Medicinal Mushrooms in Current and Traditional Healing Modalities with Jasper Degenaars

Welcome to the Virtual Herbalism Conference. I'm your host, Lindsey Feldpausch. In this session, we are welcoming Jasper Degenaars. He's a mycologist and an educator with the Fungi Academy, who has over 12 years of experience in the field. As an educator, Jasper blends science with lived experience. He has worked alongside the team at Fungi Academy to build vibrant learning communities that teach all about mycology. They have taught thousands of students and co-created 20 plus immersive courses, retreats, and workshops for students around the world. Today, Jasper is here for a conversation on medicinal mushrooms in current and traditional healing modalities. He'll be sharing on the many uses of mushrooms, what modern research is revealing, and how to work with mushrooms safely and effectively in our lives.

Jasper, welcome to the Virtual Herbalism Conference.

Thank you so much for having me, Lindsey. It's a pleasure that the Herbal Academy and Fungi Academy are combining forces. We are a perfect match with those names, aren't we?

Exactly. All right, Jasper. Well, let's go ahead and dive into your interview. The first question I have for you is just starting off by telling us in the audience a little bit more about you and your journey with mushrooms.

Yeah. I guess I should have updated my bio because at this point, it's almost more than 14 years now since I started growing mushrooms and started walking the path of mycophilia, meaning lover of mushrooms. I'm from the Netherlands, where mushrooms of the genus, Psilocybe, are still legal to grow. And that's where my interest has peaked when I was 18. So, I was buying them in the stores and found out that it was a lot more fun and interesting to start growing them myself. And I found this immense inspiration of a connection to nature and understanding that I was helping grow this organism that was helping grow me. And through that experience, I started taking a better look at fungi in the ecosystems around me and started getting an interest in foraging. And after growing some of these mushrooms in the genus Psilocybe. I also wanted to grow oyster mushrooms and other food mushrooms and eventually medicinal mushrooms. And for a big part of my 20s, I traveled a lot of the world, and I was always fascinating which mushrooms I kept seeing in different continents and which ones were new and what some of the challenges were in cultivating these mushrooms in these different ecosystems. Almost seven years ago, I landed in Guatemala when the Fungi Academy was already in full force. And life led me in an interesting way where I was able to sit down and dedicate my life to mushrooms in its entirety. And I started educating, and I started learning more and growing. And here we are, almost seven years later, and still love to share about mushrooms, still love to go out, still love to grow mushrooms. They have successfully infiltrated my whole being, and I'm honored and blessed to be sharing that with so many people around the world, including here.

That's wonderful, Jasper. I'm curious. So when you're teaching about mushrooms and the work at the Fungi Academy, what are the core frameworks that you're working with? It sounds like you started in cultivation and moved into foraging, but are you all focusing in on any traditional uses, medicinal, environment, applications?

Yes. So our mission is to share the magic of fungal wisdom with the world, and then that's within all of its entirety. So some of my personal favorite subjects are fungal ecology. So what role does fungi play in ecosystems and how crucial and vital they actually are to the existence of all the ecosystems on this planet, even like aquatic and marine ecosystems that were slowly now with the progression of some of this genetic analysis technology, finally figuring out how much of an impact these fungi are having in these ecosystems. And because I grew up in a microphobic culture, meaning that my parents were afraid of mushrooms in the wild, and a lot of people here in the Netherlands share that sentiments, I'm really fascinated by the cultures that are not mycophobic, but mycophile, meaning that they are attracted to mushrooms. And what relationship do we have with these people? And it's very easy to point towards people in China that have had a relationship with reishi, which I'm sure we're going to be talking about, for over 2,000 years. But also, we were based with Fungi Academy. I'm currently in the Netherlands, but we're based in the Mayan Highlands and the lands of the Tzʼutujil, the Kʼiche, and the Kaqchikel people that are Indigenous Mayan people that also have this real deep connection to mushrooms. And we see they use them and work with these organisms that they find in the wild in a very different way than our Western minds can sometimes think of, meaning that certain mushrooms that we like to make teas off, for example, turkey tail mushrooms, they use as topicals, so they make topical balms. And so I think we have a lot to learn of how people that have came out of the womb, almost, with this fascination for fungi and their applications. We have so much to learn from them because right now we're focusing on this very small amount of medicinal mushrooms. But in reality, I think all mushrooms have medicinal properties, and we're just slowly uncovering the veils. And a way to start finding out which mushrooms are actually beneficial is looking where in the world people are already working with certain mushrooms and what applications do they use them for. And then we can look if we're actually finding some of these alkaloids and these terpenes and these polysaccharides that might actually have beneficial physiological effect on our bodies.

I find mushrooms absolutely fascinating. I would love to hear from you, Jasper. Obviously, you do as well. Could you just speak a little bit towards the mushroom and its role in the ecology?

Yeah. We have to talk more about some phrasing here because mushrooms are—not all fungi produce mushrooms, right? So right now, my friend inspiration, I can say, Giuliana Furci from the Fungi Foundation is pushing hard to not only talk about fauna and flora but also talk about fungi. And this is really crucial because they are as an important, if not a more important factor of this ecosystem. But most of these fungi, we don't see at all. Most of them can be single cellular or they all have their whole life cycle in the cell walls of plants. We know there's this endophytic fungi. So really, they are the unseen directors of the symphony of life. And then, of course, there's the mushrooms that are the charismatic gifts from the underground. They're from within the tree, from the mycelium network, as a lot of people probably know, to the animal worlds. And those mushrooms only act as a way to disperse spores. But most fungi, they can connect the roots of plants to each other and transport nutrients and help break down some of the soil to make it more absorbent for the root hairs. But now there's some fascinating research that's even suggesting that most, if not all, of the secondary metabolites that plants produce are actually produced by this tiny, tiny microscopic fungi living within the cell walls of the plant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's one of the leading researchers, Dr. James White. And this is really a new field, but that would be pretty crazy, right? That all of the things, all the beneficial compounds that we love plants for might actually not be produced by the plant cells within the plant, but actually by the fungal cells living within the plant. So, they are an enigma. And until recently, they have been criminally understanded. As of today, still, they've been criminally understudied. And I think it's of importance to our understanding and also our well-being in humanity and the well-being of our planet to fully comprehend what role these fungi play in these ecosystems all over the world and how we can support them to take better care of the planet so we can take better care of our communities on the planet.

