25-02-2025
Sweet mystery: Mushroom candy bars soar but ingredients remain unknown
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — 'Microdosing.' You may have heard about it. Using a small amount of a drug often derived from mushrooms to relieve depression and other problems.
'Still completely legal, not anywhere near as potent and phenomenal for microdosing kind of just giving people the feel of a little bit of a mood boost,' Ryan Chorice, the general manager at the Hub Smoke & Gift Shop said.
Experts recommend it's done under a doctor's care, but now some companies are selling a do-it-yourself product. Candy bars containing mushrooms.
They're being sold in local smoke shops. FOX4 went on the search for what's actually in these bars, the effects and the safeguards that exist for you the consumer.
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The candy bars themselves are soaring in popularity but not just for a taste of chocolate.
'What we have here is a holistic blend a really popular category that really been taking off in our industry and functional mushrooms – so mushrooms that can provide relief for things like PTSD, anxiety, depression,' Chorice said.
They're changing the face of a market – the question: what exactly is in them?
'I was a bit confused when my friend mentioned she was able to buy these chocolates at a corner store. I am aware that there is no ingredients listed I have tried to do my own research and find the ingredients list with no avail,' Tavian Smith, a consumer said.
But there is no ingredients listed on the packaging besides the highest quality mushrooms products on the market – so FOX4 asked Chorice about that.
'With those guys they're a proprietary listed one so they will use combinations of the Lions, cordyceps and the amanita mascara,' he said.
In other words, what some call 'shrooms.'
FOX4 asked him if he was concerned that when someone buys this they don't know what's inside.
'There's QR codes that these companies can source out, so there is always more readily information,' he said.
For months that QR code did not work until FOX4 made nearly a dozen calls. The ingredients for the bars are only listed but include everything besides the mushrooms that are contained in the bars.
Chorice directed FOX4 to the owners of Sacred Journey so we could get to the bottom of this.
'I'm going to give you my partners number, he's the product guy, so take this number down and give him a call,' said one of the owners.
However, the phone rang, and FOX4 didn't get an answer. So, back to the hub.
'It's the combination of the ingredients – so it's the ingredients and you can have certain balances of the shrooms I already listed and it can have affects that are powerful as you gauge in a sense but they're not going to be autosense projections that you would see in like a street mushroom,' Chorice said.
'We really are not sure what in there – we are really warning consumers for people who bring them into their homes. They need to stay away from these products because one, we have had situations where the product is adulterated and there are totally different ingredients in there and sometimes even prescription drugs that can cause trouble,' Julie Weber, the director of the Missouri Poison Center said.
Of the three shrooms that Chorice mentioned, amanita muscaria is the only one that has the psychedelic component – that can cause hallucinations.
When asked if the general person knows what they ae consuming.
'I would think – perception maybe a little different depending on what their experience may be in that kind of manner, but no, for us it's microdosing, it's a more chill approach. To me you say shrooms, I think of something more heavier and intense in that manner and these products simply aren't that they are a lot more easy,' he said.
When asked if he believes his clientele knows the information he shared with FOX4 – he said that they should.
'Please release the ingredients as soon as possible – I know you have a lot of costumers and consumers that are purchasing these products and would like to know,' Smith said.
FOX4 took another try at reaching the candy's manufacturers Sacred Journey and got a hold one of the partners Jackson but when we asked what kind of mushrooms were in their product, Jackson told FOX4 'we don't talk.'
When FOX4 asked Jackson for his last name he hung up.
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This isn't the first time shroom infused candy bars have come under fire. A different company that produces mushroom candy bars late last year ran into issues after hundreds were sickened by them – that report via the New York Times.
With this being a largely unregulated industry, it remains to be seen how elected leaders here in Missouri will try and do with this information.
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