The importance of the foods in health is known, but now, the fact is what has been set in the plate is getting a medicine status. The responsible for this revolution is a new science called Nutraceutical that proposes to investigate what is eaten and what are the effects of these foods in the organism. And the results that have been obtained could not be more encouraging. The fantastic offering especially of vegetables and fruits available to human being can really help in disease treatments, from a common cold to a cancer. (ISTOE Magazine, Brazil, April 07, 1999, n. 1540, from the article "The Power of the Foods ", Journalist Thiago Lotufo).

According to Goldberg, 1994, the Functional Foods or Nutraceuticals are those that besides their corresponding nutritional value, can prevent and treat some diseases. Japaneses have presented three basic conditions, which define Nutraceuticals:

1) To present functional compounds in their composition.

2) Can and must be consumed as part of daily diet.

3) To present particular functions when ingested, regulating a specific metabolic process.

Agaricus is the generic term for some species of mushroom existent in nature. Countries such as Japan, commonly use the name – Agaricus – to refer to Agaricus blazei mushroom.

Although the first reports of this mushroom have been dated since the forties, only after its discovery in Brazil by Mr. Furumoto, a Japanese farmer from Piedade City – Sao Paulo in 1967, a larger interest of the scientific community was aroused, mainly in Japan (country that received the first samples), United States and China. Since then, several researches have been accomplished, demonstrating the qualities and benefits of Agaricus.

In Brazil, the production of Agaricus blazei in commercial scalei just begun in 1989, when the Iwade Laboratory of Japan, signed a cultivation contract with SB Cristal (Kazumasa Abe). Finally, more than 20 years after, the mushroom was back to its homeland.

Considering the nutricional and physiologic importance of the Agaricus mushrooms, Kazumasa Abe requested in 1998, through National Biosciences and Human Technology Institute from the Industrial Technology Agency of the Ministry of International and Industrial Trade of Japan, the patenting of Agaricus blazei BM8, in the Budapeste Agreement about the International Recognition of Micrrorganism Deposit, with the number FERM BP-6480.