Well, that is absolutely fascinating. The metabolic pathways that create secondary metabolites, there are many, and I have never heard about the fungi connection, so I know what my research is going to be after this interview, Jasper. Okay, well, obviously, you have so much really good information to be sharing with us. And since we are an herbalism conference, we're going to be focusing in on that medicinal usage, application of mushrooms. I would love to hear from you, from your mycology perspective, about the common use of medicinal mushrooms. Obviously, immunomodulation is something that we often tout for the common species we utilize, but overall, the application of that use from this perspective in the human body.

I think we have to go into some of the biochemistry, and I'm known by no means an expert in fungal biochemistry and all these things. To just start off, all mushrooms are made out of polysaccharides, which are basically large change of sugars that are pretty complex. And this goes from your Cromini that you might have in your plate, your classic buttered mushroom to Reishi as polysaccharides. But even starch in rice is made out of polysaccharides, which is not fungal related, but it just shows how abundant it is in in our food worlds. And those polysaccharides can be really easily absorbible in some parts, but most mushrooms, they have this other complex organic polymer, which is also a long-chain sugar known as chitin, and the exoskeleton of lobsters and crustacean and insects is made out of this chitin, which is very hard, and it's very hard for our bodies to absorb this chitin. So basically, I always like to see it as the chitin being a little safe. And inside the safe are all of these beneficial medicinal compounds. Most of them are polysaccharides, but we can also have terpenes. And the most of the beneficial polysaccharides we know is beta-glucans. In contrary to, for example, starch, those are alpha glucans. So the beta-glucans are relatively unique to the fungal realm. And those are the compounds that we, for example, like in cordyceps mushroom cordycepin, that's a beta-glucan. And what I know in this immunomodulation aspect is that those beta-glucans, for the most part, activate our killer T cells and awakening and almost training the immune system. So, making the immune system ready for when we get attacked or actually calming down the immune system when it has an overreaction. So, if we have a histamine reaction, that's basically our killer T cells and defense mechanism in our body that is underprepared and it's just attacking something that doesn't necessarily need to be attacked. And of course, when we get sick, it means that our immune system is not prepared to actually fight off a bad invasion, and then we get the flu or whatever. So, these beta-glucans really help train our immune system to function better. Either under attack or when we get an allergic reaction or something.

Yeah, beta-glucans are absolutely fascinating. And earlier, you referred to the fungi as the director of a symphony, and it's almost fun to think about them being in that role with the immune system and offering that amphoteric effect of either simulating or sedating parts and aspects to the immune function as those modulators. So, thank you for sharing. I think this also plays into the extraction of mushrooms, which comes up a lot in herbalism. You already mentioned chitin, which is this really hard cell wall, which is why we have to actually apply heat a lot of times to extract the beneficial compounds found in mushrooms. Also, the polysaccharides come into play here, too, with the water solubility. So, let's talk about extraction in regards to the mushroom. Let's talk about dual extraction, decoctions, concentrated extractions, basically all the preparations you're seeing out there in use and in the marketplace. Any species you want to mention?

I'm a big extraction geek. I really love extracting stuff from nature and extracting mushrooms, specifically because it's a little harder. Like lots of plants, you can just make it decoction. So tea. And you can also do this with a lot of mushrooms. You can eat a lot of mushrooms, and you get a lot of medicinal properties as well. So I really want to start off with just eat more mushrooms, especially oyster mushrooms, shiitaki, if you can find yourself, maitaki. If you know how to successfully identify mushrooms in the wild, definitely do that. And especially oyster mushrooms, before I go into the extraction thing, have a lot of ergothiamine, which is an amino acid that can be stored in our body for up to a month. So it's an amino acid that actually helps us deal with free radicals and it's an antioxidant that you can actually build up over periods of time, which is if you are maybe preparing to put your body through a stress, maybe a large hike, or you want to go to a music festival, loading up with ergothiamine, that's probably a good idea. And you can just do that by eating shiitaki and oyster mushrooms. But on the extraction side of things, because of this chitin, it's like reishi mushroom, if you ever find, again, a Ganoderma species. So when we talk about reishi, we talk about actually a bundle of different species. Traditionally, it's Ganoderma lucidum, which we only found in Europe. And we thought it was the Chinese version, but the Chinese species actually now is classified as Ganoderma lingzhi. In the United States, you have Ganoderma oregonense on the West Coast. You have the hemlock reishi, you have Ganoderma tsugae on the East Coast, and you have all these different reishis. Technically, the Artist Conk is also a rare reishi, Ganoderma applanatum. It's just very hard. So to get all the medicinal properties, you can make a tea, you can make it like a long decoction. But specifically with the reishis, you're not going to get most of the benefits because there's, yes, the beta-glucans, but they have this whole other group of alkaloids, known as terpenes, and especially reishi mushrooms are very incredible. They can produce up to 130 different kinds of those terpenes, including ganoderic acid, ganomeric acids that are only found in these Ganoderma species. And to extract those compounds as effectively as possible, you want to do an alcohol extraction first. So, you can do a traditional alcohol extraction. We used to have a video on YouTube. Unfortunately, YouTube took us down because our content, apparently, is dangerous. But I'm sure we'll send a link, and we have a whole library of free videos you can still watch. And I'll make sure that the Herbal Academy people put it probably on the bottom or something. And then you can watch a way, the simple way to extract mushrooms just with all the stuff you have in your kitchen. Most people that get interested in it will get a Soxhlet pretty quickly just because I myself, I'm not that patient, and I don't want to wait six weeks and shake the jar every day to get the alcohol extraction. So, I use a Soxhlet, which is like a glass apparatus to speed up that extraction process. So, then you extract the alcohol and the non-water soluble compounds, and then you separate the mark, which is the mushroom, and you separate the solvent, in this case, the alcohol, you put the solvent on the sides, and then you do the same process, but with hot water. And then you basically make it a decoction until you extract all of the water-soluble compounds, and then whatever you have left over, you mix together to try to have a stable tincture. Most of the times, that's around 25 to 30% alcohol volume. And then you have a double-extracted mushroom tincture. These days, what's really fascinating and with a lot of my friends that have full on mushroom extraction business they're getting into is ultrasonic homogenization. Basically, they get a probe, which is a big ultrasonic wave producer, and you put that in a bath with something that stirs it up, and then you don't have to expose the mushrooms to heat only to ultrasonic frequency. And you can do the whole extraction process. If you do it the traditional method, can take weeks. If you do the Soxhlet method can take hours. With the ultrasonic method, it can take hours. With the ultrasonic method, it takes literally 10, 15 minutes in some cases. But also, you don't expose the mushrooms to heat. So, the argument is that the more heat you expose your mushrooms that you're trying to extract to, the more you're damaging these beta-glucans and these terpenes that you're trying to protect so you can consume them. And so with an ultrasonic homogenizer, you don't use any heat. And what people are seeing in test results right now is that the active ingredients in the end products are actually way higher than when exposed to heat.

