Hello and welcome to Live like the World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host today inmanrowan. And today we're going to be talking about something that both fascinates and terrifies me, and that is mushrooms. And we're going to be talking about wild mushrooms, foraging mushrooms, and also growing mushrooms. And I know a little bit, and by a little bit, meaning that I know how scary it is. And I'm really excited to have some of that fear removed from my brain as we talk to our wonderful guest. But before all of that, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. It's going down and you're invited for what they selling, we ain't buying There is no running There is no hiding there's only fighting or dying it's going down and you're invited for what they sell it, we ain't buying There is no running There is no hiding there's only fighting or dying.
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And we're back. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Could you introduce yourself with your name pronouns and maybe a little bit about your experience foraging mushrooms or growing mushrooms?
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. My name's Logan. I use he, him, his pronouns. I've been foraging mushrooms for a little over 10 years now. I'm certified by the state of Kansas to identify and sell wild mushrooms in the state. And I've been growing mushrooms for the last couple years to sell at farmers markets.
Nice. How did you get into working with mushrooms?
I was introduced to foraging by an ex. We started out hunting morels, and then later on some friends got me one of those grow your own mushroom kits. And that kind of kick started my obsession that I've had with them.
Yeah, yeah, that seems like a pretty good way to get hooked. I feel like I. You mentioned this off air, but while we were talking, but there was definitely, like an era where like, you could walk into, like, any health food store and see, like, those little, like, kits or like, like grow shiitakes on a log or something, you know, and they were like these, like, tubes or little logs or something, you know?
Oh, yeah. Health food stores. I mean, for a while, you could almost find them in any big box store that you went into, even.
Yeah. Which I was really entranced by because I love eating shiitake mushrooms and I never want to pay for them. So I was like, ooh, I'm interested. And then I. I never did it. I think one of my landmates in when I lived in the woods did it once, and it was. It was really cool. But we'll get to growing mushrooms a little bit later in the show. So mushroom foraging, as I've maybe already mentioned, like, two different times, it kind of has, like, a stigma as being a little bit scary, but I know that it doesn't have to be. And so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about maybe the wonders and dangers of foraging mushrooms or, like. Yeah. Or I don't know what kind of mushrooms, maybe to start out with, what kind of mushrooms can you forage? Things you can eat, things that are for medicine? What different kinds of mushrooms are there? Are there a lot of different kinds of mushrooms? These are enormous questions, I think.
Yeah. And, I mean, that kind of goes. I think that's why there is. There is kind of a stigma, is because mushrooms or fungi, like, that's a whole kingdom of life, you know, and it's just as varied as the plant or animal kingdom. And, you know, just identification with mushrooms is, you know, just as important. When you're foraging for plants, you want to make sure that you're dealing with yarrow and not poison hemlock, for example. So. And what's kind of cool with mushrooms is most of the edible ones also have medicinal value. So, like, further north, especially, like in the Pacific Northwest, there's lion's mane, which can be turned into, like, a faux seafood. It has a similar texture and can be seasoned that way, but it's also really good for brain health. Then there's things like turkey tail reishi, and those, you know, different ones. They'll help with digestion and just general health. Even the oyster mushrooms, which are some of the more common ones and actually some of the easiest ones to grow yourself to, those have different peptides and chemicals in them that'll help lower your cholesterol.
Oh, cool. And I know there's. I have this, like, faint memory of, like, when I lived in Asheville, of, like, some friends who, like, they got really into hunting. God. What is it called? Chaga. Is that a mushroom or a fungus?
Yeah, it's one that it doesn't grow where I'm at, but I know that it's really prized for the medicinal benefits of it. And people will either just cook with it because it's, it's a hard mushroom. So they'll also like cut it or grind it up and make it into a tea too for different things like that.
Yeah, I just. To be honest, their main motivation was, I think that it was ridiculously expensive and they like knew someone who was like a certified seller or something. So they were just like hunting it to like make obscene amounts of money.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, selling it to health food stores or something.
The ones that you can't cultivate really do sell for crazy amounts of money. Like the last time I looked, morels were 50, $60 a pound.
Wow. Yeah, yeah. Are there any kind of like broad, I guess, sub classifications of mushrooms? Kind of like how we have. In the plant kingdom or animal kingdom?
I would say there's families of different ones. That's almost certainly not the scientific term, but it's what I'm gonna go with.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But so like there's so many different varieties of oyster mushrooms. They all look similar, you know, kind of branch out from usually from a dying or dead tree and have gills on the bottom and a fairly flat top. And as they get older, they open up and look a bit more like a fan. And I don't know of any in that family that are harmful. Then also with morels, there's a lot of them, they all look similar kind of a. They grow just straight out of the ground, have this weird like brain looking thing on the top and the stem is hollow when you cut into it. And we talked a little bit offline about not really trying to get too deep into the weeds of identifying individual mushrooms on this as well. So I don't want to get too far into that.
Yeah, yeah. I guess maybe it's like what I'm thinking of in regards to this is there's like. And forgive me because I don't know the words, but just things that I see. I feel like there's like, like the, like the button mushrooms or something and then there's like shelf mushrooms and then there's like, I don't know, like, I guess like other. Are there like other sort of like way. How do mushrooms grow? Maybe let's start like that.
Okay. So yeah, there's. They start out as spores, which are somewhat like the seeds of the mushroom. And then when those start growing, they. And you might even see this if you Dig in your yard or see it on a log that has the mushrooms growing, you'll start seeing, like, these little hair, like, fibers.
That's the mycelium.
