When you are trying to improve your gut health, finding the best mushroom supplement brands can be really helpful for many people. Medicinal mushrooms add a lot of gut-healing compounds that your digestive tract can benefit from.
Another perk of making your gut feel better with mushrooms is that your brain will often feel more calm and you may overall feel at ease too.
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The 5 Best Mushroom Supplement Brands for Gut Health
Here is a list of the best mushroom brands out there for gut health. You can read more details about the brands in the following sections.
Medicinal foods is ranked number one because of its pure form and raised to have the highest concentration of active compounds because the mushrooms are grown in natural type habitats.
Freshcap mushrooms are highly-rated, organic, sustainable, and come in a variety of forms that anyone can use.
Aloha Medicinals is highly ranked because it is effective for gut health, USDA organic and the only certified Kosher brand.
Host Defense is made popular by Paul Stamets, this company gets more positive reviews than all other brands.
Genius Brand is a growing brand that is dedicated to quality and customer service
Medicinal-Foods Mushrooms
Medicinal-Foods brand mushrooms supplements are for true medicinal mushroom fans because they come in powder form. This means that you have to get creative with how you are going to use them. For this reason, I feel they are the best because you can add them to basically any food or beverage that you make. The quality of medicinal foods is unrivaled because they contain almost entirely all fruiting body, which contains the active medicinal compounds from the mushrooms. These mushrooms are also grown under conditions that are as close to nature as possible so that they will contain more active medicinal compounds than other brands.
Featured type of mushrooms from Medicinal Foods
Pros
- Easy to mix into any food or beverage.
- Tastes mild
- High ratings for calming the belly, great for the immune system.
- DNA tested and third-party tested
- Mushroom extract powder is steam extracted for highest potency
- Their brand of cordyceps are highest in cordycepin
Cons:
- Runs out of stock due to popularity and supply
Fresh Cap Mushrooms
Fresh Cap mushrooms are USDA organically grown and tested for quality and purity. The company takes it a step further and is GMP certified as well, meaning they get independent testing for quality. Their medicinal mushroom products contain no grain fillers and are sustainably grown and harvested. Freshcap Thrive 6 is one of their signature products that contains a blend of organic Chaga extract, organic Cordyceps fruiting body extract, organic Lion's Mane fruiting body extract, organic maitake fruiting body extract, organic Turkey Tail mushrooms, and Organic Reishi extract. Many reviews rave about improvements in energy, focus, and gut health with this supplement blend. This brand also carries mushroom supplements in powders, capsules and elixirs.
Featured types of mushrooms from Freshcap mushrooms brand:
Pros:
- Contains the fruiting bodies
- GMP certified
- Certified organic
- No grain fillers
- Sustainably harvested
- Naturally extracted
- 60 day supply that is reasonably priced
Cons:
- Doesn’t list the natural extraction method or test for DNA.
Aloha Medicinals
Aloha Medicinals surpasses many brands for quality and purity. They are one of the few brands that test for DNA content of their mushrooms. Their mushrooms are all USDA organic as well. One of their featured mushroom blends called Immune Assist Critical Care contains Cordyceps sinensis, Agaricus Blazei, Lentinula edodes, Grifola frondosa, Ganoderma lucidum, and Coriolus versicolor, all of which are supportive for a healthy digestive tract and immune system.
Featured type of mushrooms from Aloha Medicinals
Pros:
- USDA organic and highly rated
- Full spectrum with fruiting bodies
- Sustainably grown and harvested
- Blend that is especially helpful for gut immunity.
- Steam extracted for the highest potency
- Certified by Star K as all Kosher
Cons:
- In a capsule, so you can’t mix it in foods or drinks.
Host Defense Mushrooms
Host Defense brand mushrooms supplements are made famous by Paul Stamets who is a mycologist that has studied mushrooms his whole life. Made popular by years of passionate work in the field and the movie Fantastic Fungi, this brand endorsed by Paul gets the highest score for popularity. Their signature Stamets 7 blend contains Royal sun Blazei, Cordyceps, Reishi, Maitake, Lion's Mane, Chaga, and Mesima mushrooms.