Soxhlet extraction is something that I am very familiar with, and I don't think it's commonly used in herbalism. It sounds like it may be in mycology, but for the audience members who don't know, a Soxhlet is a closed-loop system where basically we're applying heat to evaporate and then recondense the extract. The reason that this closed-loop system is effective, it was developed in a chemistry lab to pull lipids out of solids. It's a very good for the terpene extraction because they are lipid-like secondary metabolites, so they're more lipid-soluble than other components found within the mushrooms, like the polysaccharides. But it sounds like you're doing a water extract. I've typically worked with alcohol in the Soxhlet.

Yeah. So you're doing just a water extract in the Soxhlet as well? First, an alcohol and then the water extract as well. And that's because you have this—it's really hard to explain a Soxhlet. Again, I also made a video on how to use Soxhlet. So, it's in the same library that we have on Vimeo right now. But basically, there's a siphon reaction that occurs. Actually, you're pulling stuff out of the matter. So, I found doing the water extraction in the Soxhlet was actually more beneficial to extract all the compounds than just a decoction in a pan or something. So just because I have it, I just do both the alcohol and the water extraction in the Soxhlet.

That makes sense to me. I mean, it's a percolation, right? So it's a continuous movement over the plant material, or in this case, mushroom material to extract. Yeah. So fascinating. I'm curious, Jasper, what do you think about all the powdered concentrates out on the market? And I'd love to hear you speak towards those.

Yeah. So I think especially, and I'm sure you have the same with herbal formulas, especially in a medicinal, or as some people like to call it, functional mushroom space. You have to almost be an expert to really know what to look for and where to buy. And a lot of people fall for really interesting marketing. If you're talking about powder, specifically, what you're mostly going to find is mycelium on grain powder, which we can get into in a little bit. Then what you can also find is what some people call full-spectrum powder or straight-up blended mushroom powder. That's the third one. And then the last one is mushroom extract powder. Personally, I'm the biggest fan of the latest, but I can also have a point with mushroom extract powder, which I'll get to in the end. So first off, mycelium on grain. A lot of research is done on the mushroom mycelium, meaning the main body of the fungus that then in its last phase of life produces the mushroom. Because it's really easy to do it in a lab in a controlled environment. So, most of this research that's done on mycelium is actually done on mycelium grown in a liquid sterile container that then is completely analyzed for constituents. And then with those constituents, they do the research in vitro, not so much in vitro just yet. So, then they say, okay, we found this cordycepin, we extracted it. For example, one of the studies show case that they put this cordycepin molecule in a petri dish with breast cancer cells, and the cordycepin just kicked the breast cancer cells' ass, basically. So, then we have a theory of, okay, maybe cordycepin that was present in these cordyceps mushrooms might help people that have early phase breast cancer or might help in conjunction with chemotherapy or something like this. So that's how most of the research is done. What the issue is with these mycelium on grain companies is, first of all, it's impossible to separate the grain and the mycelium. And they claim that the fermentation of mycelium eating the grain also produces some of these beneficial compounds. But a lot of that research is often done by those companies themselves and not so much by third parties. I think mostly interdependent researchers that are really into, okay, what is the most beneficial way to take mushrooms will never recommend mycelium on grain per se. I think it can have a place in the markets, but it doesn't make any sense that those products are almost as expensive or maybe even the same price as full-extracted mushrooms, but mushroom extract powder. How you if you were to identify that, a lot of the mycelium on grain would have mushroom, mycelium. They have to put the mycelium on, apparently, but they can still say mushroom, which I think is still deceiving because there's technically no mushrooms, but there's only mycelium. And they wouldn't hardly have any beta-glucan counts. So never only look at the label, but always look at the ingredients, and if you see beta-glucans, because even a high polysaccharide counts can still mean just a lot of brown rice, because brown rice is also a polysaccharide. So secondly, you have these full-spectrum powders, which you can also see, which they grow the mycelium on rice, and then they let tiny mushroom primordia, tiny fruit bodies, pin on the edge so they can say, Oh, there's actually much of a fruiting body in it. They dry that up, they blend it, and it's the same concept, basically. You're also going to see very few beta-glucans present in these. Lastly, you have some companies that really just blend, get the dry reishi, and they put it through a blender until it's a fine powder, and then they sell that. And that can be pretty unhealthy for you, especially if you're taking a high dose, because of this chitin I talked about earlier. So, you're consuming a lot of this chitin, which is really hard to absorb for the body. And you can see this if you have some of this blended reishi powder, and you put it in a glass of water, you're going to see that this powder is not going to absorb at all. But if you have mushroom extract powder, it's going to absorb instantly. And that's what's going to happen in the body as well. So, I'm a fan of the mushroom extract powders, which the mushroom has gone through a process like I just described with a Soxhlet or an ultrasonic homogenizer. And then it's spray-dried, or it's turned into a powder through a rotary evaporation. And often those on the package have full fruiting body extract or something like this, fruiting body extract, mushroom extract. So, there's often the extract in it. And the best ones, in my opinion, also have a complete overview of which beta-glucans are in there. So not only how many beta-glucans are present in the package, no. Also, if, for example, in lion's mane, it has Hericium erinaceus, or in the case of cordyceps, how much cordycepin is present, or in the case of reishi, how much ganoderic acids are present. Personally, I do know that those powders can oxidize. So, of course, in the production process, these producers try to have their products not oxidize at all. But that is the challenge with these extra mushroom extract powders that they oxidize pretty quickly and then probably will lose a significant part of their potency. So, I personally really like tinctures. I take tinctures. I think they're easy to dose. I think they get absorbed really well with the body. But yeah, that's just up to your preference. But basically, look at the backside of the label and look for beta-glucans. And if there's really complicated words on the back of the label, then it's definitely a good sign as well.

