Mushroom Testing & Analytical Documents

The four at a glance

Every capsule in the range contains 400 mg of extract preparation. Beyond that the four are quite different materials, produced in different ways, and the documents show it.

Reishi and Chaga each combine two differently prepared fractions. Reishi contains 50% 1:1 steam-treated extract powder and 50% 15:1 dual extract. Chaga contains 50% 1:1 extract powder and 50% 8:1 dual extract. We show the underlying formulation because it tells you more than reducing the preparation to a single headline ratio.

All by ICP-MS, described on the documents as sitting within a flexible scope of accreditation. Every result is a measured figure rather than a pass mark, which is what we'd want to see.

Read the method column before comparing anything in this table. More than one analytical approach is in use, and a figure produced by one method can't be ranked against a figure produced by another. There's more on this below.

† This row is currently under query. The certificate records this determination as glucans by phenol-sulfuric acid spectrophotometry, and that's what we've transcribed. Our supplier has since told us the figure is beta-glucans measured by the Megazyme method. We're showing what the certificate says rather than what we've been told, and we'll update this table if the documentation is revised.

Five things worth pointing out

Publishing documents is only useful if you also say what's in them. These are the things a careful reader would spot, so we'd rather raise them first.

1. Our Reishi label says Ganoderma lucidum. The identity analysis says Ganoderma lingzhi.

Page one of the Reishi document gives the botanical name as Ganoderma lucidum. Page two, where the NMR identity work sits, reports the analysis as Ganoderma lingzhi for both extract fractions.

This is the exact situation we described in our Reishi article before we published these documents. The name G. lucidum was applied broadly for decades to shiny Reishi-like fungi, and modern molecular work separates out several species, G. lingzhi among them. Research on commercial Reishi products has found that most material labelled G. lucidum is actually G. lingzhi.

So this isn't a surprise, and it doesn't necessarily indicate substitution. What it shows is that a product specification and an analytical identity report can use different taxonomic naming conventions for material sold historically as Reishi. We use Ganoderma lucidum on our label because that's the name used on the current product specification. We'd rather show you the G. lingzhi result than quietly leave the identity page out.

2. The glucan and polysaccharide figures aren't comparable across the four

Lion's Mane and Reishi were assayed with the Megazyme K-YBGL kit, which measures total glucans and alpha-glucans separately and calculates beta-glucans from the difference. That's the established approach for mushroom materials.

The Cordyceps figure is a total polysaccharide result by phenol-sulfuric acid spectrophotometry, which is a broader carbohydrate measurement. No glucan figure is reported for that material at all.

The Chaga certificate records glucans by phenol-sulfuric acid, and our supplier has since told us the figure is in fact beta-glucans by the Megazyme method. We're not going to resolve that by choosing whichever version reads better, so the table shows the certificate and flags the query.

Either way the wider point stands. Chaga's 8.72% and Lion's Mane's 27.06% aren't a ranking, because a number is only meaningful alongside the method that produced it and the fraction it refers to. Lining figures up as though one beats the other is exactly the mistake we warn about elsewhere.

3. The Cordyceps polysaccharide figure needs reading carefully

The Cordyceps extract preparation is described on the document as extract plus up to 20% water-soluble non-GMO maize starch, used as a processing carrier. The same document reports polysaccharides at 28.83% by phenol-sulfuric acid.

Maize starch is itself a polysaccharide. A broad carbohydrate method doesn't distinguish fungal polysaccharides from starch, so that 28.83% shouldn't be read as 28.83% fungal polysaccharide. We don't know from this document how the two contribute, and we're not going to guess. It's a good illustration of why we keep saying that the method behind a number matters more than the number.

4. Lion's Mane is fruiting body grown on a substrate that includes grain

The Lion's Mane document lists the culture medium as a blend of sawdust, organic wheat bran, organic rice and gypsum, and separately confirms the fungal part as fruiting body.

Those two facts sit together comfortably. Lion's Mane fruiting bodies are commonly grown on supplemented sawdust blocks, and the substrate is what the mushroom grows on, not what ends up in the extract. This is different from myceliated grain, where the fungus is grown through a cereal substrate and the whole thing is milled together. The same document declares gluten-containing cereals as not present in the finished material, and that's a supplier declaration rather than a test result we hold. The point below about allergen documentation applies here too.

5. The Cordyceps culture medium contains soybean flour

The Cordyceps specification states that soybean flour is used as part of the liquid fermentation medium. The supplier document also records soy as not present in the finished material.

Soy is one of the fourteen allergens that must be declared in the UK, so we'd rather set out the position plainly than leave it in a table. That declaration is our supplier's, and we're not describing the product as soy-free or allergen-free on the strength of it. If you have a soy allergy, contact us before ordering and we'll tell you exactly what documentation we hold.

The same applies to the allergen declarations on the other three documents. They're supplier declarations, and we describe them that way rather than presenting them as tests we've commissioned.

What comes next

Everything on this page is supplier-issued. That's a real limitation and we're not going to dress it up as something else.

Supplier documentation of this quality is still useful. It names methods, it gives measured results rather than pass marks, it identifies the fungal part, and it includes compound profiling that goes considerably beyond a basic headline specification. But it was produced by the company that sells us the material, and no amount of detail changes that.

Our next step is independent finished-product testing commissioned by One Life Foods, on the capsules as they ship rather than on the extract before encapsulation. That's the layer these documents can't provide. When we have those results we'll publish them here alongside the supplier documents, and we'll say plainly where the two agree and where they don't.

We'll keep this page current as documentation changes, rather than leaving it as a snapshot of one moment.