What are the Benefits of Mushroom Coffee?
If you want to know what’s trending, all you need to do is hop onto social media. Celebrities, influencers, and friends constantly share their current obsessions, and who can blame them? If a product is truly amazing, we’ll shout its praises from the rooftops!
One product you may have seen on your FYP is mushroom coffee. There’s a lot of hype around mushroom coffee right now, but does it really have more benefits than a regular old cup of joe? Here’s everything you need to know about the benefits of mushroom coffee.
4 Health Benefits of Mushroom Coffee
Drinking mushroom coffee can be a transformative experience. Not only does it taste delicious, but there are also plenty of potential health benefits you may start to see over time. We’ve looked at the research and tried it for ourselves, and we can confidently say that mushroom coffee is the real deal. Here are a few of the benefits you might see once you start drinking it.
1. Supports Digestion
Coffee is known for its ability to support quick digestion. Many people drink too much caffeine, which can cause this ability to go into overdrive (if it’s happened to you, you’ll know what we mean). However, in moderation, this benefit can encourage healthy gastric motility.
Many mushrooms also contain beta-glucans, a type of carbohydrate that functions as prebiotic fiber. This type of fiber helps feed good gut bacteria, which can have benefits for the joints, skin health, immune function, digestion, and more. Lion’s mane mushroom is particularly high in these polysaccharides.
2. Lower Caffeine Content
Let’s be honest — many people don’t guzzle down their favorite lattes because of their delicious flavors. Instead, many people view coffee as simply a conduit for caffeine.
Caffeine is known for its stimulant properties. In moderation, caffeine intake can help people feel awake, energized, and focused. However, if you take too much, you can say “hello” to anxiety, jitters, sweat, caffeine crashes, and heart palpitations. The average eight-ounce cup of coffee contains up to 150 grams of caffeine, which can easily be too much depending on your genetic caffeine tolerance.
You might be surprised to learn that many mushroom coffee brands don’t even include coffee or coffee beans as an ingredient in their blends. Obviously, these mushroom blends are typically caffeine-free.
Here at Everyday Dose, we don’t mess around when it comes to coffee. There’s no faking the coffee taste, and more importantly, there’s no faking the benefits of a moderate dose of caffeine.
That’s why our Mushroom Coffee+ is based on coffee extract as well as medicinal mushroom blends. Each dose contains only 45 milligrams of caffeine, which is far less caffeine than a regular cup of joe.
3. Supports Mental Health
Lion’s mane mushroom is a little-known but very powerful adaptogen. These substances can help support the body’s ability to handle stress in a healthy way. This particular mushroom can also support the nervous system by encouraging the body’s production of nerve growth factor. Reishi mushroom is another common mushroom coffee ingredient that may lower cortisol.
Our Mushroom Coffee+ includes both lion’s mane and L-theanine, an amino acid that can minimize feelings of stress, encourage feelings of relaxation, and support balanced mental health overall.
4. Encourages a Good Night’s Sleep
We can’t speak for other brands of mushroom coffee, but our blends are formulated to help support a good night’s sleep. L-theanine can encourage alpha brain waves, which are associated with sleep, while lion’s mane mushroom can also support healthy sleep.
Some of these benefits may actually be due to lion’s mane’s ability to support a thriving gut microbiome. Among other things, good gut bacteria produce 95 percent of the body’s serotonin, which helps regulate our internal clocks. Of course, simply feeling less stressed and supporting your immune system via prebiotic fiber can also contribute to better sleep.
What’s Wrong With Regular Coffee?
Regular coffee is made with ground coffee beans. Many Americans treasure their morning coffee the way they treasure running water — in fact, about 62 percent of Americans drink at least one cup of coffee every day.
However, as we mentioned before, regular coffee tends to be pretty high in caffeine. That downside can cause unpleasant side effects like jitters, heartburn, trouble sleeping, and anxiety.
Which Mushrooms Is Mushroom Coffee Made Of?
Not all brands of mushroom coffee are not created equal. Each mushroom coffee blend typically uses different mushrooms, supporting ingredients, and formulations. Because of this, it’s hard to say which types of mushrooms you’ll find in your mushroom coffee.
A few of the basic functional mushrooms you could find include the following:
- Lion’s Mane Mushroom: As we mentioned earlier, this edible mushroom can support mental health, brain health, a good night’s sleep, and the gut microbiome.
- Chaga Mushroom: Chaga mushroom is known for its powerful antioxidant properties and its ability to support the immune system.
- Shiitake Mushroom: This mushroom is rich in vitamins and minerals that can support immunity and heart health.
- Reishi Mushroom: This mushroom is known for its ability to support heart health and lower stress levels and is a staple in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
- Cordyceps: Cordyceps can increase athletic performance and lower blood sugar.
- Turkey Tail Mushroom: This mushroom can support the immune system and encourage longevity.
Some mushroom coffee brands include other ingredients as well. For instance, our Mushroom Coffee+ features lion’s mane and chaga mushrooms, as well as L-theanine, collagen protein, and coffee extract.
As with any supplement, it’s important to evaluate the quality of the ingredients used in each brand of mushroom coffee. Some brands use ground mushroom powder while others use mushroom extracts, which are more bioavailable than powders.
Other brands use mushroom mycelium, which is less beneficial than fruiting bodies (which is why we use 100 percent fruiting body extract in our blends). The moral of the story is to make sure you look for brands that value high-quality ingredients so you know you’re getting the real deal.
The Bottom Line
Mushroom coffee might be a trend, but its benefits are tried and true. Unlike other fads that may not have much substance to their health claims, medicinal mushrooms can actually have noticeable benefits for your health — just ask anyone who consistently drinks mushroom coffee!
At Everyday Dose, we know mushroom coffee is the real deal because we’ve seen the benefits for ourselves. Ultimately, you need to see it to believe it. Decide for yourself whether mushroom coffee is worth the hype when you try one of our mushroom blends today.
Sources:
Effects of Coffee on the Gastro-Intestinal Tract: A Narrative Review and Literature Update | PMC
Coffees Serving Size Caffeine (mg) | Center for Science in the Public Interest
NCA releases 2020 National Coffee Data Trends, the "Atlas of American Coffee” | NCAUSA