I think that that is such important information for our listeners, Jasper. This is a complex topic for folks who don't know what to be looking for. So overall, we want to look for the fruiting body in a concentrated extract form and then work to reduce oxidation. Can you throw it in the freezer, you think, or fridge? Do you feel like there's a way for us to slow oxidation in these powdered concentrates?

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting avenue for research. I don't know what the best place to store it is. Of course, most of those containers do get vacuum pack sealed before they're after they're packed. So, if you're going to work with it, keep it as close as long as possible. A dry and dark place is generally best. I don't know if putting it in the freezer would be best. There's always the risk of accidentally adding moisture to it if it's frozen. So that's also a thing you have to consider if you put stuff in the fridge or the freezer. But yeah, I don't know what the best cause of action is. Just the dry and dark place is probably, and cool is probably the best bet for now until more research has been done on that matter.

Thank you for sharing, Jasper. I would also love to hear your thoughts a little bit more on the cultivation of mushrooms on the various substrates. So you have mentioned rice already, but I have seen a number of other substrates being utilized. Do you feel like that impacts the overall makeup, phytochemically of the mushrooms or mytochemically of the mushrooms?

Oh, yeah. Mytochemically. I like that. Yeah. I think it's important to start with wild mushrooms. I don't know if you've ever seen a wild flush of oyster mushrooms, especially the Pleurotus australis, the brown oyster, the winter oyster, it's something it's called, compared to a cultivated variety, at least here in the Netherlands. And I've also seen them in North America. They are way bigger. The flesh is thicker. They look more vibrant. They have more smell to them. So that's basically a part of being in the wild. They have to produce all these extra metabolites to fight off these other microorganisms. They have to make sure that the mushroom is solid. And I think you see this with most organisms. If you have a wild variety, you have a cultivated variety, and often the wild one seems more vibrant than more alive because it has to fight to get to that point. But I think it's also substrates, right? So a lot of mushrooms, most of the mushrooms that we're talking about, medicinal mushrooms, they are white rot function, meaning that they grow off decaying wood. And how those are cultivated is first, and at least in the West, we grow them on grains first. So rice, it's very sometimes rice, but often millet or sorghum or popcorn even or bird seeds. So we're growing them on grain to get the mycelium going. And then we introduce that mycelium to hardwood fuel pellets, which have been sterilized, and they're often cheap wood and not that many nutrients. And those nutrients are supplemented with soybean pellets, which are also sterilized, and it goes through a lot of heat. So they lose a lot of these phytonutrients that you have in the wild. And that's what the research is showing right now as well, is that even the difference of a reishi mushroom that was grown, like cultivated on an actual hardwood log, is going to have more of these polysaccharides that we're looking for and these other metabolites. So, I think it is relatively new. I think a lot of research is being done right now. I did have something in my notes here that came up not too long ago about this specific topic because I think it's very interesting, right? Especially as a mushroom grower myself, and somebody has taught a lot of people how to grow their own mushrooms. I want to make sure that the mushrooms people are growing are as vital in life and have as many of the good, good as we want to have in these mushrooms. So here I have on my notes that a study of 10 mushroom species in north-eastern Thailand found that wild mushrooms had significantly higher total antioxidant capacity. So that already showcased as stuff like, okay, substrates and growing conditions, and also light, actually, not a lot of people know this. Light also truly matters. And light really matters with, for example, cordyceps production as well. So, it's not going to produce as much cordycepin, if it doesn't get the right amount of light for the right amount of time. So, I think it's really important to start doing more analysis of these ideas, and it's just like asking where your medicine was extracted. How was it grown? Where was it grown? And what substrate was it grown? I think that's a good question to ask if you are looking for a new supplier of medicinal mushroom extracts. And I'm personally a big favor of wherever it is possible. And of course, with mindfulness sourcing your medicinal mushrooms yourself. In the Netherlands, for example, like turkey tail, Trametes versicolor, grows a lot. So, it's so abundantly everywhere, and it's not easy to grow a big batch yourself. So, I don't really grow it myself because Mother Nature provides in such a way. And because we have that research showing that, like mushrooms in the wilds can have more of these beneficial metabolites. A good thing to know with that, with harvesting in the wild as well is like, mushrooms and fungi are really good at absorbing everything. So, if you live in a big city or in a place that has a lot of industry, unfortunately, mushrooms are also pretty good at absorbing heavy metals. Certain mushrooms are better than others. And for example, around Chernobyl, there's a lot of mushrooms still that have lots of radiation. So, they're also really good at absorbing radioactivity, which could be really important for us in our ways of dealing with radioactive waste. But if you live in a place, maybe in Fukushima or something, you want to probably be avoiding mushrooms from the wild.

I do I want to hear you speak a little bit about sustainability in relationship to foraging mushrooms, though. Are you seeing any popular species become endangered?

