How much mushroom am I really getting?

If you want to compare the quality and value of mushroom liquid extracts, there is one number that matters far more than most of the numbers printed on the front of the bottle:

How much fungal beta-glucan is actually present in the finished product?

This is where mushroom marketing can become confusing.

You will often see products promoted with claims such as:

• “Made with 10,000 mg of mushrooms”

• “10:1 extract”

• “Equivalent to 20 grams of mushroom”

• “Highly concentrated”

• “Double extracted”

• “Premium strength”

These numbers sound impressive.

But there are fundamental problems:

- They are unverifiable

- They tell you what the manufacturer says went into the process. 

- They do not necessarily tell you what came out of it.

And when you buy a mushroom extract, what came out is ultimately what you are paying for.

Think about mushroom extraction like making juice

The purpose of making a liquid mushroom extract is to take useful nutrients from the mushroom and move them into a form that can be conveniently consumed.

Imagine two companies making orange juice.

One company tells you:

“We used 20 oranges to make this bottle.”

The other says:

“Here is an independent laboratory analysis showing exactly how much vitamin C is present in the finished juice.”

Which piece of information gives you a better basis for comparing the finished products?

The number of oranges used might be interesting.

But it tells you nothing about:

• how good those oranges were;

• how much juice they contained;

• how efficiently they were processed;

• how much was discarded;

• how diluted the final product became after using water “as processing aids” or “it was too hard to separate"

Mushroom extracts have exactly the same problem.

A manufacturer can tell you that enormous quantities of mushrooms were used.

But unless something meaningful is measured in the finished bottle, you are largely being asked to trust their manufacturing story.

This is where fungal beta-glucans become extremely useful

We recommend first reading our article “Why Beta-Glucans Matter” for a deeper explanation of what fungal beta-glucans are.

But there is another reason we talk about them so much that is frequently overlooked:

Fungal beta-glucans give consumers an objective way of comparing mushroom products.

They are measurable.

They can be tested in the finished product.

And, importantly, that testing can be performed by an independent laboratory rather than by the company selling you the product.

That makes fungal beta-glucan testing enormously useful even if beta-glucans are not the only mushroom compounds you personally care about.

Lion's Mane, for example, is also discussed because of compounds such as hericenones and erinacines. Reishi contains triterpenes. Different mushrooms contain many different compounds.

But there is currently no inexpensive, universally available commercial test that conveniently measures every potentially interesting mushroom compound in every product.

Fungal beta-glucans are therefore one of the most practical quality markers available to consumers. They are present in ALL mushrooms.

They allow you to ask a very simple question:

How much measurable mushroom-derived material am I actually getting for my money?

Mushroom input and mushroom output are not the same thing

This distinction is crucial.

Suppose Company A says it processes the equivalent of:

1,000 mg of mushroom per mL

and Company B processes:

300 mg of mushroom per mL.

At first glance, Company A looks more concentrated.

But now imagine independent laboratory testing shows:

Company A: 5 mg fungal beta-glucans per mL
Company B: 20 mg fungal beta-glucans per mL

Which product is actually more concentrated in measurable mushroom compounds?

Suddenly the impressive “1,000 mg of mushroom” claim becomes much less useful.

The amount of mushroom put into a process is an input measurement.

The amount of fungal beta-glucan measured in the finished bottle is an output measurement.

When comparing extracts, the output should deserve far more attention.

Why we publish our fungal beta-glucan concentrations

At Ninth Path, we were one of the first ones to publish independent laboratory results because we want customers to be able to compare us objectively.

You should not have to believe us because we say our extraction method is good.

You should not have to believe us because we say we use lots of mushrooms.

You should not have to believe us because our label says “premium”, “concentrated” or “potent”.

You should not be impressed by super high tech terms and convoluted process - Innovation must deliver value. Otherwise, it is just wasteful and over-priced hype.

We would rather show you what an independent laboratory found in the finished product.

And once you have that number, you can do something surprisingly powerful:

calculate value.

Compare the cost per milligram of tested fungal beta-glucans

Instead of asking:

“How many milligrams of mushrooms does this company say it used?”

try asking:

“How many milligrams of independently tested fungal beta-glucans am I getting for every dollar I spend?”

That completely changes the comparison.

A $90 mushroom extract isn't necessarily better value than a $45 extract.

A bottle claiming to use enormous quantities of mushrooms isn't necessarily stronger.

And a smaller suggested serving certainly doesn't prove that a product is more concentrated.

The laboratory result gives you something far more useful.

Here is how our current liquids compare.

Lion's Mane

Our Lion's Mane liquid contains approximately:

2,000 mg of independently tested fungal beta-glucans per 100 mL bottle.

At a bottle price of $43.90, that works out to approximately:

$0.022 per mg of tested fungal beta-glucans.

To produce the extract, we process the equivalent of approximately:

321 mg of pure Lion's Mane fruiting body per mL of finished liquid.

