You’ve tried mushroom coffee. You’ve read up on the benefits of lion’s mane and chaga mushrooms. What’s next? Mushroom gummies.

Certain mushrooms have long been considered medicinal by cultures around the world, with some experts citing benefits like a clearer mind, more energy, and better sleep when you consume them. But recently, functional mushrooms have also become popular in Western wellness culture. Now, you can find mushroom lattes, mushroom capsules, and mushroom candies online and in your local coffee shops.

Mushroom gummies are a relatively new player in the wellness space, so we decided to try five different kinds. We ranked them for taste, nutritional value, brand transparency, and cost.

The Best Mushroom Gummies

Elm & Rye’s Mushroom Complex Gummies are the largest gummy I tested, but I liked that their size meant that I only had to take one gummy per day. (Every other gummy I tested had a serving size of two.) The Elm & Rye gummies also tasted just fine, and they were covered in sugar crystals, which makes them feel like candy. Each serving also contains 2 grams of sugar.

Elm & Rye’s Mushroom Complex Gummies, which can also be ordered as capsules, contain 45 mg each of chaga, lion’s mane, reishi, cordyceps, and maitake mushrooms per serving. This is the lowest amount of mushrooms out of all the brands we tested (most of which contain about 2500 mg). They’re thickened with pectin and have a distinct berry flavor. (Every single gummy I tried had a berry flavor; I think it’s probably the easiest flavoring to use to cover the earthy taste of the mushrooms.) Like all of the gummies I tried, Elm & Rye’s Mushroom Complex gummies left a bit of a medicinal aftertaste behind—but they’re still the best-tasting of the bunch.

Elm & Rye explains on its website that medicinal mushrooms are often used for their anti-inflammatory response. (Chaga Molecules “The Anti-Inflammatory Properties of Chaga Extracts Obtained by Different Extraction Methods against LPS-Induced RAW 264.7” View Source , lion’s mane International journal of medicinal mushrooms “The Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Lion's Mane Culinary-Medicinal Mushroom, Hericium erinaceus (Higher Basidiomycetes) in a Coculture System of 3T3-L1 Adipocytes and RAW264 Macrophages” View Source , cordyceps PLoS One “Anti-Inflammatory Properties of the Medicinal Mushroom Cordyceps militaris Might Be Related to Its Linear (1→3)-β-D-Glucan” View Source , and maitake Journal of Functional Foods “Cultivated maitake mushroom demonstrated functional food quality as determined by in vitro bioassays” View Source have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties.) While I didn’t experience any noticeable benefits after taking these gummies, I also didn’t feel any adverse effects. 

The brand’s website is a bit sparse, lacking the reviews that other sites have. You can, however, access a certificate of analysis on the product’s page that shows the batch is free of contaminants like E. coli and salmonella. 

It’s not quite as mushroom-heavy as other brands. But if you’re making a gummy choice based on taste,  Elm & Rye is the way to go.

This two-pack of gummies contains one option for focus, which just contains 310 mg of lion’s mane; and one for daily use, which contains 266 mg of 10 mushrooms including cordyceps, lion’s mane, chaga, turkey tail, maitake, tremella, shitake, phellinus, poria, and reishi. The brand links to a certificate of analysis for each mushroom gummy variety, boasts a USDA Organic certification, and provides clear information about ingredients and processing. It also has just 2 grams of sugar per serving.

I loved that Mushroom Revival shares lab test results on the barcode of each product. The website also contains quite a bit of information about how the brand processes mushrooms and which parts of the mushroom the brand uses. (That’d be the fruiting bodies, which are thought to contain more nutrients than the mycelium, though there’s some debate on this Microorganisms “Mycelium vs. Fruiting Bodies of Edible Fungi—A Comparison of Metabolites” View Source .) They’re also vegan, gluten free, KOF-kosher certified, and NSF certified GMP compliant (this means Mushroom Revival has a demonstrated commitment to product safety).

Unfortunately, these gummies were also my least favorite in terms of taste. The daily-use gummies are squares flavored with berry. They’re palatable but medicinal. The lion’s mane focus gummies are nearly inedible; my husband spit them out. They’re small and round, but, to my tongue, taste like chemical dirt. If you mostly care about flavor, go for another option. If you care about the ingredients alone, though, this is the mushroom gummy for you. 

