Beta-glucans, Immunological Health and the Power of Mushrooms

Hello and welcome to The Perfect Stool: Understanding and Healing the Gut Microbiome. This is your host Lindsey Parsons, and today I'll be talking with Jeff Chilton, who studied ethnomycology at the University of Washington and started his career in commercial mushroom cultivation, research and development of mushroom varieties, hosting mushroom conferences, and author of the book The Mushroom Cultivator, which was published in 1983. In 1989, he started Nammex, which stands for North American Medical Mushrooms Extracts, which is a business that introduced medicinal mushrooms to the US nutritional supplement industry and sells directly to supplement companies. And then in 1997, he organized the first organic certification workshop for mushroom production in China. He's also a founding member of the World Society for Mushroom Biology and Mushroom Products and a member of the International Society for Mushroom Science. And if you haven't yet subscribed to the show, be sure to press subscribe so you don't miss out on an episode.

And now on to the show.

Welcome, Jeff. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Thank you very much for having me, Lindsey. I'm excited to be here.

Me too. I haven't used mushrooms very extensively in my practice other than a product called Mycotaki that I use for people who test positive for mold, just because I have little training on their benefits and there are so many different mushrooms and it's a confusing topic. And also cuz I just don't personally like to eat mushrooms. So I'm really excited to be talking to you today and so I and my listeners can learn more about medicinal mushrooms.

Awesome. I do a lot of talks and just try my best to I do my best to educate people about mushrooms because it's really a subject that very few people know much about.

Yeah. Well, so let's just start with the basics. How many varieties of mushrooms are there and how many of them are considered medicinal?

Well, there are literally tens of thousands of different mushroom species out there. And in terms of what we have available to us for food purposes, in North America, we maybe have 6 different mushrooms that are cultivated. There's certainly a number of wild mushrooms that people go out and pick, and maybe there's 10 what we might call choice edibles. And then around the world in different places, like for example, Asia, they actually cultivate approximately 20 different mushrooms. And at any time you probably see at least a dozen of those in most of the Asian markets. So there's a lot of mushrooms out there and they're a food that has been eaten by humans for thousands of years.

When you say choice edibles versus cultivated, are we talking about ones that are, say, found out in the woods versus the ones that are on a farm Well, I mean, most of the cultivated mushrooms are choice edibles.

I'm just saying when you go out mushroom hunting in the woods, you'll find hundreds of different species of mushrooms and everybody's looking for those very special ones that are really very tasty.

Tell me about the range of conditions in general that medicinal mushrooms are used to treat.

Well, you know, the most important attribute to medicinal mushrooms is their ability to modulate the immune system. They have compounds in them called beta glucans. Our cell walls are made up of approximately 50% of these beta glucans. And there is just a ton of scientific research that has demonstrated that the beta glucans have immunological activity. And, and when I say potentiate, what that really means is they strengthen our immunity. So they are there often working in the background. And when your immunity kind of is a little bit low and you feel like, oh, I don't have a lot of energy and, and for some reason I keep getting these colds and that, that's when the mushroom will essentially start to stimulate the production of immune cells. And those immune cells could be macrophages or NK cells or T cells.

Natural killer cells.

That's right. Yeah. Or T cells. So that's really what they do specifically. But the key takeaway here is that they are actually designed to help potentiate and strengthen our immunity.

Originally you had said modulate the immune system. So when I hear that, I think if it needs help, it helps, but if it's fine, it doesn't do anything. Is that—

That's absolutely correct. That's how they've been looked at for the longest time. And that's what a lot of people would call an adaptogen.

Right.

An adaptogen is something that is non-specific. In this case though, uh, again, uh, we're looking at strengthening immunity, but the adaptogen sits in the background. It's there. That's why it's so important to either put mushrooms into the diet or supplement regularly. And it's not something where, oh, I can only use it for a week or two and then I've gotta stop for a week or two and then I start again. No, really, Lindsey, that's one of the reasons why I tell people before they do anything like supplementation or something like that, I would say just, just put mushrooms into your diet because they're just really a very, very healthy food.