Luckily, the mushrooms themselves are the fruiting bodies, so you're not taking the roots of the mushroom per se. But yeah, I'd love to hear you speak about that. Yeah. I think there's also an interesting topic of discussion, especially. There was actually a news article yesterday in the Netherlands where I think 20 rangers and cops busted four or five people foraging a very common mushroom in Imleria badia, which is known as the bay bolete in English. And they got a huge find, and they were treated the same way as poachers, somebody illegally shooting a deer in a place or something, which I think is ridiculous. And at least here in the Netherlands, we need reform on this, maybe a license. There's a fishing license you can get, maybe a mushrooming license. I don't know. But generally, with mushroom wanting and being sustainable, what's really interesting is that the papers that have the research that has been done does not find a correlation with picking mushrooms and a reduction of a flush the next year. So, let's say you find a beautiful flush of porcini, of the king boletes, and you pick all of them, which maybe you shouldn't do. And as long as you don't trample the ground and the soil, it doesn't matter if you cut it at the base or if you pick it like this, more or less the same amount of mushrooms is going to grow back. Issue being, if you are a mushroom foraging guide and you take a big group of 30 or 40 people and everybody goes off the path and tramples the soil and compacts the soil, that does influence mushroom growth the next year. So that's the thing to consider. And I think generally with mushrooming, it's always good to leave the really young ones. So anywhere if a mushroom has a veil, and if the veil is not yet exposed, excuse me, leave that be. If they're really old, and you don't—maybe there's already bugs crawling in them. Leave that one be. And the main important thing is to carry a basket or something that's not made out of plastic. So the reason with that, if you put your mushrooms in straw baskets, while you're carrying those mushrooms through the forest, the spores will still be releasing from those mushrooms, and the spores will actually go through the basket, and you actually do the mushrooms a favor, because that is why the fungus is producing the mushrooms. It is a way for the fungus to connect to the ecosystem, to the animals in the ecosystem, and get eaten or get dispersed. So be it like, oh, you eat a mushroom, and then you have to do your business in the woods somewhere. You also drop out those spores after eating the mushroom. Or if you nuzzle up on the mushroom with your nose because it smells really good, then the spores are all over your cheek, and you disperse those spores as well. So I know a lot of people, I do this myself as well. Sometimes this is like I have a hat, and then I make this sport print of the mushrooms I want to see on the bottom of my hat. And then I know that when I walk through the woods, the spores will slowly be dropping. So as long as you're mindful with that and mindful with not taking specimens that are too young and mindful with not trampling the soil. And I personally leave the old ones myself as well. I recently went Amanita muscaria hunting, which maybe is an interesting medicinal mushroom to talk about as well. And there was just so many big flushes and clusters that I would just pick maybe one-third and just let the other ones be. So yeah, I think if you are asking questions to yourself with those frame, those frames in mind, I don't think it can do much damage. But as long as you keep asking questions and not just like, "Oh, cool mushrooms. I'm just going to harvest all of them and trample and all that stuff." So as long as you're aware and conscience of it, I think it cannot hurt the ecosystem.

We're going to spend some time going through some specific mushroom species now, Jasper. One of those is going to be chaga. So, I definitely want to speak a little bit about sustainability in relation to that. But our framework for these questions, let's talk about traditional uses, modern uses, what you are called to share about these specific mushroom species. The first one we have on the list is the reishi, which you've really dove into quite a bit. But if you want to share any more, particularly about its triterpene content, which we utilize as an anxiolytic for reishi, or anything else you want to share about reishi, we'd love to hear.

Yeah. So reishi, or lingzhi. Lingzhi is the Chinese name, and reishi is the Japanese name for those Ganoderma species. And if those Latin names are overwhelming, sometimes when you break it down, it's really easy, and especially the Ganoderma, because Gano, it just means shining. And if you go to a dermatologist, sometimes, you might know what derma means as well. It just means skin. So, the mushrooms with the shining skin, so the Ganodermas. So, they are some of the most ancient, at least described mushrooms that people have been using medicinally, at least in China. I think it's a painting more than it is actually a description from over 2000 years that describes the lingzir, the reishi. And they know it as the mushroom of immortality. A lot of these mushrooms were only reserved for the Emperor and their family. So, it was not something commoners were allowed to make tea out of and consume. And that just shows how much reverence and how important this mushroom was and is to those people, even 2000 years ago. And it's known to calm the spirit and support longevity, like I said before. And now we know that it's because of this whole arsenal of these terpenes, these ganoderic acids and ganodermic acids and whatnot, that they're actually great supporters for cardiovascular health. They can help protect the liver. A lot of people find benefits fit in reducing histamine reactions after working with reishi. So, if you are a person that is challenged with seasonal allergies, maybe in the months leading up to the season that you generally get those allergies, consume more reishi in your life. And then, at least in Chinese traditional medicine, women that in the lead up to their birth and then continue drinking reishi tea after the birth in the first month's breastfeeding are said to produce reishi babies, which are apparently should glow like little sons and be extra vibrant and healthy and sleep really good. So that's at least some of the traditional ways that reishi is seen and respected in Eastern Asia.

Oh, that's absolutely fascinating. I love that. So reishi is one of our very common mushrooms that we utilize in herbalism. And another one that we see is turkey tail. I'd love to hear you speak about turkey tail and its usage, tradition, impact on the immune system.

Yeah. So turkey tail is a little less like traditional use. It's like main use cases also come from the East Asia, so mainly China. Most mushrooms are really good for the immune system because they have these beta—like all mushrooms have basically some form of beta-glucan. With turkey tails, it's interesting because there are some specific ones that we know as polysaccharide krestin and polysaccharide peptides. And polysaccharide krestin is a protein-bound beta-glucan. And it was basically used in Japan in the 1970s to find out a way to deal with cancer. And they eventually produced one of the first chemotherapies, or at least chemotherapy supporting drugs from this polysaccharide krestin. And so as far as I know, as far as I'm aware, if you get a cancer diagnosis in Japan, it's often recommended to have turkey tail tea or fully extracted turkey tail mushrooms alongside your chemotherapy treatments. And what I really find fascinating and what really helped me is that there's some compounds in turkey tail that are really good for their prebiotics. So, they actually help feed your probiotic system within your guts. And after I traveled to Central America, I had some intestinal parasites, and then I had IBS for a while, and then I really started drinking a lot of turkey tail tea, and I found that was really helpful. And it seems that in the scientific literature, there's also some leeway, some leaning in towards the beneficial effect for the gut system from taking turkey tail. In Dutch, we have a very cute name for the turkey tail. It's the fairy bench. So, there's tons of little fairy benches in the Netherlands.

Fairy bench is such a fun name for turkey tail. If you all have not seen turkey tail, it is beautifully colored and sits like a little shell popping off of a log. So lion's mane. Let's talk about this mushroom. It's very popular these days. It's commonly discussed for its impact on cognition and mood in the herbal world. I'd love to hear you speak about traditional uses and modern research.