Other Great Mushroom Gummies

Torroshroom Mushroom Gummies come in a pack of 60, but you’ll need to take two per day to hit the usual serving size. They taste like berries and are flavored with both purple carrot juice (like the Plant people gummies) and raspberry, just like nearly every other gummy I tried. But they also have an elevated sugar serving of 5 grams per dose (compared to Elm & Rye’s 2 grams per dose). The benefit of this is that the gummies taste better; they don’t have that medicinal after-taste. But some people may not like the extra sugar in their diet.

Torroshroom Mushrooms contain 250 mg each of maitake, shiitake, lion’s mane, reishi, cordyceps, chaga, turkey tail, white button, black fungus and royal sun mushrooms. This is a similar (2500 total mg) dosage to many of the other mushroom gummy brands we tested, apart from Elm & Rye. They’re thickened with pectin, which is notably vegan. Torroshroom gummies are also gluten-free, non GMO, and, according to the brand, naturally flavored. And they’re small enough to chew easily. They have the same purported benefits as the other gummies we tried, like mental clarity and energy. I didn’t notice any positive or negative effects after taking them.

The Torroshroom Mushrooms appear to be nearly identical to the Plant People gummies we tested, in size, taste and sugar content, with just a few different mushroom ingredients on their list. Torroshroom products are also third-party tested by a company called Eurofins, but they’re not particularly forthcoming about specific manufacturing processes, other than saying that the mushrooms are sourced “from their indigenous regions.” You can email the company to get a certificate of analysis for your particular shipment of supplements; we did this and everything came back looking fine (no heavy metals, etc.). The company provides a 30-day money back guarantee and free shipping.

The Plant People WonderDay Mushroom Gummies are a front-runner on brand certifications. Its products are lab tested by a third party, its products are climate neutral certified, and the company is accredited by the Better Business Bureau and is a certified B-corp. 

As for the gummies, their long ingredient list includes 2,500 mg of lion’s mane, cordyceps, reishi, maitake, chaga, turkey tail, shiitake, wood ear, white button, and royal sun mushrooms. They’re thickened with pectin and glucose and contain 5 grams of added sugar per serving. And they’re not too big and not too small, which makes them easy to chew. Plant People recommends taking two every day.

The WonderDay Mushroom Gummies are, like every other gummy on this list, flavored with berry juice. But these also contain carrot juice, a welcome surprise that adapts the flavor just slightly, giving it a sweeter taste. The Elm & Rye gummies were tastier but these weren’t half bad; they have no aftertaste and the medicinal flavor of the mushrooms is absent. They’re advertised to boost mood, reduce stress, and promote gut health. While I didn’t notice any of these positive effects, I also didn’t experience any adverse effects. The mushrooms it contains have also been shown to deliver these benefits—lion’s mane, chaga, and reishi International Journal of Molecular Sciences “A Critical Review on Health Promoting Benefits of Edible Mushrooms through Gut Microbiota” View Source may benefit gut health, and lion’s mane International Journal of Molecular Sciences “Therapeutic Potential of Hericium erinaceus for Depressive Disorder” View Source may help reduce stress and boost mood.

However, the brand presents conflicting information regarding its supplement analysis. It says its products are third-party lab tested but does not include the gummies in its lab reports page. I emailed customer support to see if it might be possible to access a lab report for the gummies. They responded that they had “never been asked this question,” but assured me that they would find an answer. I’m still waiting, which makes me dubious about the existence of said third-party lab testing. (I’ll update this article if and when I receive a response.)

Purity Life Mushroom Complex Gummies are, in contrast to the Elm & Rye gummies, the smallest gummies we tried. But they have a palatable flavor, contained a wide variety of mushrooms, and a price that makes them worth considering. 

Compared to the Elm & Rye gummies, these are a fraction of the price, but they contain more mushroom variety and have an equally good flavor. The Purity Life Mushroom Complex includes maitake, shitake, lion’s mane, reishi, cordyceps, chaga, turkey tail, white button, black fungus, and royal sun mushrooms. The gummies are thickened with pectin and glucose, and the recommended dose is two gummies per day. This contains 2,500 mg of mushrooms and 5 grams of sugar.

Like every gummy we tried, these are berry flavored. The result is a bit like a berry cough syrup, but there’s no aftertaste and I didn’t notice any kind of earthy component to the flavor profile. These come in a cheap-looking jar, but that’s to be expected with the budget pricing. I experienced no noticeable aftereffects of these gummies, although the Amazon listing advertises them as supporting mood, stress, and your immune system. (This has some evidence to support it—reishi, turkey tail, cordyceps, and maitake Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal “Immune Modulation From Five Major Mushrooms: Application to Integrative Oncology” View Source may provide immune benefits.)

