Mushroom Spagyric vs. Mushroom Powder Extract: What's the Difference?

Lately, people are embracing the medicinal properties of functional mushrooms like Lion's Mane, Reishi, and Chaga. If you've been shopping for these fantastic fungi, you've likely seen mushroom powder extracts and spagyric mushroom extracts.

Now you might be wondering, what's the difference, and is one better than the other? Continue reading below as we explore the difference between mushroom powder extracts and mushroom spagyrics.

What's a Spagyric Mushroom Elixir?

First, we need to understand what spagyric means. A spagyric is the complete extract of something to produce an elixir that's balanced, pure, and potent.

The method goes back hundreds of years and was often used for herbal tinctures. Now, the spagyric method is being used on medicinal mushrooms to create powerful tinctures for daily wellbeing.

The method has three unique elements for processing medicinal mushrooms naturally. The first is a hot water bath to break down the chitin and draw the mushroom's water-soluble components.

Then, the mushrooms are placed in alcohol for distillation. This alcohol distillation extracts the essential oils of the mushroom along with alcohol-soluble compounds.

Lastly, the mushrooms' remains are burned to white ash and added to distilled water to free any remaining minerals. Minerals in the ash like Magnesium, Potassium, and Calcium are free to dissolve within the water.

The ash is filtered and then the water is completely evaporated, leaving behind only the minerals. The water, alcohol distillate, and minerals are all combined to create a perfectly balanced extract.

What's a Mushroom Powder Extract?

Likely you've seen mushroom powders in health food stores and online. Typically, the fruiting bodies of functional mushrooms are completely dehydrated and then blended into a fine powder.

Sometimes, but not always, the powders are then put into boiling water. The water-soluble compounds are drawn out, and then the water is completely evaporated, leaving a powder extract.

Mushroom Powder Extract vs. Mushroom Spagyric

Besides the difference in how they're made, what's the difference between mushroom powder extracts and mushroom spagyrics?

For starters, spagyrics are completely pure and contain high amounts of beneficial acids, oils, enzymes, and minerals. No part of the mushroom is wasted when a spagyric is made.

Mushroom powder extracts usually only come from a hot water extraction. That leaves mushroom powder extracts lacking many of the beneficial compounds and minerals.

However, the biggest issue with mushroom powder extracts is that manufacturers often mislead consumers. Sometimes powder extracts aren't extracts at all but just powdered mushrooms.

While that's certainly not a bad thing, many consumers think they're getting an extract. On top of that, many mushroom powders use fillers.

High-quality extracts and powders come from the fruiting bodies of mushrooms. Fruiting bodies are the actual mushroom structure, and they contain most of the beneficial compounds.

However, the mushroom is produced by the mycelium, which is sort of the "root" of the mushroom.

The mycelium isn't harmful, but it doesn't contain many beneficial enzymes, oils, and minerals. That means that one may need to consume a lot of mushroom powder to get any benefit from them.

Furthermore, mushroom powder contains unbroken chitin. Chitin is a natural fiber found in the cell walls of fungal cells, but humans can't digest it.

Although chitin isn't toxic, it can cause an upset stomach and be hard to digest if not broken down. To prevent that, the powder should be boiled or cooked for 10-15 minutes.

Spagyrics don't have this problem because all components of the extract are already in a bioavailable form. That means that the compounds are ready to be used by the body, no processing necessary.

Try a Spagyric Mushroom Extract

If you're going to use a mushroom powder extract, be sure to read the label carefully to make sure you're getting an extract.

However, if you want a convenient, pure, and powerful way to get the benefits of medicinal mushrooms, we recommend using a spagyric.

If you're ready to try one, we recommend Micro Soul's Functional Mushroom Elixir. This excellent spagyric contains the extract of not just one functional mushroom but many—including Lion's Mane, Reishi, Chaga, Shiitake, and Maitake.

By using a spagyric, you'll take advantage of all the benefits that these medicinal mushrooms have to offer—purely and naturally.