Featured type of mushrooms from Host Defense
Pros
- Easy to find on Amazon
- Very high customer ratings
- Reasonable price
- Blend of 7 medicinal mushrooms that support healthy immunity and gut function
- Powder form so it is versatile for its use in cooking and beverages
- 3rd party testing and certified organic
Cons:
- Mycelium only
Genius Brand
This highly-rated brand contains both the fruiting body of the mushrooms and the mycelium of the mushrooms. Genius Brand is a company that is built on quality and customer satisfaction as well. Contains a line of mushroom supplements that range from mushroom powders to energy and muscle building. Their most popular supplement is Genius mushrooms, which contains Lion's Mane mushrooms, Cordyceps mushrooms, and Reishi mushrooms, all of which are shown in research to help support gut health.
Featured type of mushroom supplement from Genius Mushrooms
Pros:
- Highly-rated and reasonably priced
- Contains both fruiting body and mycelium
- Immune system boosting
- Supports gut health
- GMP manufactured
Cons
- Capsule form so it feels more like medicine
- A little more expensive than other brands per serving
Best Mushroom Supplement Brand Criteria
Medicinal mushroom supplements are popular these days, so it’s more challenging than ever to know what to look for in a quality brand. The criteria you should use to choose mushrooms with the health benefits are:
- Organic and non-GMO
- Highly-rated
- GMP facility or third-party tested
- Reputable company
- Contains the fruiting body
- Growing conditions are optimal
Organic and non-GMO
By choosing an organic mushroom supplement, you are ensuring that your body is not getting any added chemicals, pesticides or synthetic fertilizers during the growing process. The whole point of taking a mushroom supplement is to provide your body with health benefits, not to add toxins.
Look for USDA-certified organic brands. These brands will also be non-GMO.
Highly-rated
The consumer is king when it comes to supplements because there are fewer rigorous inspections of supplement factories than there are of pharmaceutical medications. That said, the mushroom supplement brands reviewed in this post all have third-party testing.
For each of the mushroom brands listed above, they have at least 50 ratings over 5 stars.
Related: Freshcaps mushrooms review + medicinal mushrooms research
Reputable company with sustainable harvesting
There are many medicinal mushroom companies out there today. Brands that provide a satisfaction guarantee are a good assurance for a company’s reputation.
Many mushroom companies now also have sustainable harvesting methods too, which means they are grown in a way that adds back to the environment, not
Uses healthy extraction methods
Mushrooms should not be processed with solvents, only steam. Certified organic brands should use only natural extraction methods like steam extraction.
Contains the fruiting body
The fruiting body of fungi is known as the mushroom, which contains most of the active compounds that act as the medicinal part. It’s a good idea to choose a mushroom brand that contains the fruiting body or is full-spectrum.
Full-spectrum contains the fruiting body, mycelium, spores, and primordia (baby mushrooms).
A few good brands are mycelium only, but be sure to check reviews to make sure the products are having the intended purity and quality.
Growing conditions are optimal
By mimicking natural growing conditions or using natural growing methods, mushrooms will have more active compounds.
That is why Medicinal Foods mushrooms stand out for quality the most because they carefully replicate natural growing conditions. Medicinal-Foods mushrooms also contain 95% pure mushroom powder, whereas many brands contain a fair amount of the rice or grain growing medium.
Medicinal Mushroom Health Benefits
Research is becoming strong in regards to the benefits of mushrooms for our health and for the health of the environment.
Medicinal mushroom species range from Chaga to Turkey Tail and Reishi to Cordyceps and Maitake. While they all have distinct compounds that are supportive of a healthy immune system, each kind has unique roles in the body.
Related: 12 Medicinal Mushrooms You Will Want to Try
Polysaccharides and healthy compounds in mushrooms include [R]:
- Hemicellulose
- Mannans
- Beta-glucan
- Glutathione
- Ergothioneine
- Cordycepin
- Polysaccharide-K
- Lentinan
Many mushroom species help digestive function by supporting a healthy microbiome and by boosting immune function.
Chaga mushrooms and Reishi mushrooms have the most research behind their abilities to help with gut health. Reishi, for example, helps to dampen the stress response, which in turn helps improve gut health [R].
By supporting adaptive immunity, many edible mushrooms help support a healthy gut too [R].
The information on this website has not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration or any other medical body and is shared for educational purposes only and is not meant to provide medical advice. Consult your doctor or healthcare provider before making changes to your supplement regimen or lifestyle.
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