Mushrooms Have Taken Over Fashion and Wellness. Up Next: Chocolate

A new wave of confections are harnessing the ancient pairing of fungi and cacao (without the hallucinogenic effects).

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<!– END OF BODY CODE –>The pairing of cacao and mushrooms can be traced back thousands of years: Ceremonies in which fungi were mixed with cacao in an attempt to commune with the divine were an integral part of many Mesoamerican cultures. And the combination has been found to have some health benefits, says Isabella Zar, the founder of the California-based wellness brand Fungirl, whose Mane Bar is named after lion’s mane, a mushroom species shown to promote nerve growth in the brain. “The relationship between cacao and mushrooms is symbiotic,” says Zar. “The cacao is a vasodilator,” an agent that widens blood vessels, she continues, “and acts as a carrier for the mushrooms” across the blood-brain barrier, allowing the fungi to take effect. In a crisis-ridden world, revisiting these ancient rituals, and the fungal kingdom as a whole, can yield valuable lessons, suggests Merlin Sheldrake, the author of the book “Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures” (2020). “As an interconnected, living network,” he says, “fungi are poster organisms for ecological and circular thinking.”

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For Sheldrake, and many fungi enthusiasts, partnering with these organisms offers a real way to reduce our impact on the Earth. “They form an important part of a climate crisis solution,” he says. As fast-growing and relatively low-maintenance crops — many can be grown indoors, with little space, water or labor — fungi present an opportunity to rethink our food system and begin making small shifts toward localized production. This relationship between cultivator and consumer is central to the Mexico City-based fine chocolate atelier Casa Bosques, founded by the architectural designer Rafael Prieto. The brand recently collaborated with Mycelia Lab, a Cuernavaca-based mushroom farm and sustainable development outreach project, to create Mycelium Edition, a collection of four chocolate bars each with distinctive blends of functional mushrooms: Power, for example, features cordyceps, while Mycology mixes pink oyster mushrooms with shiitake.

The Brooklyn-based chocolate company Fine & Raw is similarly committed to working with environmentally conscious growers and has made bars infused with cordyceps, said to have anti-aging properties, and chaga, which reduces inflammation in the body. Reishi, a species known to boost the immune system and guard against fatigue, stars in the Los Angeles-based chocolate brand Compartés’s vegan Healing bar, which also contains freeze-dried raspberries topped with matcha powder. The Portland, Ore.-based Vehicle Chocolates, co-founded by Matt Milletto, Alissa Friedman and Dave Gurley, created its Myco Pollen bar, featuring locally sourced bee pollen and mushrooms like red reishi and chaga, as a tribute to the food journalist Michael Pollan, an advocate of creating a more sustainable food system and the healing power of psilocybin.

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Wellness brands are also exploring the mushroom-chocolate pairing: The New York-based Golde, founded by Trinity Mouzon Wofford, offers a latte blend called Shroom Shield that features reishi, cacao powder and turkey tail mushrooms, which are thought to prevent oxidative stress. “We formulated it with a Swiss Miss packet in mind,” says Mouzon Wofford. For a slightly mellower experience, there’s Nightcap, from the New York- and California-based wellness brand Alice, named for another touchstone in mushroom lore: Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Packaged in a travel-friendly tin, the bars contain reishi and chamomile and are intended as a soothing bedtime treat.