So besides the beta glucans, what are there certain nutrients that they're known for?

Yeah, absolutely. And this is what's really interesting about mushrooms. When I started growing mushrooms commercially in 1973 on a very, very large farm that was growing what are called button mushrooms, classical nutritionists said, "Oh, mushrooms, yeah, they taste good and, you know, you can use 'em for different purposes, but they really have no food value." The reason they said that was because mushrooms were low in calories. And so it was an absolutely false statement, but you know how, back then calories were equated with food value. It's got no, no energy purpose, then why should we eat them? So the thing with mushrooms is that— and thing to remember right away is that each mushroom will have a different nutritional profile, and that profile is basically 20 to 40% protein, good quality protein, all the essential amino acids except for maybe one. They are high in carbohydrates, and that's anywhere from 40 to 70%, but those carbs are very special carbohydrates. They, those include beta glucans. They also have a carbohydrate called mannitol, which is a very slow-acting carbohydrate. You know, a lot of our carbohydrates end up being starches, and the problem with a lot of starches is that when we eat them, they give us that kind of burst of energy and then you get let down. They're very fast-acting, whereas mushrooms have carbohydrates that are slow-acting. And, and one of the reasons for this is that mushrooms are really high in fiber. So we don't digest them in the stomach. They get digested as they go down into the lower intestines, and they also will basically feed the microbiome. And I know that's something you're really interested in, but that's one of the key elements of mushrooms. They're, they're low in fat. They have good amount of B vitamins, B1, 2, and 3, as much as 30% of RDA with some of those. So in terms of being a quality, high-quality, nutrient-dense food, mushrooms are really, really right there.

Great. As somebody who doesn't really like mushrooms, how can I— but you know, my sister didn't either and she now loves them. So how do I get from point A to B on mushrooms?

Well, you know, I guess the first thing I would say is, and this is what I tell a lot of people, is cook them properly. Because a lot of people, they haven't used mushrooms a lot, they don't really know how to cook them. And what I recommend is you're using your oil of choice. I usually will cook them in olive oil. I will cook them on a high heat. I will slice them in the example of the button mushroom, I'll slice it maybe a quarter of an inch thick, not too thin. Then I'll throw them into the hot pan. I will, one of the things I does, it kind of sears the outside of them because if you cook them on too low of heat, the water will come right out of them. And now you've got these mush mushroom slices sitting in a pool of water. So unless you want to do a gravy, which is fine, but otherwise no high heat, kind of sear the outsides of them. And I like to cook them for, you know, if I'm just frying them up in a pan, I'll cook them for at least 10 minutes. I like to brown both sides. They will shrink. So maybe you'll throw in a bunch and you go, oh, that looks like a lot. No, that will probably turn out to be not as much as you thought because they will shrink sometimes to approximately half the size when you, you put them in there. But you've sealed in the moisture. I kind of like the browning because it adds a nice little flavor. And then if you're just eating them as is, a little salt, a little pepper, for me, and they're just delicious. But the thing about mushrooms is you can put them in so many different things— stir fries, your scrambled eggs, you know, whatever it is, you can add mushrooms to it. And here's the other thing, because we now have 4 to 6 different species of mushrooms in our markets, if you don't like one, try another. It's not like they all have the same flavor. They don't. They have distinctive flavors, distinctive textures and all. So definitely try them out. And the other recommendation I have is, and this is something with really any food, and that is, look, you're trying a new food, don't eat a lot the first time. Just eat enough to taste it and to feel for it, but don't eat too much because you, you might end up being allergic to it. And not that a lot of people are allergic to mushrooms, but like with most food, 5%, I think, of people are allergic to whatever food's out there.

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Oh, they really are. You know, it's, I consider them the forgotten food. They're kind of like the missing link. They're not, animal, they're not plant. They have their own kingdom that sits in between those two. And I don't know if you've ever heard this, but actually there's a lot of scientific data out there that they've done a lot of big studies and they've demonstrated that populations that have mushrooms in the diet live longer than populations that don't. And so they've done a lot of studies and that seems to be something that is, uh, fairly well recognized at this point.

