All About Mushroom Extracts: The Good, The Bad, and The Terrible

Buying a supplement is like stepping into the Wild West. It’s a land of no formal quality regulations where you find the product that looks like it will help you the most. Then you go with your gut and pray you’re right. In a showdown between mushroom supplements, there is one critical thing you need to know. How were the mushrooms prepared? How were they extracted, if at all? And what’s the difference?

You can sort extraction processes into three groups: The Good (heat-based hot water and dual extractions), The Bad (ineffective extractions), and The Terrible (powders claiming to be extracts).

The Good: Hot Water & Dual Extractions

Mushrooms have thick chitinous cell walls. Yes, chitin is the same structure found in crustacean and insect shells. That’s some tough scaffolding! The mushroom stores and protects all its active compounds within these thick walls. 

Simply grinding the mushrooms without performing an extraction produces a plain mushroom powder. While your body can break down the fiber in the powder, your body does not receive the same therapeutic benefits as it would from an extract.

Why? You must apply heat to release the active compounds (e.g., beta-glucans, triterpenoids, ergosterols, enzymes, and vitamins). Even ancient Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Cordyceps tonics used hot water in the preparation.

Modern extractions turn raw mushroom material into a powder or liquid using a concentration process. WholeSun Wellness uses hot water and dual extraction methods. If you’ve ever brewed a cup of tea, you’ve made a hot water extraction. A similar process happens to mushrooms during hot water extraction.

A typical, generic hot water extraction looks like this:

1. Grind the dry raw mushroom material into a coarse powder.
2. Add hot water to the powder. Filter the liquid filtrate from the solids.
3. Concentrate the liquid filtrate into a powder using a vacuum. Spray dry.
4. Sift the dry powder and pack.

WholeSun Wellness’ hot water extraction takes a few extra steps to guarantee the best extract possible:

1. Hand sort the raw mushroom material and remove impurities. Then, grind to a coarse powder.
2. Add hot water to the powder. When ready to filter, run the liquid filtrate through our patented membrane separation technology to separate the solids from the liquid. Membrane separation technology ensures that large molecular substances like beta-glucans and other active compounds are retained and concentrated in the liquid filtrate. 
3. Concentrate the liquid filtrate into a powder using a vacuum. Add the solids that were removed (we don’t waste any part of the mushroom). Spray dry without using dextrin or other excipients and fillers.
4. Sift to a fine powder and pack in a clean workshop.

Several mushrooms need more treatment than a hot water extraction. For example, Chaga and Reishi have super thick cell walls. They require a dual extraction with ethanol to unlock their active compounds completely. During a dual extraction, the concentrated liquid filtrate goes through an additional step with ethanol instead of getting spray dried after the hot water extraction.

Bottom line, the best mushroom extracts use heat!

The Bad: Ineffective Extraction Methods

Not all mushroom “extracts” on the market are effective. For example, fermentation of mushroom fruiting bodies is a favorite among large-scale companies. Fermentation claims to “pre-digest” the mushroom, making the bioactive compounds and vitamins more easily accessible and absorbable.

However, fermentation does not use heat! The mushroom cell walls are not entirely broken down. The therapeutic components are not totally released during the process. Tests performed by our partner, research lab Alita Bioscience, verify that fermented mushrooms do not have significant active compound levels.

But why use fermentation when it creates an inferior product? Like most shortcuts, fermentation is cheaper. It requires less energy, and manufacturers can ferment batches from different growers at the same time.

The Terrible: 1:1 “Extracts” Are Just Powder in Disguise

With the market flooded with unregulated mushroom products, manufacturers can put whatever they want on their labels. Sometimes products will list extraction ratios to make their product seem more concentrated. One ratio making the rounds is 1:1. In our experience, the 1:1 extract ratio signifies that the product is simple mushroom powder without all of the beneficial compounds of an extraction.

Extractions are concentrations or reductions. As a rule, the volume of the final extraction amount is always lower than the volume of the initial raw material. There is no physical way to put 1 kg of raw material through extraction and come out with 1 kg of extract. The only possible way to have a 1:1 ratio is to grind dry mushrooms into a powder.

A 1:1 extraction ratio is just marketing lingo that looks good on a label.

Even possible extraction ratios (6:1 or 10:1, for example) have no guarantee of quality. When companies source from many suppliers and process all of the mushrooms together, they cannot track the genetic strain of mushrooms or their growing methods. As long as the final product meets the ratio, the company doesn’t need to guarantee that its product contains any beneficial active compounds.

WholeSun Wellness avoids mixing mushrooms before extraction by partnering with our growers directly. We can ensure that each batch is grown, harvested, and processed the same way, regardless of country of origin.

We stay close to the source of our mushrooms so we can guarantee that what you see on our label is what you get:

• A guaranteed concentration of 35% of more beta-glucans
• A guaranteed concentration of 15% or more other active compounds
• Certified USDA Organic by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food
• Produced in the U.S.A.
• Free from grains, additives, preservatives, irradiation, or fillers, including dextrin

The Takeaway

When shopping for a mushroom supplement, look for extraction methods that use heat. Look for an emphasis on quality. Look away from products with false promises.