Yeah. So, I think a lot of people don't know that there is a really old tradition in Japan of consuming turkey tail mushroom, but Yamabushi monks, which are a specific sect of practice, esoteric Buddhism. And that's why in Japan, it's sometimes called Yamabushitake. So, shiitake is basically like, mushroom or take is mushroom. And then, for example, shiitake is just oak mushroom. And then the Yamabushitake is the mushroom of these specific esoteric Buddhist monks, and they would eat the mushroom or drink the tea of the mushroom, or sometimes even dehydrate it and have powder before they meditate. So that's one of the traditional ways that we know lion's mane has been consumed. Right now, obviously, it's one of the most popular mushrooms, especially because I think a lot of the health scene sometimes can get, how can we get more productive? How can you optimize optimize. Anything that sharpens or commission everybody's interested in, which it does, and it does help. And there's the two main compounds. There's these hericenones and erinacines, and these erinacines so far have only been found in the mycelium. So that's one of the arguments for mycelium on grains sometimes. But now I found some specific research. I saw some, it was not peer-reviewed yet, but a paper come by that somebody did find these erinacines in a specific cultivated variety, so a strain of lion's mane. So, people might be developing strains that have these specific compounds. And that's obviously linked to nerve growth factor. So, the capacity for our bodies to regrow nerves. And a lot of people find cognitive clarity with that. The thing in a research is, it's one of the—mostly, I would say it's like mushrooms are seasonal, eat mushrooms seasonally. So don't just have your five and consume them every day, all year long. But with lion's mane, the research is suggesting that it's like a it's a building effect. And the moment that you stop consuming it on a daily basis, the cognitive and the nerve growth factor beneficial effects seem to decline as well. So less so on this optimization side. I'm really interested in the efficacy it seems to be having for people that have neurodegenerative diseases or people that are faced severe concussions and have traumatic brain injury from those events. Obviously, a lot of people that play some contact sports are struggling with these side effects or just like an unfortunate fall. And not just the scientific promise, but also the direct—what's the word again? The direct anecdotal effect that people seem to be having from taking lion's mane mushroom and consuming lion's mane mushroom is really, really promising and really incredible that consuming this mushroom can get so much of that benefit. And it's really fun because lion's mane is actually a tasty, tasty, really tasty edible mushroom. So, if you're lucky enough to have a farmer close by, you don't even need to get into the whole thing of getting the extracts and all that stuff. And if you like eating mushrooms, eating lion's mane mushrooms on a daily basis is a treat for sure. Some of the research also showcases that you don't necessarily need an extract because the lion's mane mushroom is so fleshy and soft that even dehydrated mushroom powder, specifically, is going to give you some of this cognitive benefit. It's not just the full extract. Of course, you're going to get more of those components, and you're going to get it more concentrated. This is just something I had buy. I took it before this. My friends made this from Michael Love, but this is a 25 to one, and you see it's super thick and gooey. So, it's a 25 to one. So, I really take one little drop of this like this, a little bit bigger like this, and then also my finger. And that's just more than enough. So, it's like convenience. That's why if you're traveling or something, this is a lot easier to carry than a bunch of lion's mane all the time.

That was so goopy. I love it. Obviously, you can tell that it is very high in the polysaccharide content. Yeah, they have a funny name for it as well. They call them artar. I really love that we were able to talk about lion's mane in this capacity because I feel like you're really highlighting the nutritional component. A lot of mushrooms are edible, specifically cooked. Maybe you could actually share if there are raw mushrooms that you can eat. But as far as I understand, the cooking process is important. But the edibility, the nutritional component of mushrooms is a big part of what they have to offer.

Yeah. And there are a very select few mushrooms that you can eat raw. I actually had a really amazing experience last weekend where we found a pretty obscure mushroom. It's called Pseudohydnum gelatinosum. It's the cat's tongue mushroom. I think it's sometimes called in English. Common names are hard because in Dutch, it's called gestekelde trilzwam. But it's really soft. It's one of the jelly fungi. Maybe you've seen witches butter, like Tramella species. You can have those raw as well. So, we found this really gelatine, soft mushroom. And I was with a friend who's originally from Japan, and he was like, what? It feels like mochi. And he had that kinako stuff, the soybean, the roasted soybean with sugar. And then we rolled this mushroom in this roasted soybean sugary thing, and then we made some mushroom mochi, and it was incredible raw. So, there are some. I think famous, there's also the beefsteak fungus, like hepatica fistulina, hepatica fistulina, which can eat raw. So, they generally are really soft, more fleshy. And then, of course, all the Tremellas, which are also really amazing medicinals, like witches butter or the snow fungus is getting in popularity, and I don't know the mycochemistry of this specifically, but there's a component in it that makes your skin cells hold more moisture, and so it's really good for your skin, basically. So Tremella mushrooms, very interesting. You can eat them raw as well.

That's absolutely fascinating. Thank you for sharing. And obviously, we know that not all mushrooms are edible or able to be used, even extracted for medicinal applications, but it's fun to speak towards the ones that can be used. So one of the mushrooms that we are seeing as well alongside lion's mane and reishi is cordyceps. And cordyceps is an absolute fascinating fungi, which I will let you share about. But we're seeing it in the herbal natural health field is that energy boost and recovery. And yeah, love for you to speak towards cordyceps.

Yeah. I love cordyceps. So, there's two different species when we talk about cordyceps. So, we have the Ophiocordyceps sinensis, which was the traditional ghost moth caterpillar fungus that is still harvested in the grass plains in the mountains of Tibet. And this is one of the most expensive natural medicines in the world. I think it can go up to $20,000 per pound or something insane. Because you have to imagine you're in the highlands of Tibet.

Have these large grass fields, and then you're looking for a mushroom that's this big, that is completely gray. So, people are literally on their hands and knees trying to comb through a whole field because you find 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 of these things, and that can be a yearlong wage in those places.

So, it comes from traditional Chinese medicine. I think I'm by no means an expert, but it seems that anything that is phallic shaped in traditional Chinese medicine is supposed to do really well for your sexual paralysis for the men at least. So, they're looking for those things. And I think that's where it came from.

But now we are finding also within the research that's one of these components, these beta-glucans, this cordycepin, actually can at least increase your libido for both men and women. But the most interesting way of thinking is its relation to adenosine, especially adenosine triphosphate. The adenosine is what we use, what a mitochondria and our cells use to move our bodies. So, by increasing the production of adenosine and adenosine triphosphate, a lot of people find benefits taking it pre-workout. So, you have more energy. I like to run, so I like to take it before I go on runs, and I feel it has a direct—it's one of the few mushrooms I feel, together with lion's mane, that you can take a big dose and you feel the effects, for me personally, at least.

But most mushrooms these days are obviously not this Ophiocordyceps sinensis. We're working with Cordyceps militaris. And Cordyceps militaris is also native to Europe and the United States. It's like my friend William Padilla-Brown, he calls it the Orange Space Cheeto, Alien Space Cheeto, because it looks like a Cheeto. And people in China and Thailand figured out how to grow them, but they did not share those secrets with the West. And this friend William Padilla-Brown, together with Ryan Paul-Gates, figured out a couple of years ago from watching Thai infomercials on YouTube, how to grow this mushroom themselves. And this is why we have now a booming United States Cordyceps militaris cultivation markets, which is really fascinating and interesting. Yeah, it's right now still one of the most expensive medicinal mushrooms to cultivate and also to purchase. But so many people are moving into it now, and it a little bit trickier to grow than other mushrooms, but it's not necessarily really, really difficult.