Well, it seems pretty hard to isolate just one piece of a diet though.

I mean, oh, I know. I think what they do is they basically, let's just say they have two groups of people in, for example, some of these studies took place in Singapore. So they just basically gave a very large groups of people, like thousands of people, something to fill out. And, and they just looked at that and went, okay, we're gonna separate it into the people that eat mushrooms and the people that don't. And then they said, well, from what we've got here, it appears that the people that eat mushrooms are living longer than the people that have said they don't eat mushrooms.

Got it. So I remember when I was growing up, my mom introduced something called a mushroom brush, where she started cleaning the mushrooms with this brush rather than rinsing the mushrooms. Is that the proper way to clean a mushroom rather than actually putting water on it?

Well, you know what, it's really interesting because the mushroom brush actually is something used more by wild harvesters, because when you're out hunting for mushrooms, oftentimes when you get them, they'll be covered with some kind of debris from— because they're sitting on the ground and You're having to pick it and there's a little soil that comes off with it. So the mushroom brush for a wild mushroom harvester is very common. And, but when you're dealing with mushrooms from the supermarket, first of all, sometimes those button mushrooms are a little bit dirty, but the thing is that they are closed. So they're harvested basically at an immature stage. So what that means is you don't see gills. So if you're washing a mushroom that is mature, the gills are, are apparent, and you start washing it off, well, what's going to happen is the water gets all in the gills, and who knows, maybe some of the dirt ends up into the gills as well. So that's why the mushroom brushes come in, because you're kind of very meticulously getting it off without spreading it into the, the gills of the mushroom. With a button mushroom, essentially you don't see the gills because it's actually a mushroom that is immature. So You know what? I, I will put my button mushrooms right under the tap and I'll just sort of rub it with my hands because listen, Lindsey Parsons, all mushrooms are actually harvested by hand and the button mushroom is actually growing out of a layer of peat moss. And so when they harvest that, it's not uncommon for some of that peat moss to get on the cap of the mushroom itself. And so actually running it under a faucet and with water, not a problem. You might not do that to those really big portobellos because then you are— okay, you've got all that gill exposed and you might get stuff into the gills that you don't want. But in terms of the button mushroom, yes. And then here's the thing, if you buy a shiitake or if you buy a maitake or some of these other specialty mushrooms, they're not actually grown in a soil like peat moss or anything like that. So they're almost never dirty to where you would have to clean them or wash them at all. They're pretty much just, uh, pull 'em out and start chopping.

You know, in general, I do try and wash my, at least my organic produce, as little as possible, just a quick rinse so that I can preserve whatever microbes are on the exterior. So are mushrooms known to carry certain microbes on them?

Well, you know what mushrooms are primarily cultivated mushrooms are primarily grown indoors. So they're grown in indoor environments. Environments that are really pretty free of other microbes other than, you know, we have the, the air is just full of microbes that we're breathing all the time, right? So you have to always remember that, but they're, they're not grown in environments that are just full of microorganisms that we would wanna be avoiding or anything like that.

I'm thinking more about the positive ones out in nature.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so most mushrooms in the United States are grown indoors, either in special greenhouses or special warehouses. Generally speaking, they're be pretty free of all that. The only thing I would recommend is that if you see, for example, a button mushroom that is sitting there in that box and there's a bunch of them and it's got a lot of brown spots, let's just say it's a, one of the white button mushrooms and it's got a lot of brown spots on it, that is bacteria actually. So as it ages, certain of them will get this bacteria, we call it bacterial blotch. And that's something where you should just say, no, no, that's probably been sitting here too long. And that's not a good one. So I would avoid those. But otherwise, no, you don't have really much worry about that. And I'm like you. I mean, with my organic produce, I rarely— like with lettuce or something— I rarely even wash that unless it looks dirty and something like that. But otherwise, no, I'm not too worried about it.

I always think if I've had a round of antibiotics, it's going to take a few years probably to be bringing in enough organic produce with good microbes on it to really rebuild my microbiome to where it was.

