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.

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 on commercial scale just begun in 1989, when Iwade Laboratory of Japan signed a cultivation contract with SB Cristal (Kazumasa Abe). Then, more than 20 years after, finally 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 patent of Agaricus blazei BM8, in the Budapeste Agreement about the International Recognition of Microorganism Deposit, according to number FERM BP-6480.