Net Weight: 60 g (2.11 oz) | 60 scoops
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Beneficial for any pet food diet – raw, canned, or dry food to provide extra support your pet may need.
Far from belonging only to salads and on top of steaks, mushrooms offer a uniquely rich array of compounds that provide an amazing list of potential benefits for your pet’s immune and overall health. Containing several thousand enzymes, nutrients and proteins, mushrooms hold important value for cats’ and dogs’ health.
Mushrooms offer unique potential benefits for your pets’ immune, digestive, joint and respiratory health, as well as for their cell growth and detoxification processes.
This proprietary blend of 8 mushrooms provides extra support your pet may need.
Net Weight: 60 g (2.11 oz) | 60 scoops
Beneficial for any pet food diet – raw, canned, or dry food to provide extra support your pet may need.
Far from belonging only to salads and on top of steaks, mushrooms offer a uniquely rich array of compounds that provide an amazing list of potential benefits for your pet’s immune and overall health. Containing several thousand enzymes, nutrients and proteins, mushrooms hold important value for cats’ and dogs’ health.
Mushrooms offer unique potential benefits for your pets’ immune, digestive, joint and respiratory health, as well as for their cell growth and detoxification processes.
This proprietary blend of 8 mushrooms provides extra support your pet may need.
Administer Fermented Mushroom Blend orally, once per day.
Cats (2+ lbs) = 0.5 g (½ scoop)
Toy Breed Dogs (up to 14 lbs) = 0.5 g (½ scoop)
Small Breed Dogs (15 to 29 lbs) = 0.75 g (¾ scoop)
Medium Breed Dogs (30 to 49 lbs) = 1 g (1 scoop)
Large Breed Dogs (50 to 79 lbs) = 2 g (2 scoops)
Giant Breed Dogs (80+ lbs) = 2.5 g (2½ scoops)
This proprietary blend consists of 8 mushroom mycelium.
Organic Shiitake (Lentinula edodes)
Contains abundant L-ergothioneine and the immune system-supporting polysaccharide lentinan.
Organic Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum)
Known as a "three treasure" herb, it's thought by the Chinese to harmonise jung (life force), qi (energy), and shen (spirit).
Organic Maitake (Grifola frondosa)
The fruit bodies and mycelia of the Maitake contain high concentrations of immune-supporting beta-glucans.
Organic Lion's Mane (Hericium erinaceus)
Resembling a cheerleader's pom-pom more than a mushroom, this whitish mushroom helps lift their mood, enhance their cognitive health, and support their gut.
Organic King Trumpet (Pleurotus eryngii)
A robust culinary mushroom with significant levels of l-ergothioneine, selenium, and beta-glucans. In animal studies, it helped maintain healthy cholesterol levels that were already within the normal range.
Organic Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor)
Known for its rich supply of a particular type of polysaccharide – PSK – that may promote immune, digestive, urinary and respiratory health and normal cellular growth.
Organic Himematsutake (Agaricus blazei)
Related to the common button mushroom, the Agaricus is noted for its high content of immune-supporting polysaccharides and other important cellular growth-supporting compounds.
Organic Cordyceps (Cordyceps militaris)
Chinese herbalists believe that Cordyceps replenishes both Yin and Yang Jing and acts as a restorative tonic for extreme exertion, stress, or normal ageing. Also known for its ability to support energy, performance, circulation, respiratory health, and healthy cholesterol levels already in the normal range.
100% organic,
biologically active, whole food
mushroom and mycelium.
Support for a vibrant,
balanced immune system
and overall pet health.
Encourage your pet’s immune and overall health with the unique power of Bark & Whiskers™ Organic Fermented Mushroom Blend.
Yes! Mushrooms are excellent sources of antioxidants in general, such as polyphenols and selenium, but they also contain antioxidants unique to mushrooms and mycelium.
One such antioxidant is L-ergothioneine, which experts now describe as a "master antioxidant" because it is transported to cells throughout the body to fight damage from oxidative stress and free radicals.
Ergothioneine is a sulfur-containing amino acid that is synthesised only by mushrooms and by fungi and mycobacteria in the soil.
Plants can absorb ergothioneine through their roots, and grazing animals can consume ergothioneine-containing plants. But the mushrooms, fungi or mycobacteria must be present to make it in the first place.
Your pet's body can't make its own ergothioneine, so cats and dogs depend upon food sources, like plants and meat.