Notice the order in which we present these numbers.

The 321 mg tells you something about our process.

The 2,000 mg of measured fungal beta-glucans tells you something about the finished product.

We consider the second number far more useful for comparison.

Reishi

Our Reishi liquid contains approximately:

1,400 mg of independently tested fungal beta-glucans per 100 mL bottle.

At $43.90 per bottle, that equals approximately:

$0.033 per mg of tested fungal beta-glucans.

We achieve this while processing the equivalent of approximately:

101 mg of pure Reishi fruiting body per mL of finished liquid.

Again, the input quantity tells you how much mushroom entered the process.

The laboratory result tells you what is actually present in the product you purchase.

Turkey Tail

Our Turkey Tail liquid contains approximately:

2,000 mg of independently tested fungal beta-glucans per 100 mL bottle.

At $43.90 per bottle, that equals approximately:

$0.022 per mg of tested fungal beta-glucans.

We produce this using the equivalent of approximately:

79.4 mg of pure Turkey Tail fruiting body per mL of finished liquid.

This example is especially useful because it shows why comparing mushroom products by raw mushroom input can be misleading.

Turkey Tail naturally contains a very high proportion of fungal beta-glucans.

So we can produce a liquid with substantial measurable beta-glucan content without needing to boast about enormous mushroom-input numbers.

Lion's Mane Mycelium + Fruiting Body

Our Lion's Mane Mycelium + Fruiting Body liquid contains approximately:

3,000 mg of independently tested fungal beta-glucans per 100 mL bottle.

At $46.90, that equals approximately:

$0.016 per mg of tested fungal beta-glucans.

We produce this using approximately:

321 mg of Lion's Mane fruiting body plus 101 mg of mycelium per mL of finished liquid.

Again, rather than asking you to judge the product purely from those input figures, we publish the laboratory result for the finished liquid.

A useful question when comparing mushroom brands

Next time you see an expensive mushroom extract advertised as particularly strong, ask:

How much fungal beta-glucan is actually in the finished bottle?

Not:

“How many mushrooms did you use?”

Not:

“What extraction ratio do you claim?”

Not:

“How concentrated do you say it is?”

Look for the measured output.

And, of course, look for a published / unmarked independent laboratory report supporting it.

If it is not public, it’s odd… If there lots of markings hiding information… that’s not transparency.

“But beta-glucans aren't everything”

Correct.

And we have never claimed they are.

Mushrooms contain many interesting compounds, and different species have different chemical profiles.

But saying “beta-glucans aren't everything” does not make beta-glucan testing unimportant.

That would be like saying protein content doesn't matter in food because food also contains vitamins, minerals, fats and carbohydrates.

A measurement doesn't need to describe everything about a product to be useful.

Fungal beta-glucans are valuable precisely because they provide consumers with something this industry badly needs:

an independently measurable point of comparison.

Without measurements, mushroom companies can compete almost entirely through storytelling.

Who used more mushrooms.

Who has the biggest extraction ratio.

Who has the strongest-sounding serving size.

Who uses the word “potent” most convincingly.

Who uses wasteful / costly methods of extraction that don’t translate in customer value

Independent testing changes that conversation.

Why would a company downplay beta-glucan testing?

There has been an interesting shift in mushroom marketing.

For years, much of the industry focused heavily on impressive-sounding mushroom quantities and extraction ratios.

Now that more consumers are asking for independent testing, we increasingly see arguments suggesting that fungal beta-glucans are somehow irrelevant because they aren't the only compounds present in mushrooms.

That misses the point.

The value of fungal beta-glucan testing isn't merely that beta-glucans themselves are interesting.

It is that the test gives consumers an objective, accessible way to compare finished mushroom products.

A manufacturer may have perfectly legitimate reasons for discussing other compounds as well.

But dismissing the only practical measurement available to customers removes one of the few ways consumers can independently assess what they are buying.

And that should make you curious.

Perhaps we've been comparing mushroom products backwards

For a long time, consumers have been taught to ask:

“How much mushroom is in this?”

Maybe the better question is:

“How much mushroom material can you prove is in this?”

Those are very different questions.

One relies largely on information supplied by the manufacturer.

The other can be independently verified.

Once you start looking at mushroom products this way, price comparisons become much more revealing.

Take the bottle price.

Find the independently tested fungal beta-glucan content.

Calculate what you're paying for each milligram.

Then compare.

You may discover that some surprisingly affordable products contain very substantial quantities of independently verified mushroom compounds.

And some very expensive products give you surprisingly little information with which to make the same calculation.

That is why we publish our laboratory results.

We don't want you to believe Ninth Path is good value because we tell you it is.

We want to give you the information necessary to work it out for yourself.

Compare the numbers. Read the laboratory reports. Do your research right.

Mushroom products should be able to withstand them.

🌿 Walk the mushroom path with us.