the subject for days. Typically, people use chaga to make tea, which is quick and easy, or they can make a tincture using both hot water and alcohol. My friend from Ely gave us a bottle of the tincture, which I’ve been using twice a day, a couple drops at a time. The tincture is supposed to release the anti-cancer compounds, while the tea alone doesn’t make those chemicals available for humans. The tea, however, does unlock many of the other benefits of chaga, and it doesn’t taste bad at all. The past several days, I’ve mixed a regular black tea with two-thirds chaga tea and I can’t really tell the difference.

Do I feel any different? I know that my lower back pain has been almost non-existent in recent days, and that doesn’t happen very often. In a month, I’ll probably have more to say on it.

If nothing else, the hunt for chaga is another good excuse for a tramp in the woods—and now is the time. Most chaga hunters don’t collect the fungus when the birch sap is running and once the leaves are out, it can be tougher to spot the chaga conks. In other words, we may only have a few more weeks before the chaga hunting season ends.

I spent about an hour in the woods by my house this past weekend, and easily filled a small backpack with the stuff, which should keep me well stocked for weeks, maybe months.

One thing to mention, if you harvest chaga—only harvest it from live trees, and take care not to harm the tree. You don’t need to dig it out, just knock off the conks and leave some of orangish mycelium behind. That way, it will continue to grow and you can harvest it again in a few years.

For me, it’s fun to think that we have incredibly healthful things growing right in the surrounding woods.

While chaga is gaining more attention from some in the medical profession, it’s a safe bet that the last thing the pharmaceutical companies want is a natural product that anyone can harvest in the woods that could render their massively expensive anti-cancer drugs obsolete. More research in this area is ongoing, so we’ll have stay tuned to see what develops. In the meantime, I’m curious to see if chaga can keep my lower back pain away. I’ll let you know…