Mushroom magic? M&S introduces ‘shots’ said to bring you up – or down
First they gave us the meal deal. Now they’re trying to help boost our brains.
Marks & Spencer’s new range of drinks containing adaptogenic mushrooms make it the first major supermarket to sell “functional juices”. From this year, you can now find “lion’s mane latte” and “reishi shots” next to Lucozade and lemonade on the soft drinks shelf.
Distilled into little shots and combined with juice, or added to cold brew coffee, the products were born out of what Claire Richardson, the product development manager for health at M&S Food, describes as overwhelming concern from 80% of its customer base over “cognitive/brain health”. Described as adaptogens, these mushrooms supposedly help manage stress, fatigue and anxiety.
In true Carrollian fashion, lion’s mane is meant to wake you up – and reishi, to calm you down. What’s more, they’re all completely legal.
As with most “supplements”, there is a spectrum. Magic mushrooms contain psychoactive constituents, and are considered class A drugs under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. While harvesting functional mushrooms such as lion’s mane is illegal because of its rarity, it is non-psychedelic and legal to buy from a shop.
The popularity of functional mushrooms as a wellness product has only, well, mushroomed in the past few years. The global adaptogenic mushrooms market was worth £8.7bn in 2022 and is expected to net a 10% return in the next decade, according to Global Market Insights, quoted in the Grocer.
So why all the buzz? Combined with changing attitudes towards health and wellness, mushroom-laced products are occasionally referred to as “third way” products – alternatives to coffee or alcohol, which can reproduce a similar effect.
Three Spirit, a British drinks company sells bottles of Social, which contains “mood-maker” lion’s mane. The health app Lifesum predicts the global mushroom coffee market will grow at an annual rate of 5.5% from 2024 to 2030.
But there is an argument that this overlaps with shifting attitudes over the illegal kind too. This week, magic mushrooms played a starring role in Sharon Horgan’s new spin-off, Amandaland, in which the antagonist Amanda finds herself consuming mushroom chocolates in a hot tub while trying to ingratiate herself with Harlesden’s hippest parents.
In 2023, it was reported that one in 100 people had taken hallucinogenic drugs in England and Wales within the past year, most of them older than Gen Z – with “functional chocolates” taking off among a certain type of middle-aged, middle-class consumer run ragged by modern life.
David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and the author of Psychedelics, thinks this taps into a “growing recognition of the emotional value and traditional use of magic mushrooms plus acceptance of their safety compared with most other recreational drugs including alcohol”. Citing a paper in the Lancet from 2010, which looks at drugs ordered by their overall harm scores, it shows mushrooms are at the lower end of the scale compared with alcohol. This “desire to escape from the commercial exploitation and toxic effects of alcohol” is particularly prevalent among older, time-poor professionals looking for manageable escape.
One east London woman, who is 48 and requested to remain anonymous, said she regularly took mushroom chocolate when on holiday with her children. “You get that kick like you would with a first drink but you don’t have the hangover the next day,” she said. “It’s ideal when you have to be up at 6am.”
The consumption of both legal and illegal mushrooms is as old as society itself, but finding evidence to back up the former’s health benefits remains the issue. Richardson, who created the drinks with scientists from Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens, describes the benefits as “numerous”, although it is unclear as to what these benefits actually are. Under UK law, food labelling cannot “attribute to any foodstuff the property of preventing, treating or curing a human disease”. Concrete research based on human trials is scant, although various companies claim it can help with brain health, alleviating inflammatory bowel disease and even ADHD symptoms.
It remains to be seen as to whether these drinks will make it to Tesco or Waitrose. According to YouGov, while one in four people are interested in functional mushroom drinks, almost half have never heard of them – much less tried them.
Shot test
Bring the Zing AM shot (contains lion’s mane)
Taste: sweet, citrussy, perfectly palatable.
Does it work?: packs a punch, although hard to know if that is caused by the mushrooms or raw ginger juice.
Absolutely Dreamy PM shot (contains reishi)
Taste: bitter cherry, with a slightly earthy undertone. Not unpleasant.
Does it work?: ask me tomorrow morning.