Modern farming practices, with their heavy use of chemical fertilisers, herbicides and fungicides, have dramatically reduced the healthy fungal communities in our soils, thus reducing the total amount of ergothioneine in our food supply.
Until recently, wheat germ was considered the best source of ergothioneine. But researchers from a major university, using a new, more sensitive testing approach they developed for fungi, have found that mushrooms are actually a much more potent source.
Researchers are currently not aware of any other food source that contains as much ergothioneine as mushrooms.
Remarkable in many ways, ergothioneine is a unique antioxidant that can:
Here's what else is unique about ergothioneine… It exists for a long time in the body – about 30 days as opposed to 30 minutes or less for most other antioxidants.
This great product - Organic Fermented Mushroom Blend for Cats and Dogs is provided via our exclusive partner, Bark & Whiskers, where Dr Karen Becker, one of the most followed wellness and integrative veterinarians in the world, shares the most up-to-date information on species-appropriate nutrition and care.
Just like Furchild, she believes that the food and lifestyle choices you make for your pets form the foundation of their health and longevity.
Moreover, Dr Becker is also the first veterinarian to give a TEDx Talk on species-appropriate nutrition.
She enjoys empowering pet parents and helping them become knowledgeable advocates for their pets’ well-being. Instead of simply addressing the symptoms, Dr Becker promotes the use of functional medicine, which involves making dietary and lifestyle choices to help pets thrive and prevent illness.
And in 2021, she also co-authored with pet influencer, Rodney Habib, to publish their book - The Forever Dog, which became the first-ever No.1 New York Times best-selling book about intentionally creating canine well-being.
First, to fully appreciate the benefits that mushrooms might offer your pet, let's define how mushrooms differ from other fungi...
Mushrooms are part of a special group of fungi that form a fleshy, above-ground reproductive structure called the "mushroom fruit body" – that’s the part we love to eat.
In contrast, fungi that are not mushrooms do not form fleshy fruit bodies.
However, the "mushroom fruit body," or the part that you can see – the stem and cap – is less than 10% of a mushroom's total biomass.
The mycelium is the part of the mushroom you don't typically see or eat. It lies beneath the surface of the soil and…
It's the part that may hold the most important nutritional benefits of mushrooms.
Mycelium is a vast network of living cells covering much of the earth's surface. The largest biological entities on the planet, these "fungal mats" can live for decades and even centuries.
In fact, one of these gigantic mycelium "mats" currently covers over 2200 acres in a forest in Oregon.
Mycelium is essential to a healthy forest's ecosystem – it's what nourishes and replenishes the soil.
And the job isn't always easy... Mycelium cells are constantly battling against hostile environments. To aid their survival, mushrooms have developed highly efficient and proactive immune systems.
Many scientists believe that these protective capabilities that have evolved over the years – the mycelia's highly adept immune system – along with its ability to break down natural organic matter, are exactly what make mushrooms so valuable to mammals.
When you’re looking for an ideal supplement for your pet, it’s important to know that quality varies widely.
Here are five questions to ask about any mushroom product you’re considering for your cat or dog:
Some of the potential answers to these questions might surprise you...
1. Fruit Body or Mycelium – Which Is Preferable?
Mushroom expert Steve Farrar of M2 has over 30 years of experience growing mushrooms. He recommends choosing products that contain more of the mycelium. His reasons?
2. Whole Food vs. Mushroom Extract Isolates: What's the Difference?
There are two primary types of mushroom supplements:
This is the type you commonly find on store shelves and online. Many are "hot water extracts," which means the mycelia or fruit body is boiled for extended periods to extract and concentrate the beta-glucans, but you typically lose the enzymes, protein, fibre and most of the antioxidants.
With whole-food mushrooms, you get the benefits of enzymes, antioxidants, fibre, protein, co-enzymes and other important co-factors responsible for the nutrients' actions. The whole food form offers your pet diverse support for various systems instead of just beta-glucans.
Just as eating a fresh vegetable with its fibre and natural nutrients intact is the preferred way to get those nutrients, the same is true with mushrooms.
When you extract certain bioactive compounds from mushrooms, such as beta-glucans and polysaccharides, you leave behind the enzymes, coenzymes and chelated mineral activators. These valuable compounds support the mushrooms' bioactivity and the way in which your pet's body may receive benefits from the compound. The extraction process can also damage many of the bioactive enzymes and proteins.
And here's something else to consider... Highly concentrated mushroom extracts can potentially bring unintended consequences. As powerful as they have the potential to be, an overload of certain compounds in isolated extracts may shut down the important feedback your pet's body depends upon.