Well, yeah. And that's one of the things that I really worry about in our current day crisis is that people are just gonna go even further along the path of everything has gotta be sterile and constantly washing hands and antiseptics and all the rest. It's just going to go even further than it is now, which I feel at times is unhealthy where everything is just kind of like Gotta be sterile. I don't want to touch this or that, and I'm going to use this kind of really strong disinfectant. And can you imagine if we went the route of Japan? I don't know if you've been to Japan, but they literally overwrap single pieces of fruit. So you get an apple and it's sitting on one of those little trays and it is overwrapped in plastic.

Oh wow, that's wasteful. I have to confess that recently I have been taking all of my produce that I could, you know, like avocados or apples, and hand washing them in hot soapy water just in case anybody with COVID-19 has touched them. But it's just temporary. And I have my own garden with a lot of fresh produce that I just lightly rinse and then eat.

And I have friends, when they go to Mexico, that's just standard procedure. They will wash everything, all their fruits and vegetables before they do anything.

Meanwhile, when we go to Mexico, we're like, we don't wanna drink the water. Don't put water on it.

I think they actually, the water they use is they sterilize the water first with some kind of tablets or something, and then they're dipping things in there.

Right, right.

But you're absolutely right. I mean, that's the interesting part of what we're talking about is there are places you go where the water is full of things that we don't want to ingest.

Yeah. Okay. Anyway, back to mushrooms. So tell me about Namex and what makes your products unique and where your products end up.

Well, you know, here's something that's really interesting. First of all, Nammex sells mushroom extract powders, and we sell those into the nutritional supplement market. And I introduced the, back, the supplement market to medicinal mushrooms back in the, around 1990 when I started my company in 1989, at a time when nobody had a mushroom supplement. And mushrooms have been in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years. So it's a very common, let's just call it herbal product, medicinal product. So one of the things that is interesting is that mushrooms are expensive to cultivate and grow. In the United States, we can take mushrooms and we can grow them and we can put 'em out there on the market for food. And a grower can sell them at a profit. You put your fresh agaricus out there and maybe you get $5 a pound, but Supplements are dried powders. So when you dry out that mushroom, which like a lot of vegetables is 90% water, now instead of $5, you've got to get $50 for that dried pound because now it's got to be sold dry. So the economics of mushrooms as supplements do not work in the United States. And I realized that very early because I'm a mushroom grower by trade. I worked on this large mushroom farm for 10 years and I had my own small operation. So in 1989, I went to China for an international mushroom conference, and China has been growing mushrooms for about 1,000 years. They started growing shiitake mushrooms back in the 12th century and other mushrooms before that. So they have got a very well-developed industry. And remember, mushrooms are all harvested by hand. So I visited farms, factories, research institutes all through the '90s. And in 1997, I went to China with OCIA, which is the largest organic certifying organization in the United States. I took them to China. We had the very first organic certification workshop for mushrooms in China at that point, because I realized that I had to grow mushrooms in China, process them there before I could bring them over to the US. And because basically you cannot, there are no mushrooms grown in the United States, and I mean this, no mushrooms grown in the United States for supplement use. So we grow all of our mushrooms over there. They're certified organic. They're grown back in the mountains away from any of the pollution. And, you know, it's really interesting because people are always like, oh, I wouldn't eat anything that came out of China. And I'm like, well, There are products produced in the United States or in all sorts of parts of the world that you wouldn't want to eat. So it really just depends on whether the product's grown in the right way. And for me, I totally believe in certified organic, and my company's been certified since 1992. And we test, we test and test and test. We test everything before it leaves China, and we test everything again once it arrives in the United States.

For pesticide residues?

We test for pesticides, fungicides, we test for heavy metals, we test for microorganisms. So we have to test for all of that before we can sell those products. There are standards, and not only that, our customers would not buy those products unless they meet the standards that are out there, the industry standards. And, you know, for those people that say, oh yes, I supplement industry, it's not regulated at all. It is heavily regulated. Now, that doesn't mean when you buy that supplement product you're going to get a good product. Doesn't mean that at all. You may still get a lousy product, but it might be free of pesticides and heavy metals and everything. It still might not be a good product. But we test for everything and our products are the best products in the marketplace.

