Prized in China and Japan, Ganoderma fungi appear in health foods and traditional medicines, with Ganoderma lucidum, reishi, as the best-known example. Suppliers sell it dried, powdered or extracted into teas, capsules and functional beverages, standardising on triterpenoids and polysaccharides as marker compounds. Its hard, woody fruiting body is not eaten like a mushroom, so processing focuses on hot-water or alcohol extraction. Authentication matters, because cheaper fungi are sometimes passed off under the reishi name, and DNA barcoding now guards the supply chain.