3. The Mycelium's Substrate – Why Bark & Whiskers’ Supplier Chose Oats Over Rice
Mushrooms in the wild are typically found growing in places such as on dead trees or on forest floors covered by decaying leaves.
When mushrooms are grown on a commercial scale, the producer has to choose a substrate to recreate that environment.
One popular commercial substrate is hulled brown rice. However, Bark & Whiskers’ supplier believes oats make a better-growing substrate than rice.
There are several reasons:
Unlike many other mushroom products, the mycelium for Bark & Whiskers™ Organic Fermented Mushroom Blend is cultivated using 100% organic Whole Oats, complete with the outer hull intact.
4. How M2's Proprietary Solid-State Fermentation Method Raises the Bar on Quality
M2 has developed a proprietary Solid State Fermentation (SSF) method to produce their mushrooms.
In the SSF process, the insoluble substrate – in this case, organic whole oats – is fermented with just the right amount of moisture. It results in higher quality production and yields while degrading the starch and enhancing the resulting nutrients.
As part of this process, the oats are cooked to hydrate them to 55% moisture and to help remove competing fungi, viruses, yeast and bacteria.
This substrate is now ready for the mycelium starter to be added.
At this point – and right before the biomass enters the erupting fruit body stage – the bags are opened and the biomass is slowly dehydrated to reduce the moisture content. The use of a controlled, low 118 degrees preserves live enzymes, protein structure and the many bioactivities of each mushroom species.
Grown in bags over the next 30 to 80 days, the mycelium gradually digests the oats until the grains vanish, leaving behind a solid white mass – the mycelium biomass. Due to this length of time, almost all the oats are digested, unlike mushroom spawn, which is harvested after about seven days.
Once the mushroom biomass reaches 5% moisture, it is milled into a fine powder and is ready for use.
For a more comprehensive beneficial effect from a mushroom supplement, look for a product using "Solid-State Fermentation." SSF uses a whole-food approach that yields a product containing more or most of the original compounds and co-factors.
5. 100% Grown and Processed in the U.S.
With mushrooms, the growing environment matters, just as it does with other plants. Their intense ability to concentrate both minerals and metals in their tissues makes polluted environments a real threat to their purity… and to the animals consuming them.
When grown in a polluted environment, mushrooms can concentrate heavy metals, which can be toxic, depending on the levels.
Recently, Asian (and Chinese, in particular) mushroom products have been found to contain unhealthy levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic and chromium, most likely from widespread water, soil and air pollution.
Although M2 mycologists select strains of mushrooms from around the globe and carry home tissue cultures of these extraordinary species, they propagate and produce all of their own mushroom mycelia in their lab in San Marcos, California.
All critical points of quality control stay totally in their hands.
Further, they routinely test for toxic heavy metals in the tissue samples, the organic oat substrate and the finished mushroom ingredients, to ensure that there are no unhealthy levels of heavy metals.
Two biologically active compounds in the mushroom fruit bodies and mycelia top the list… beta-glucans and proteoglycans.
Beta-glucans are chains of polysaccharides, and proteoglycans are special proteins, often found in connective tissue. What makes mushroom-derived beta-glucans so unique in supporting health is their ability to support optimal immune function without overstimulating the immune system.
The beta-glucans found in mushrooms are large and complex long-chain molecules. What sets certain beta-glucans apart are their unique side-branching patterns. Side-branching is one of the features that gives beta-glucans its immune-modulating ability.
Other bioactive compounds in mushrooms may also provide immune support for your pet.
While beta-glucans have been the most studied component of mushrooms and their mycelium, these amazing fungi also contain other bioactive compounds and proteins, including:
These beneficial substances help your pets by aiding their digestion, supporting cellular health and fighting free radicals in their bodies.
Did you know your pets' GI tracts are their largest immune barrier?
When their gut lining is healthy, it provides a barrier through which only the nutrients from digestion can pass, while keeping out pathogens and undigested particles.
So, when you take measures to fully support your pets' immune system, it's important to pay attention to their digestion and gut health too.
Mushrooms and their mycelium’s complex matrix of nutrients, dietary fibre, and fungal enzymes have been shown to support healthy digestion and gastrointestinal tract function.
The important enzymes produced by mushrooms include:
These digestive enzymes – that are part of the mushroom itself – are even capable of surviving the stomach's harsh, acidic conditions.