And so which supplement companies do you sell to?

Oh, you know what? I really—

Can't tell me that, right?

I don't wanna put that out there. I mean, we sell to, I mean, we sell to over 400 different companies.

Okay.

I mean, we have a long list of companies and there's one way to, to really probably know if they're selling our products and that is that we test everything for beta glucans. So we guarantee the amount of beta glucans in our product. So that's something, if a company out there gives you a specific amount of beta glucans in their product, quite possibly that comes from us. The other thing too, if the product says made in the USA, well, obviously not from us because that's not what we do. And I don't know if I mentioned to you, but there's a lot of products out in the United States that are grown where they actually grow the mycelium, which is the root structure of this mushroom, and they grow that on grain and they grow it for 30 to 60 days, no mushrooms involved. Then they essentially dry it, grind it to a powder, and sell it as mushroom when in fact it's just the root structure, which is a very fine thread-like, mold-like type of part of this organism on the grain. They don't separate the grain out and they sell these products and unfortunately they end up being mostly starch.

And so you might be able to identify those because they would not be gluten-free, for example.

Well, you know what, it just depends on what you consider gluten-free because there are certain grains that are considered gluten-free and most of these might be grown on that, but you never know. So that's certainly an issue. But I think the key issue for me is that you're not getting the beta glucans. All those products have very, very low levels of beta glucan and very high levels of starch.

So that's the main thing to look for is just the beta glucan content.

That would be a key thing. And then whether or not it's manufactured in the United States.

Okay. And organic, it should be as well, right? Yeah.

But even those products that are manufactured in the United States, they're organic. So that's not a good indicator.

Can you tell me about particular mushrooms that are used in gut health issues?

Uh, there hasn't been a lot of specific research to gut health issues with medicinal mushrooms. There's one mushroom out there, however, that that has been used traditionally for gut issues, and that is a mushroom called chaga. Chaga's a really interesting mushroom, Lindsey. It's not even mushroom that's cultivated, it's actually wildcrafted. It doesn't even look like a mushroom. It's a very irregular, what is actually called a canker that grows off of trees because this fungus is actually, has attacked a tree and it's as a parasite, but it produces this chaga, and it has been used traditionally for any types of gut issues, whether it's stomach or intestinal. And I say to people, and these are issues, for example, like irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, and I say, look, try chaga because it might be very helpful to you. Otherwise, the most all of these mushrooms have a very high level of fiber, and that is gonna directly feed the microbiome. And in fact, some of them are so high in fiber that there have been scientists out there that have said, okay, this, this mushroom species should be processed in such a way that it can be just sold as a fiber product. So that's really the key in terms of what it will do for the microbiome.

So just to get a general idea, I'm just looking up right now how much— so one medium mushroom has 0.2 grams of fiber. So a serving would be like, let's see, a cup.

Well, you know what? A cup of fresh mushrooms is not a lot. And in terms of, for example, a, one of those button mushrooms, medium button mushroom will weigh approximately, uh, 1.5 ounces.

Nothing. No, no, no.

1.5 ounces. It's very heavy.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

I mean, I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with the grams, but I weighed up a medium-sized button mushrooms that weighed 40 grams. You could easily eat 2 or 3 ounces of mushrooms and that would still be maybe 4 or 5 medium-sized button mushrooms, which for me is not much at all. I can do twice that much. I can do close to half a pound at a sitting without any problem at all. And so again, they shrink and I don't know, I use them for everything really. And I eat a lot of them. So no, they, they have a lot of fiber and you certainly like anything else, you're going to have to eat a certain amount, but But 100 grams is not a lot. 100 fresh grams is not a lot of mushrooms.

Yeah, it would be a lot for me because I'd be slowly introducing them. But if I came to love them, then maybe, uh, I still have hope. There's, there's just a, that may be the last food other than like weird seafood stuff that I'll never come to like that I would still like to try to come to like.