I think it's always interesting to talk about this zombie ant fungus, because maybe some people have seen The Last of Us, and they think, "Oh, no, cordyceps." Well, the cordyceps that movie and that game is based on is really specific. It's called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. It's really cool. There's about 38 different species that every species only infects one specific host, so one carpenter ant, and it grows into the nervous system, and it takes over the nervous system without fully growing it, takes control of the body, and then its goal is to spread its spores as close or to the colony as possible, often above the colony. I can talk for 15 minutes about how cool this group of mushrooms is. But they're so specific that one species of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis cannot infect another species of ants. So, there's only one species of this cordyceps mushroom for one species of ants.

So, our immune systems are way more complex than those of insects. Our body temperatures are really way higher. That's one of the key things that keeps fungi infections out of us because our core temperature is 38 degrees Celsius. So, we don't have to fear that this "Last of Us" situation is going to happen anytime soon unless some super genius is trying to make it happen with, I don't know what kind of future biotech, but I think at least it brought some more attention to mushrooms, which I thought was pretty cool. Well, thank you for easing some dystopian future fears that may have been out there.

All right, let's talk about chaga. So, I want to hear you speak about chaga and the wildcrafting ethical side, as well as speaking to the symbiotic relationship that chaga has with the birch and the betulin synergy aspect, where we are really seeing the sclerotium of chaga be a joint effort between the tree and fungi. Yeah, so chaga is not a mushroom. It's a sclerotia. So, it's basically sterile conk, and it's produced by the birch. They also grow an alder in Estonia, but mostly birch, to try to fight off its fungal invasion because the chaga is what we call Inonotus obliquus. So, it kills its host, and then it eats the dead things. And the birch is trying to make that not happen. And the result is this beautiful conk that you can harvest by just breaking it off. And it has this beautiful orange pattern inside. And traditionally, it was used as a coffee substitute in Finland. Right now, we know it's like incredibly full with medicinal compounds. And a lot of those are related to the birch trees. So, we have betulinic acids and polyphenols, inotodiol, other glucans. So, a lot of these are related to our immune system. I think also chaga is still the highest concentrated antioxidant you can find in the natural world. So, if you feel like you're dealing with a lot of free radicals and cellular decay, maybe if you've just been a tobacco smoker and you want your cells to be more healthy, that might be a great moment to start consuming chaga. It's one of the few mushrooms that I highly suggest taking if you're actually sick. So, if you get the flu or something, you might make a pot of chaga tea, and you can get that on a low simmer. As far as I know, most of the beneficial compounds are also pretty water soluble. Of course, there's always benefit in making a double extract, but I personally really like the flavor of chaga tea. It feels very warming and soothing and medicinal. You can put other herbs and other spices and stuff in there.

Yeah, so a lot of people, especially in the United States, I think it was led by Robert Rogers, who is obviously an incredible teacher. And if you've not read his work and if you're interested in like, medicinal mushroom herbologies, like check out The Fungal Pharmacy. It's too much. I can't believe he mustered up that much knowledge into one and that's already updated, and he has lots more. But he was worried about overharvesting, which I think if—and again, if you are conscious and aware, you're not going to hurt the organism or the birch if you harvest the conk. So, the issue with the overharvesting comes from these corporations that cut down the whole birch tree to get a small young conc or this corrosion of the chaga. And then the chaga cannot go through its whole life cycle. So, the fruiting of the chaga fungus, the Inonotus, is hardly visible, but it's hardly a mushroom. There's these microscopic spores that release. Everywhere I go in the northern hemisphere in birch forest, there's so much chaga, and birch trees don't really live that long. They live up to 50 years, I'm pretty sure. The birch polypore, phomotopsus betamina, is a way bigger issue of killing, actually, the birch trees in the Netherlands. So, I've also seen pictures and videos of people in Siberia harvesting chaga, and it's like there's so much chaga. You cannot ever consider taking too much of it. I think it might also be part of if you live in an area where there's a lot of mycophiles and people that love foraging mushrooms, then you might see people having taken chaga right next to the path, and there's no more chaga right next to the path. Well, 10 years ago, it used to be a lot of chaga next to the path. But I think if you go out in the wild, that's still more—yeah, it's still more, I'd say, more abundance out there.

On one end, I personally love taking chaga. I don't know if there's much benefit taking it on a frequent basis. I think it's generally considered—if you feel a sickness coming in, start drinking it and then no longer. So, I don't think a daily consumption of chaga has much of the benefits that most people are looking for. Of course, there's always new research being done. And what's interesting with chaga, it's we see massively, wildly ranging constituents and these metabolites present depending on where it was harvested. So, there's Estonian chaga that's growing on birch. Then there's Estonian chaga that's growing on alder that has a whole completely different microchemical profile. Then, of course, chaga in northeastern United States or chaga in Canada. It's going to look different. So, it's a complicated subject. But I don't think that as long as you know the person that harvested it or have a source that's really, really open about how they harvest chaga, I don't necessarily think overharvesting is that much of an issue. There's obviously some people that are experimenting with chagas growing mycelium, which I think the magic happens with this symbiosis, right? It's this fungus and the birch tree. Actually, most of those beneficial product compounds come from the birch tree. So, I think although some of those papers did suggest that it seems to be high in some of these metabolites. I think just the chaga by itself is truly incredible, and it's been consumed, at least in Europe, for a very, very long time for a good reason, I believe.

Thank you, Jasper. I am really glad to hear your input on this subject. I think chaga is absolutely fascinating. So that was some great mushroom materia medica, that we just went through. I have a couple more questions that I would love to hear you speak towards. So, one of them is, what claims about the world of mycology or medicinal mushrooms are you seeing that turn you off? Which ones do you wish would disappear from popular culture or maybe the social media landscape?

