It’s Black, Ugly, and Good For You ? / The Greyhounds are “In a Rebuild Year”

I am talking about Chaga, the new superfood of sorts. It is not a mushroom, but a fungus, and is becoming more and more mainstream for its medicinal properties and especially the promising research that it may even hold cancer fighting agents. The great thing is that it is naturally occuring in our ownback yards of Northern Ontario, Quebec etc. 

I am writing this basically via memory as I once sold advertising for one of the Chaga dispensaries in the Sault. I believe there are about 3 of them currently. This topic came about as I was in town yesterday and decided to get some chaga tea as its’ been a long time since my last cup. 

Anyway, Chaga grows on the native Birch trees in our area. It basically starts out as “oozing” to an, extent through the Birch tree bark and thus forms its’ conk kind of irregular shape and texture. Looking high up on the tree it has a darkish color and protrudes off the tree like a tumor or growth. The conk can get pretty big and skilled climbers are known to use a chainsaw to cut off pieces weighing tens of pounds. The rule of thumb is to leave about a third so it can keep growing. 

The benefits of Chaga which most people ingest via drinking it in tea form are many. Some of the best known are that studies show it to contain antioxidants which neutralizes the damage done by free radicals, and thus protects against disease and slows down the aging process. Another very important reason to drink Chaga is because it is also a protector of the immune system, and because it contains betulinic acids, it is a good anti-inflammatory.

As well as being usefull in cancer fighting, it also helps with digestion, treating of ulcers, and Chaga is very well known to help protect the heart by breaking down the LDL (bad cholesterol) in the body. 

I can go on for days regarding the benefits but I will leave that to you if you’re interested. 

The easiest way to make Chaga tea is what I did last night. I took the about 5 Chaga chunks out of the package I bought last night and put them in a slow cooker on low with about 1500 ml of water and let it steep for about 5 hours. The chunks are usually about an inch squared when you buy them commerically. Once the process is done you just poor this black as a void liquid and drink it straight. It has no taste…..or a very very very hard to notice one,. Today I had a half cup of chaga and added a half cup of my black coffee and all I could taste was the coffee. 

The remarkaable thing is that the chunks I used last night can be reused up to three times. You just dry them off and package them and put them in the freezer….A pretty good bang for the puck I must say. Anyway I have included some pics for you below. “