ABM Quality Standards: Ultra Gold, Gold, and Silver Extracts
Over 50,000 mushrooms species are divided into four main groups: edible, hallucinogenic, poisonous, and a small group of medicinal mushrooms that have been in use for thousands of years due to its medicinal properties.
Each mushroom species has its unique nutritional composition and health benefits. The Agaricus blazei Murrill medicinal mushroom, with its 192 nutrients and unique polysaccharide composition, one of the most studied and nutritionally dense medicinal mushrooms .
What is the grading system of Agaricus blazei Murrill Medicinal Mushrooms?
Ultra Gold
The level of polysaccharides is measured and can clearly show the scale used to grade these mushrooms, whether a specimen is ranked Gold, Extra, or Ultra Gold, or whether they land further down in quality. Ultra Gold grade is rated as top of the line, the highest grade available.
Gold
When tested, Brazilian ABM mushrooms consistently rank among the highest potency on the scale due to their purity and nutritionally dense composition. Gold is rated medium grade.
Silver
Mushrooms (even if they’re Agaricus Blazei Murrill) grown in China, Japan, or the US. are often rated silver or lower (lower on the scale indicates reduced polysaccharide content).
It takes an average of 3 months to cultivate mushrooms but only if the conditions are right. If the humidity, temperature, and soil are not ideal, mushrooms will not grow. It’s that simple!
Beyond the Traditional Scale
The Gold / Ultra Gold / Silver system is based on polysaccharide levels, but not all polysaccharides are equal. Many brands only report total polysaccharides, which can include inactive starches.
At Desert Forest Nutritionals®, we go further by measuring the beta-glucan content specifically:
- Our Brazilian ABM extracts consistently measure greater than 20% beta-glucans, the compounds most widely researched for supporting immune health.
- These levels are verified using the Megazyme Yeast & Mushroom β-Glucan Assay, the industry-standard method for accurately quantifying fungal beta-glucans.
What is the Megazyme Yeast & Mushroom B-Glucan Assay?
The Megazyme Yeast & Mushroom β-Glucan Assay is a specialized laboratory test designed specifically for mushrooms and fungi.
- It uses enzymes to break down mushroom cell walls and release beta-glucans.
- The test then measures the actual amount of fungal beta-glucans present, while separating them from other polysaccharides like starch that don’t have immune activity.
- This makes it much more accurate than generic “total polysaccharide” tests, which can overstate active compounds.
Why this matters:
When we say our ABM extracts consistently average greater than 20% beta-glucans, it’s not a marketing guess — it’s the result of this lab-verified, industry-standard test.
The growing conditions are determined by:
- Organic versus chemical fertilization
- Soil conditions
- Natural versus artificial sunlight
- Processing conditions
Once they are ready to be cultivated, the subsequent drying process plays a significant part in the final product and rating: result in lower quality and downgrade the rating. The optimal process is natural drying or using special air dryers with careful temperature monitoring, which gives the best results. On the other hand, freeze-drying can sometimes reduce polysaccharide content.
Why are Gold or Ultra Gold mushrooms so much more desirable for people?
These higher-quality mushrooms are more concentrated in key compounds and harder to source. Downgrades happen when the environment in which they’re grown has changed. The mushroom’s nutritional composition is altered due to contaminants in the environment because mushrooms are like sponges, soaking up everything around them. They will capture and retain toxins in the air, water, or soil in the vicinity.
85% of the world’s mushrooms and mycelium (mushroom spores) products are grown in China
In simple terms, a bad environment equals bad mushrooms!
You should only depend on ABM mushrooms like ours, grown in a clean, fresh environment adjacent to the Brazilian rain forest if you need this powerful ingredient at full strength with no fillers, additives, or substitutes.
“Mushrooms from polluted lands, whether from Asia, Europe or the US, concentrate heavy metals, and in some cases (as with cadmium, mercury, cesium) with spectacular efficiency.”
Results of growing Agaricus in Brazil vs. the rest of the world
The Agaricus blazei Murrill (ABM) medicinal mushroom is native to the Brazilian Atlantic Rain Forest, which has the most fertile soil in Latin America and is the most bio-diverse globally.
Since its discovery in the early 1960s, attempts to achieve constant yields in laboratories outside of Brazil proved unsuccessful until the early 1990s. Unlike plants, mushrooms flourish only under specific environmental and climatic conditions.
Here are some essential reasons for this:
“The quality of the mushroom is a reflection of the environment in which they are grown and how they are handled after harvest. “
Here are some essential reasons for this:
- The mushrooms grown in Brazil and Japan are from different strains and also are genetically distinct. Most of the strains grown outside of Brazil have been modified or are hybrid variations.
- The mushrooms in Brazil derive from wild strains that can be replenished from wild ABM mushrooms, still growing wild.
- The ABM mushroom is the most expensive mushroom due to its limited supply, medicinal value, and labor-intensive cultivation process.
- 90% of the available Brazilian ABM mushrooms are exported to Japan and used for health prevention and disease management.
Why are these extracts so potent?
ABM mushrooms have been traditionally valued for their role in supporting overall wellness. There is a long tradition of the use of ABM mushrooms and their extracts. They have been traditionally used as part of wellness routines, and numerous scientific studies confirm just how significantly of a role they can play in supporting better overall health and improving quality mushrooms have been shown to:
- Maintain normal blood sugar levels when used as part of a healthy diet
- Support better immune function and healthy immune responses
- Boost healthy brain function
- Increase antioxidant activity level to prevent free radical damage
- Promote normal liver health and detoxification
- Reinforce bone strength
- Maintain healthy levels of inflammation in the body
These are some reasons Brazilian ABM mushrooms have been widely consumed in Japan for decades.
Almost all of the Brazilian ABM grown in Brazil gets sent straight to Japan. Why? Because the people of Japan believe so strongly in their power to help support a healthy immune system capable of warding off illness. But these mushrooms aren’t just popular in Japan. People worldwide have begun discovering these particular mushrooms themselves, hoping to get their hands on these valuable mushrooms. But beyond just being difficult and labor-intensive to cultivate, the overwhelming majority of these people have not gotten the process down, resulting in low quality and grade mushrooms that may not contain the same level of vital nutrients”.
Not all ABM mushroom products are the same.
"the fertile soil of the atlantic rain forest in brazil is some of the most nutrient-dense lands on the planet and is one of the few places left untouched by modern industrialization."
Structurally, mushrooms are much like sponges, meaning that they will soak up all of the compounds, nutrients, and ingredients in the atmosphere in which they are grown. And that’s where you can begin to see the difference between mushroom grown in this incredibly rich and unspoiled environment and those of the mushrooms grown in industrialized countries or highly unregulated regions found throughout the world. Chemically, over time they come to have a much different nutritional composition due to these growing conditions and contaminants found in the soil, which will affect their nutrients they contain along with their benefit to the consumer. It may be a problem if you require the health benefits included in the pure specimen.
We deliver nothing but the real thing. We provide 100% pure fruiting body extracts—no fillers, no shortcuts, because we know you need the real thing when it comes to maintaining a hard-working, healthy immune system and more.