Well, you know what I really recommend to you is trying shiitake mushrooms. I mean, button mushrooms, I like. A lot of people say their flavor is mild. I think the flavor is reasonably strong myself, but shiitake Shiitake mushroom is just, it's got such a wonderful aroma, a wonderful flavor. Try the shiitake mushroom, see what you think. And 'cause I think that, that one is highly medicinal. And you know what? I think you and I would agree on the fact that we want our diet to be not just nutritional, but also medicinal.

Absolutely.

And, and if we could actually have food as medicine, I mean, that concept to me is just super important and really resonates. Deeply. I mean, everything I eat, I want it to be feeding my body in multiple ways. Now, that's not to say that all those, you know, wonderful like pies and cinnamon rolls and things like that are necessarily doing me a lot of good, but I still love them.

So I know that there's this impression out there, especially when people are thinking about Candida overgrowth in the gut and any kind of fungal overgrowth, that you should stay away from mushrooms because they're fungi. Any thoughts on that?

That's what we would call an urban myth. Have you ever heard about or seen what's called the doctrine of signatures?

Is that related to homeopathy?

Yes and no. I mean, a doctrine of signatures is older than that. Doctrine of signatures says like produces like. So in a sense, it's like if you see something that's shaped like a kidney, it must be good for your kidney, right? Or if you have a fungal infection, then you definitely don't want to feed a fungus. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

It makes no sense scientifically. I've never ever seen any scientific paper about that. Nothing has ever demonstrated that, that that's the fact. And you know what? I know a lot of clinical herbalists that essentially prescribe medicinal mushrooms for people with Candida. So they're treating them with medicinal mushrooms. So no, I mean, Candida is a yeast infection, and that is a fungus. It's in the fungal kingdom. But the fact that somehow eating a mushroom is going to be feeding that is kind of— I've always looked at it like, that's really a weird idea.

Mushrooms don't eat yeast, or yeast don't eat mushrooms, do they? I think of them as eating carbohydrates, sugars.

Yes, of course. You know, if you feed them sugars, then, well, gee, that's not the right thing to do, is it? So mushrooms, again, like I say, the carbohydrates in mushrooms are the ones that you want. These are things like the beta glucans. These are things like mannitol. Mannitol. I don't know if you've come across mannitol.

I have, as an alternative sweetener, like, like xylitol and erythritol.

Exactly. And so you're getting actual real mannitol in a food in this mushroom. And what that means is that essentially it is going to be a very slow-acting carb. In fact, that's one of the things they say for people who are, who are overweight and they have issues being with blood sugar. Yeah. This will help to keep your blood sugar low. And they tell people eat mushrooms because part of it too is okay. It can kind of fill you up. And so that will fill you up at the same time, keeping your blood sugar low. So that's something that I think is really interesting as well.

Are you familiar at all with use of mushrooms with mold poisoning or mold fungal overgrowth of other nature like Aspergillus?

Well, we're talking about something totally different, but it's an interesting topic because mold issues primarily, I mean, Aspergillus is something else, you know, Aspergillus will produce aflatoxins and aflatoxins are a fungal infection infection, often of grains. And this fungus, when it gets in there and starts to consume the grains, will produce these toxins that are very dangerous, very deadly. So the grain industry is constantly testing for fungi. They're, they're testing for that. And they, they test for what's called ergosterol, which is a fungal sterol. And that tells them whether there is fungal infection of their grain. So absolutely that's important, and testing for aflatoxins with certain foods is very commonplace. But normally what the issue is, the mold spores. And you know, a mold is what's considered an imperfect fungus, meaning it has mycelium, but it does not produce a mushroom at all. The perfect fungi, they will produce a mushroom. The imperfect ones are the molds, and the issue with molds is the spores. The spores are what we want to avoid, because what happens is, especially in, for example, if you're in a certain climate and you've got, it's kind of a little bit damp, and then the mold will start to grow on wood or fabric or certain surfaces that are a bit damp. Moist, you get the mold growing and it will start to sporulate, and then you get these mold spores in your enclosed environment and you start to breathe them in. And that's where, where we end up with the issues, because you breathe them in, they can cause allergies, it can cause all sorts of lung issues. And if it gets, if it gets seriously, then you'll have kind of a chronic condition So that's really where, where mold comes in. And a lot of people are very sensitive to that because it, it'll be creating a kind of an allergic-like condition.

