Joined: 20 Nov 2008 Posts: 15465 Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 25 7:26 am Post subject: Birch polypore
On a walk in the woods conversion turned to birch polypore, which apparently has marvellous medicinal properties and accordingly sells for silly money on t'internet.
It was the first I'd heard of either point and I was sceptical because it seems to me to be not a rare beast at all.
However, a quick squint on eBay shows that it seems to be selling well enough and the internet has no shortage of articles about the purported medicinal properties...
Of course the internet has no shortage of articles about all manner of crap, so that's not necessarily helpful so I thought I would ask in a section of the internet with known reliability before I start trawling the articles for nuggets of wisdom which may not exist.
So, do we know if there are any established benefits?
If not, are any of the purported benefits believable?
Assuming not on both counts and as a general question in any case, is it wrong to sell snake oil to people who are looking to buy snake oil?
Finally, is there something else that looks like birch polypore and it's actually much rather than I think it is?
if it is old chinese meds it might be placebo or it might be active ingredients
not heard of it in western "folk meds"
not food, not medicine, not useful venom= most shrooms i have ever discovered the name of
for instance turmeric capsules, silly money
half a kilo of yellow cooking spice, very affordable
that stuff has uses but the profit is based on marketing
folk do often find the new snake oil(proper snake oil is useful)
try google scholar and look for peer reviewed studies
The only thing I know birch polyphore has a use as is as a strop for sharpening tools. Also known as razor strop fungus. I once exchanged some, a black flint, a jar of honey and a pair of dip beeswax candles for some sewing, but that was in the 17th century.
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