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Hen of the Woods - Maitake

Grifola frondosa

theforagerpress.com/fieldguide/octfd.htm

 

Great foraging day! The Maitake is a great medicinal mushroom with an agreeable taste. Studies are beginning to show that it has immune-enhancing and cancer-preventing properties. I use it in complex dishes and it passes everyone's taste buds.

 

Maitake Mushroom (Grifola frondosa) may best be known for its cancer-fighting properties. It contains grifolan, an important beta-glucan polysaccharide (molecule composed of many sugar molecules linked together).

 

Grifolan has been shown to activate macrophages, a type of cell consider the " heavy artillery": of the immune system, explains Larry A. Walker, Ph.D., R.D., author of "Natural products update," published in Drug Topics, June 1997. D-fraction, one of the polysaccharides in maitake mushroom, also energized the cellular immune system.

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Uploaded on May 5, 2008
Taken on June 11, 2008