Purity Life is a Canadian supplement. This means the company is beholden to slightly different rules and regulations around supplement verification. However, like supplements made in the United States, Canada-made supplements won’t be tested by government organizations unless there’s evidence of contamination, adverse effects, or complaints. Still, we were disappointed to find no transparency on their company website about third-party testing or where its ingredients come from.

Are Medicinal Mushrooms Healthy?

Medicinal mushrooms are fungi with a long history of use in different cultures across thousands of years of history, most notably in traditional Chinese medicine. (It should be noted that most of these historical medicinal mushroom-users would have integrated the whole mushrooms as part of their dietary patterns, rather than extracting certain components.)

Thanks to medicinal mushrooms’ modern-day resurgence in popularity from brands like Four Sigmatic, you’ve likely heard of most of the big players on the functional fungus market. You know, ones like turkey’s tail, reishi, chaga, cordyceps, lion’s mane, and reishi. To reap their medicinal power, the tops of the fruiting bodies Microorganisms “Mycelium vs. Fruiting Bodies of Edible Fungi—A Comparison of Metabolites” View Source —that is, the mushroom cap and stem—are extracted, dehydrated, then powdered. 

Mushroom gummies have not (yet) been studied in scientific literature. But there is some peer-reviewed research on the purported benefits of medicinal mushrooms. A few studies have shown possible benefits like improved immunity BMC complementary and alternative medicine “The mycelium of the Trametes versicolor (Turkey tail) mushroom and its fermented substrate each show potent and complementary immune activating properties in vitro” View Source (turkey tail), cancer prevention Journal of B.U.ON. : official journal of the Balkan Union of Oncology “Ganoderma Lucidum (Reishi Mushroom) and cancer ” View Source (reishi), anti-inflammatory benefits (chaga) International journal of medicinal mushrooms “Assessment of the Gastroprotective Effect of the Chaga Medicinal Mushroom, Inonotus obliquus (Agaricomycetes), Against the Gastric Mucosal Ulceration Induced by Ethanol in Experimental Rats” View Source , improved kidney function (cordyceps), improved brain function Journal of Neurochemistry “Hericerin derivatives activates a pan-neurotrophic pathway in central hippocampal neurons converging to ERK1/2 signaling enhancing spatial memory” View Source (lion’s mane), and heart disease prevention Cochrane Library “Ganoderma lucidum mushroom for the treatment of cardiovascular risk factors” View Source (reishi). However, most of these studies were performed in test tubes or on mice, so it’s not certain that these findings will be replicated in humans.

Either way, trying a recommended dose of medicinal mushrooms isn’t a huge risk for most people. You can’t overdose on most varieties, but consuming them in large amounts very quickly may lead to vomiting. If you’re pregnant, breastfeeding, have liver issues, or any other conditions that could be exacerbated by a new supplement, talk with your doctor before trying mushroom gummies. It’s also worth talking with a doctor if you’re taking any supplements, herbs, or drugs that might interact with the mushroom.

Are Mushroom Gummies Actually Healthy?

Many supplements come in gummy form. These ones are no exception—it’s simply one more way to add mushrooms to your daily diet. If you don’t like mushroom coffee or swallowing large pills, you might opt to consume supplements in this way. In this case, the powdered mushroom extract is mixed with pectin or gelatin, and some kind of flavoring. 

But registered dietitian Krista Linares, MPH, RD recommends getting mushrooms in your diet directly, versus in a supplement, if you can. “In the supplement industry, gummies are a less reliable source and much more difficult to get the formulation correct,” she says. “The more we can work these healthy foods into our diet instead of turning them into supplements, the more we seem to reap the benefits.”

Most gummies we tried contain about 250 mg of each medicinal mushroom on its ingredient list. This is on par with our favorite mushroom coffee—Four Sigmatic’s Instant Coffee with Lion’s Mane, which contains 500 mg total of lion’s mane and chaga—and doesn’t exceed most recommended doses. Reishi, for example, has been studied in doses of up to 5,400 mg a day for 12 weeks. (We wouldn’t recommend starting with that dose right away.)

Of course, the thing that makes mushroom gummies fun also detracts from some of its health benefits: Sugar. It’s not usually a huge amount—the ones we tested contain 2 to 5 grams of added sugar per serving—but it’s still there. “You need to read labels and take into account how much sugar and other ingredients you’re ingesting,” says Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, author of Read It Before You Eat It – Taking You from Label to Table. “If all of your supplements are in gummy form, and some require several gummies as a serving size, you could be getting a greater serving of sugar than you might expect.”

