We are constantly bombarded with commercials for new wonder drugs that will allegedly solve a variety of health ailments. But a natural substance that is loaded with antioxidants, supports immune health, reduces inflammation, lowers cholesterol, and may even help fight cancer is free for the harvesting right in our public forests.
This “miracle drug” is chaga, a parasitic fungus that grows on birch trees in the northern hemisphere around the world. In fact, chaga’s medicinal properties have been known for thousands of years but have recently become more mainstream.
Chaga (Inonotus obliquus) is a sclerotium—a hardened mass of fungal mycelium. The outside is black and resembles a mass of burnt charcoal growing on a birch tree. The mass is called a conk and it gets its dark color because of large amounts of melanin located in the hard outer layer. Inside, chaga has a corky, orange-colored appearance.
Don’t mistake chaga for bracket fungi that commonly grow on birches. These usually resemble hamburger buns: rounded on top and concave underneath. Think burnt charcoal.
To harvest chaga, you’ll have to stroll through a birch forest, keeping a close watch for burnt-charcoal masses growing on birches. And when you find one, you have to hope it’s within reach. Chaga conks can take 20 years to reach maturity, therefore, you’ll most likely find them on large trees. When harvesting chaga, choose a conk that is the size of a grapefruit or larger, meaning it has had time to extract nutrients from the host tree. And you’ll want to harvest chaga from a live tree because when the host tree dies, the chaga dies and becomes soft. Chaga is tough, so you’ll need to chop it off with an ax or pry it off with a knife, but don’t dig too deep and be sure to leave at least 30 percent intact on the tree so it can grow back. Please harvest in moderation.
So, what’s so great about chaga? Well, this super food is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. It contains B-complex vitamins, vitamin D, potassium, zinc, iron, calcium and magnesium, along with triterpenoids, polyphenols, beta-glucans and betulinic acid. Chaga has one of the highest ORAC scores (oxygen radical absorbance capacity—a measure of antioxidant potency). In fact, its ORAC score is three times higher than that of acai berries.
Chaga’s health benefits are many. It supports immune health, reduces inflammation, helps your body cope with stress, supports heart health, lowers blood sugar, reduces cholesterol, supports digestion, stimulates the immune system, protects the liver, supports digestion, and supports skin health. Plus, it contains phytosterols and polysaccharides that form white blood cells that fight cancer and help stop the formation of tumors. It almost sounds too good to be true.
To extract the nutrients from chaga, you have to boil it into a tea or make a tincture. First, however, you’ll need to process it. Begin by scraping off any pieces of birch bark. If you’re going to use it immediately, you can process it further, but if not, let it dry for a few weeks in a cool, dry place. You can speed up the drying process by placing chaga chunks in a food dehydrator. Baking chaga in an oven will diminish some of its nutrient value. Once the chaga is dry, cut it with a knife or chop it with a hatchet into smaller pieces. Next, put it in a blender or a meat grinder and grind it into a fine powder.
When you’re ready to make tea, steep the chaga for at least 10 to 15 minutes. Boiling makes the nutrients available for digestion. Once the chaga has boiled, pour the tea through a coffee filter to remove the grounds. Or, scoop up some powdered chaga in a tea ball, dump it into a coffee filter, twist it shut and put it back in the tea ball to steep. The chaga tea should have a dark color, similar to coffee. You can re-use the same chaga perhaps two or three times to create tea, but discard it when it no longer produces a dark-colored tea. Chaga has a mild, earthy or fruity taste, but it’s somewhat bitter. To sweeten the drink, add syrup, honey or milk.
Chaga has so many positive health benefits it boggles the mind. Be sure to look for it on your next hike.
