Nourished by California Sunshine
Fungi are not photosynthetic, but just like humans, they need exposure to natural sunlight in order to stay healthy and produce vitamin D. Yet most “gourmet” mushrooms produced in the US are stemmy and unappealing because they are mass-produced in indoor facilities under artificial lighting. It’s no wonder that mushrooms have been slow to catch on in American diets! A mushroom which has never seen the light of day is like a chicken which spends it whole life confined to a cage: it’s just not what nature intended, and you probably don’t want to eat it either.
Well known mycologist Paul Stamets has even advocated placing indoor-grown mushrooms out in the sun for a day or two after harvest to boost its vitamin D content. Imagine how much more nutritious a mushroom can be when it has spent its entire life outdoors over a period of multiple weeks!
Here at Ashby Fungi, we fully embrace the magical powers of the sun. All of our gourmet varieties are grown outdoors with natural day/night temperature swings encouraging a healthy fungal circadian rhythm. Our innovative greenhouse fruiting chamber is expertly designed to receive dappled sunlight while maintaining precise humidity levels. We cool our greenhouse passively with bamboo, vines, and shade cloth, and only use artificial humidification when it’s necessary. The Bay Area’s temperate climate allows us to do this year round with our rotating strain selection to match the changing seasons. The result are mushrooms which are less susceptible to disease and form large, beautiful clusters with superior nutritional value and unparalleled taste. Our mushrooms are of the highest quality which can possibly be attained by cultivation, all while reducing energy consumption and minimizing our carbon footprint! It’s a win-win-win for your taste buds, your health, and the planet.
Local food production
The wonderful concept behind farmer’s markets is allowing ordinary people to access local, seasonal food that didn’t have to travel thousands of miles to land, unappealing and wilted, in their fridge. We enjoy the privilege of taking this concept even further, producing hyper local food to sell to community members within 15 miles of our backyard farm. Although rents in Berkeley are notoriously high and space is limited, we take pride and pleasure in sharing a community with our customers. We also feel it is of upmost importance to reduce our carbon footprint, and this includes driving hundreds of miles to a “local” farmer’s market.