For now, we say mushroom gummies are healthy-ish. Linares agrees: “The average consumer will not see any benefits from mushrooms that they can’t get from fruits and vegetables overall. However, there is something to be said for diversity of plants in a diet, and having mushrooms in your rotation of vegetables can add to that diversity which is good for overall gut and immune health.”

For most people, there’s no harm in trying medicinal mushrooms, and most gummies provide a reasonable dose. But we’re reserving a full-throated recommendation until some mushroom gummy-specific studies make it into the literature. 

How We Found The Best Mushroom Gummies

Meet Your Guinea Pig

I’m Jenni Gritters, a journalist with 10 years of experience covering science, health, and psychology. I’ve written product reviews for publications like Reviewed, Wirecutter and Slate, and you can find my writing in the New York Times and the Guardian. I was previously an editor at Wirecutter where I covered parenting gear, outdoor gear and travel apparel as a writer and editor.

Our Testing Process

We spent 5 hours researching mushroom gummies by reading dozens of reviews, digging through 10+ journal articles and investigating any news surrounding the product category. Once we’d done this, we spent a lot of time online looking at gummies; there are more than 20 options that are well-reviewed but not vetted. Still, we built a list of 10 options that met the criteria we’d laid out, then we picked 5 to test. Once the products arrived, we spent a week testing each. I took one gummy each morning, then took notes on any perceived effects long-term. 

My husband also taste-tested the gummies, and we invited a few friends to do the same. Finally, I did a lot of label-reading to understand the ingredients in each gummy, I dug into each brand’s sustainability processes, and I learned about the gummy creation process online.

The Mushroom Gummy Buying Guide

Which Features Matter Most When Buying Mushroom Gummies?

When you’re buying mushroom gummies, you should consider:

• Mushroom combo: Check the mushroom types to get a sense for benefits. Some, like turkey tail, may improve immunity, others, like lion’s mane, may help with brain function. Know what you’d like to achieve and choose your blend accordingly.
• Taste: Some mushroom gummies taste earthy or bitter, while others taste more like actual candy. Taste is subjective, but you’ll want something that you like to eat every day.
• Nutritional value: Some research suggests that there are healing properties to mushrooms. Depending on the mushroom type, you may see added nutritional benefits. You might also see benefits like better focus, or feeling more calm. These gummies also shouldn’t contain too much sugar. If you’re vegan, check to make sure that the gummy is made with something like cornstarch or guar gum, not gelatin.  
• Sustainability: Did the company come by its mushrooms in an ethical way? Are the beans and mushrooms being processed sustainably? 
• Safety/Transparency: We preferred gummies from brands that were transparent and brought in third-party testing.

Mushroom Gummy Health Notes

Several of the mushroom brands that we reviewed here contain proposition 65 warnings for potential lead exposure that could lead to cancer. However, the proposition 65 threshold is extremely high—even low risks must be reported, per California law. For most of the products reviewed in this guide, the risk of lead exposure is 1/100,000. Still, Taub-Dix recommends that certain populations, like pregnant women, be aware of these kinds of risks when consuming mushroom gummies. Likely the brands in question source their mushrooms from locations where there may be industrial pollution, leading to the possibility of lead in the groundwater where the mushrooms are grown.

Is It Safe To Take Mushroom Supplements Every Day?

Yes. Taub-Dix notes that unless you’re taking the supplements in excess (ie. over the recommended dosage), you’re unlikely to see any negative side effects.  Most mushroom gummies have a dosage of 1-2 gummies per day, or about 2,500 mg total of medicinal mushrooms.

Who Shouldn’t Take Mushroom Supplements?

The impact of medicinal mushrooms has not been studied in populations of pregnant women; therefore, most brands recommend staying away from mushroom gummies while you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. Some experts also note that reishi mushrooms can be dangerous for people who have low blood pressure, or who are on blood pressure or diabetes medication. Reishi mushrooms can make bleeding more likely in people who have low platelet counts. If you’re concerned about adding mushroom supplements into your diet, consult your doctor.

What Is the Best Time of Day To Take Mushroom Gummies?

Brands like Torroshroom recommend taking two gummies (which is one serving size) every night before bed. Others simply recommend taking mushroom-based supplements on a full stomach. Nutritionist Krista Linares says that there’s still no run-of-the-mill advice about timing; it will depend mostly on how your body feels after taking gummies. You should do some testing to see what time of day works best for your system.

 “Advice to take the gummies on a full stomach is likely to avoid nausea, which is common with supplements,” Linares says.