Well, and a person that I love reading, Dr. Anna Sitkoff, has been going on this vendetta against mushroom coffee. And now there's also a paper that recently got at least, that actually combining your medicinal mushrooms with your coffee is actually not a good thing. So, the tannins in coffee, if they mix with polysaccharide, they can make these composites, the tannins polysaccharide composites that are actually harder to absorb for your body. So, this whole mushroom coffee hype that started, I think, out of the simple, like, oh, you're already drinking coffee, so might as well add mushrooms to the coffee and get it into your habits, might actually not be beneficial at all. And then I also thought that this tannin polysaccharide composite might actually reduce how much caffeine your body is able to take up. So, you're not getting the effects of the mushrooms, but you're also not getting the effects of the coffee. Which I always—I love making mushroom coffees because it's a great way. So, I'm trying to get out of that right now, and I'm curious to see more research. And I think the main thing is what I love to see more of is just more aware and educated consumers, but also, support your local mushroom grower. Don't buy from the big companies. I know there's everywhere in the world right now, there is some hobbyist who just loves to grow their own mushrooms and extract their own mushrooms and make really high-quality small batch products. I think that's a way more interesting and fascinating way to have a relationship with your medicine if you're not making it yourself than buying from some large corporation where this stuff might sit in a warehouse for a year or so. I'd rather see that go. I understand that some companies are really good at scaling and they make it a little bit more affordable on the entry level, if you don't know anybody. But I think to get the highest quality medicinal mushroom extract, you got to find your local grower, supplier, wild forager. And that's a thing I always like to share.

Those are really good tips, Jasper. Thank you. I also want to say a lot of the mushroom substitute coffee blends are not going to fall into that like tannin polysaccharide complex thing because they're totally pulling out the coffee aspect, but just calling it a coffee substitute, right? Yeah. Oh, that's a good thing to talk about because I know some of the cacao also has tannins, and I'm here right now drinking cacao and have mushrooms in it. So, I'm not walking my talk right now. But a lot of those also use myceliated grain. So, then you have, okay, you have your coffee substitute powder that then has mushroom, but then you have to look if they actually use mushroom extract powder and not some cheap stuff. I know the bigger brands generally use the myceliated grain. So again, look, I know some people, we actually have an herbalist on the lake. Shout out Julia Bentley from Casa Curativa. She makes her own coffee substitute with medicinal mushroom extracts. So again, find a small person that makes those things. If you like those substitutes or figure out how to make it yourself and become that person in your human ecosystem, I think that's always a good way to go about things. Fascinating. Thank you for sharing.

All right, my last question to you, Jasper. Mushrooms are just at the forefront, I should say, fungi are at the forefront of so much incredible research in all of these various fields. What are you most excited about in the research fronts that are coming out in relation to fungi? Oh, man, so much. Everything. I write a newsletter every week, and I have featured two of my favorite articles. I have all the Google Alerts on, and like I nerd out about that. And there's always so much interesting stuff. I'm always really fascinated in evolutionary biology, is how old do we think these are now? It's pretty solid evidence that mushrooms are even—or fungi, I must say as well, are hundreds of millions of years older than previously thought, which I find really interesting. And there's also recently been some research from Tanzania, I'll just might pop that in, wherein they found that, like primates actually are consuming a lot more mushrooms than previously thought. So, I think they found this group of baboons that's something like 35% of their yearly calorie intake was from mushrooms. And I think that might help us normalize microphages of the eating of mushrooms, because a lot of people have this understanding that most mushrooms are poisonous, or like most mushrooms are evil and dangerous. And with anything in nature, you have to be aware, but it's just not the case. There's actually more plants that are harmful to you and a lot more harmful to you than most mushrooms. And my friends recently pointed out that we invite all these really poisonous plants. A lot of people have Monsteras in their house, but if you eat Monsteras, you can end up in a hospital, right? And most mushrooms are just completely safe. And that's what we have to figure out as a society as well. I can tell you for one thing, I grew up saying that being told that I can touch certain mushrooms, every mushroom is safe to touch. And I think what's like, breaking down this microphobia is a good step for us to get closer to the mushroom. And what I'm most excited about right now is just more people looking at mushrooms, doing research figuring out which mushrooms are like what medicinal compounds are actually in this Fomitopsis betulina, this birch polypore that like Ötzi the Iceman 5,000 years ago in Europe carried with him until he died. Why was that mushroom so important to him. And I think that's just an exciting part about mycology. There's still so much to discover. Everybody listening right now can go out and find a mushroom, and there's a good chance that it's never been described in science. And that's just incredibly exciting that there's still so much to discover. It almost feels a little overwhelming, but it's also very motivating and exciting.

Jasper, your enthusiasm about fungi is absolutely infectious. So, thank you so much for sharing all of this information you have with us today. I absolutely want. Thank you. Yeah. Let's take a moment to tell our audience where they can find you and the work that you are doing out in the world. Yeah. So, Fungi Academy, so Herbal Academy, the F-U-N-G-I, Fungi Academy. We are trying to get our YouTube back, but you can find us on Instagram. So, Fungi Academy on Instagram, fungiacademy. com. We'll put the link to that list of all the Vimeo videos with our band, YouTube content out there. So, we are an intentional community, but also a mushroom education center. We teach people about mushroom cultivation, mushroom extraction, fungal ecology, ethnomycology, about mushroom foraging. And it's also a thing that we're really excited about is being inspired by how the fungi work in ecosystems and representing that into our human ecosystem. And I think a big archetype of that is helping others is inherently selfish. And fungi, especially mycorrhizal fungi, can be a great representative of that. I have to say for my colleagues that not all mushrooms are as benevolent, but I like to see them in this archetypical way of, as I just described in this talk, and that's what we're trying to represent, and seeing the mushrooms as mentors, as ways of being better people and better stewards of this planet. So, like I said, I also write a newsletter. It's called Mushroom Magic on Monday, every Monday. So, share what cool mushrooms I'm finding, what I'm learning, what's alive, what's alive in the community, and some cool mushroom research. So that's fungiacademy. com/newsletter.

Beautiful. Thank you, Jasper. This has been such a fun conversation, and I hope that our audience members walk away being super excited about mushrooms and all that they do for us in this world. So thanks for your time and your teachings. Yeah. Thanks for having me, and thanks for everybody watching for your attention in this world where attention is being pulled from left and right. Thanks for being part of the online herbalism conference and using your attention to learn about incredible plant allies, fungal allies, and the magical, wonderful world. This is the work that we all need to be doing, and it's good that you're showing up here.