Right. And do you know if, if medicinal mushrooms are used to treat that?

I would doubt that. No. I mean, so interesting. For anybody who hasn't seen mold, all you have to do is, you know, hold onto some bread for a while and then you all of a sudden see this growth on the bread. And at first it's, it's kind of whitish. If you catch it early, it's kind of whitish. And then as it grows, all of a sudden it starts to turn a color. Oftentimes with bread, it's a green color. Yeah, blue-green. Yeah, or sometimes even black. That means that it is sporulating because that's the color of the spores. So when it starts to turn those colors, you're like, man, be careful, because if you take it and you toss it into your compost, you'll just see a puff and a cloud of spores.

Yes, I often open up my compost bin and there's a puff and cloud of spores. Should I be avoiding that?

I mean, that's exactly right. You throw that stuff into your compost and it sits in there, beautiful, moist, you know, probably warm environment. The mold grows, it just starts sporulating like crazy in there. You toss something else in there there and poof, up it comes.

Good to know. I'll be more careful when I dump— no, I mean, this is just the bin in my, in my house. Within 3 days sometimes— well, no, I have 2 of them, so when I switch them out, the other one sits till the second one's done, and then I take them both out. And by then I often have a pile of mold growing at the top and just think, that's good breakdown. But I guess good breakdown I shouldn't be breathing in.

That, that is absolutely right. Yeah, you're going to have to put on your mask.

Well, fortunately I have one of those handy now.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know. But that's something that people need to be aware of. I mean, I mean, I see it in my compost all the time too. I mean, I usually get my compost out before it starts to get any sporulation, and I never put bread in my compost, old bread, because basically I feed that to my local birds. They love me for it. And I eat a lot of vegetables, and it's just amazing how quickly my compost— and I just have a bowl, my compost bowl, fills up. It'll fill up in 3 or 4 days, you know, my crap and this or that. So I just take it down and I— well, we're getting into composting now, which I really love because it's all a microbial breakdown and it's all about microorganisms. And composting is really cool if it's done properly. But I just have a big garbage can, I dump it in, and then— and it's just all anaerobic. And then ultimately, in a— after a couple of months, I'll take it out and I'll dig a hole and I'll bury it in my garden and it just sits and composts in the garden soil.

I just have one of those big black composters that I just keep adding to the top and throwing paper on, ground up, or what's it, shredded paper on top of mine. And then in 3 or 4 years when it's definitely done, I pull it out the bottom.

I get it. I mean, I think it's great. Everybody should be composting their green matter and the stuff that they've got in their kitchen, paper waste. I mean, some certain paper waste in there too, because that's, that's good for, you know, soaking up some of the the basic liquid and keeping things going.

So I just feel bad about when I go on vacation and I can't compost or I can't recycle. It's— I feel like, oh, it's just painful to throw things in the trash that I feel like have some better, higher purpose.

Oh, oh my goodness, that's absolutely right. We, we have a vacation rental here on the property, and, and it's just amazing what people throw away. I mean, we have sort of recycle bins and stuff like that. But boy, or if I visit a friend or something, they're throwing everything into their garbage and just like, wow, it just, it's like a, oh, it's like a stab in the stomach.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Yeah. No, in fact, we have an Airbnb too, and I went ahead and just put on my instructions, if you don't recycle, that will be mentioned in your review. And since then, it's so funny.

Way to go.

Yeah. Well, the reaction has actually been really positive. People said, you know, I like the, the environmental ethic. And we mentioned that we have solar panels. And so now And now people are actually excited about that.

Way to go. That is so great, Lindsey. I mean, I really appreciate that. And whenever I go to places, stay at some places wherever I travel and they don't have anything like that, I'm just like, what is going on here? And some of the people in our bars over there that just throw all that stuff in the garbage regardless, I'm just like shocked. Yeah.

Now I'll be sorting through that garbage. Anyway, last question about mushrooms. I've heard about people using mushrooms in teas. Are there particular varieties that are good for that?

You can use any of them in teas. The one though that would most, well, you know what, certain, I mean, traditionally that's how all of these mushrooms in traditional Chinese medicine have been used because that's how they, they create all their medicines. They, they put 'em into hot water and they, they'll simmer them for however long and certain certain of them, if you actually have the mushroom itself, you might have to simmer longer than others because, for example, reishi mushroom— and most people aren't going to go out and buy the actual mushroom itself. It's like a piece of wood. It's amazing, some of these, these particular mushrooms. They'll grow off the side of trees, and you've seen them before. We also call them bracket fungi because they're just sitting off the side like a bracket or a shelf, and they're hard as wood, and they have to be really simmered a long time to actually break them down and get anything, get everything out of them. But teas are great. Normally, whatever you'd be getting, it would be already pre-ground and pre-processed in some way to where you'd be getting the good stuff out of it, because what you're really after, the beta glucans, the ones that are important, are soluble. So if you've got a good mushroom tea and not something that's got all sorts of other things added and the mushroom is like a tiny part of it or something like that, unless it's That's one thing you always have to be thinking about because some products, they in the industry, people, companies do what we call fairy dusting where they just sprinkle a little bit in and then call it a Reishi tea. Reishi, Reishi, by the way, if you have a Reishi product, Reishi's very bitter and, you know, a lot of people don't like bitters. I don't mind it because I put Reishi extract into my coffee in the morning and I like black coffee and that's why I drink it. I add a little Reishi to it and it's just another sort of bitter note, and that's fine. But other people are like, ah, it's too bitter, give it to me in a capsule or something else. So a reishi tea, really, if it's a true reishi tea, maybe they've got something else there with it that, you know, but it should be bitter no matter how you look at it. It should not be sweet or anything like that. Then you're like, what is this anyway?

I'm sure you can look at the order of the ingredients.

Yeah, well, normally, but I wonder sometimes too. I mean, even, even Even, you know, what I've seen, I mean, not everybody's 100% doing their label correctly, but you're right. I mean, that should be. And then if you see, you see a sweetener is number 1, you're like, okay, wait a minute.

Right. That, that's like the salad dressings that they all, all say olive oil vinaigrette. And then on the back, the first ingredient is soybean oil. Like, I'm onto you.

Yeah, I know. And maybe that's why I use just like either, you know, balsamic vinegar or lemon juice or something like that. I mean, my, my, dressing for the most part has almost always been just lemon juice. I just squeeze up a lemon and just put the lemon juice on. And if I want to add a little olive oil on there, I will, but, or other, just some balsamic. And, and, um, that, that works for me.

Yeah, I just make up my own dressings so I can use nice high-quality oils.

Perfect. There you go. And you know, who was it that I was just listening to or something? They said, uh, oh yeah, they said, I use about a, a liter of olive of olive oil a week. I consume a liter of olive oil a week and whatever I use it with, I just consider that a carrier for the olive oil.

I think we may be a bit like that in our family. Well, I'm normally gluten-free, but now that I've completely reversed my autoimmune diseases, I feel safe occasionally indulging in pizza. So we'll pour like nice flavored olive oils on and just wipe up the crust in it with every bite.

I know, I know. Olive oil, what a wonderful food.

Yeah. Um, okay. So is there a place that people can go to find the, a good summary of the benefits of different mushroom varieties?

Oh yeah, you know what, come to our website. We've got a lot of educational information there that talks about the mushrooms. It would be namex.com, N-A-M-M-E-X dot com. And another site would be realmushrooms.com, R-E-A-L mushrooms dot com. Either of those two sites. I mean, again, I, I do my best to educate people about mushrooms and how they're used and what they're good for and things like that. And, and and also just, just the healthful benefits of even eating mushrooms. So have a look at the information.

And, and real mushrooms.com sells direct to consumers, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. Namex, it just is a business to business company. We sell raw materials to other companies to put out our extracts in their products and their brand.

Okay, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us about your mushrooms. This has been an interesting conversation.

It's been a lot of fun, Lindsey Parsons. Yeah, it's been great to talk to you.

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