Yep, that's the mycelium. And that's, for lack of a better word, the root structure of it. And when there's also like this thing of people saying when you go out to hunt mushrooms not to just pull them up out of the ground because you'll damage the roots, there is nothing that you can. That a person can do that's going to damage that mycelium network enough to actually hurt it. So if you find a mushroom that is safe to eat and you don't have a way to, you know, cut it off or you just don't care about cleaning the dirt off later, just go ahead and pull it. It's not going to hurt anything.
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that'll hurt the mushroom knife business. What are mushroom knives used for? I've made a couple of them for people, and I was like, I don't really understand what these are for.
It's really to keep from, you know, pulling up a bunch of dirt with them with the mushroom. Or if you're. There's some that, like, grow on logs that are woodier and tougher. So sometimes having. Having a knife really helps to get them off. But for the most part, you can kind of tear or just pull. Pull it off. It just makes it a little bit easier. And as far as why that specific, like, curve that a lot of mushroom knives have, I don't know. Other than it just makes it easy to. With a quick kind of wrist movement to be able to cut it.
Yeah. Because they kind of have those little, like, bill. Hook, like, beak things or something. Yeah. Cool. Or. Yeah. So we're not gonna really get too into, like, identifying specific mushrooms. But I'm curious, how do you. How do you learn about foraging and like, are there systems that are used to identify mushrooms? I know there's like, plant keys. I see all my friends got really into keying plants and any walk in the woods with them would turn them to them. Pulling out a book in one of those little. I don't know what they're called, the little mini pocket lenses. And they're just sitting there for 20 minutes being like, it's a. This thing. Yeah. How are they kind of identified? Sorry, this is a convoluted question because I told a story.
Oh, no, no, it's. I followed just fine. So I. At first, I want to say, like, I. I spent probably the first three years that I foraged, only looking for morels. So I didn't really start branching out until I was comp, you know, fully confident with the one. But really, a lot of the edible types don't have too many lookalikes to them. So you can kind of find ones that are native to your area and have, you know, like a decent season and then really look into how to identify them. Like, you know, I kind of talked a little bit about oysters and morels. Lion's mane is this kind of big white poof that has these little tendrils that we call teeth that kind of come off of it. And each one kind has their own distinct characteristics, for lack of a better word. And it's really just kind of looking at that some really good. There's a really good field guide if you want to get into the weeds about, like, trying to identify every mushroom you come across. The Audubon Society actually makes a really good field guide. When I first found out about it, I was kind of blown away because I thought they only dealt with birds.
Yeah, I'm surprised by that, too. I'm like, birds and mushrooms, I mean, makes sense.
But like, yeah, apparently they deal with all sorts of, you know, natural stuff. And then, you know, also on social media, there are so many mushroom identification groups out there that are just a great resource. If you're not sure about what you found. Take a couple pictures of the top, the underside of the mushroom and kind of where it's growing and you'll get, you know, so many helpful people that are. Want to, you know, talk to you about the mushroom.
Yeah, yeah. And are there, I guess, like in the similar way that there are, like, for identifying, I guess, like plants or something where if you're like keying a plant, you look at the leaves and the bark or whatever are there. What are kind of the components of the mushrooms that people are kind of looking at to identify them. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Or what are the parts of doing an identification?
I guess so first you'll want to look at the basic shape and that's, you know, like, it could be those shelf type, like what you were talking about, or ones that kind of have more of a, of a comb or like a jelly type fungus. And then you want to look at the underside and if they have gills underneath or pores, or there's some like chanterelles that have ridges or false gills underneath, and that's generally like where the spores would come out of on those.
Okay.
And then if you really want to get into it. You can do what's called spore print, where you take the mushroom and you put part of it on white paper and part of it on black or another dark paper and under a container with the underside down against the paper and just leave it for, you know, usually overnight would be enough and it'll release the spores. And from that spore print and how it shows up on the paper, you can kind of determine the specific genus and species.
Whoa, wait, that sounds, that sounds ridiculous. Yeah, they're like that distinguishable.
Yeah.
The spore print.
Yeah. It's not like quite getting into like as fine a detail as like a fingerprint is, but they're. You can get pretty specific with them a lot of times. And especially taken with the other information that's, you know, it just narrows it down to maybe at most like two or three different species, but you've got it within a very small, very related group of mudhymes that are generally going to have pretty much the same properties.
Yeah. Okay. Wow, that's so freaky. How many? I don't, I don't know if you know the answer to this. It's a very, a nonspecific number. How many, how many mushrooms or funguses are there? Like, is it hundreds? Is it thousands? It.
There's at least 14,000 different ones, different species of mushrooms in the world. And there are some really interesting ones too. In Oregon. It's one of, if not the largest, one of the largest living organisms is a honey mushroom that they've nicknamed the humongous fungus. It's kind of like the Aspen's pando, but you know, just one massive network that's all technically the same thing.
Yeah, yeah. It's so freaky. I love it.
Yeah.
In this role playing game that we, that we created at Strangers, there's this like giant fungus that like, fungal entity that like lives under the city. And I think it kind of took some, some inspiration from the giant honey fungus in Oregon.
If, like, I've been looking at that and needing to pick it up at some point here in the near future.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, if that giant honey mushroom could talk to us and maybe do magic, which maybe it can. I don't know. I don't live there. Are there kind of like. I guess so one of our. We take questions from our Patreon subscribers. So if you're listening to this and you want to ask us questions about any of these episodes that we do, we post them on our Patreon and you can we'll post when we're doing them, and you can, like, ask us questions for our guests. And one Patreon subscriber asks, are there ways to get more confident in foraging identification? Which I think you've kind of gone over, but, yeah, in the. Like, you're starting out. There's. You. You've got morels. You've, like, you've. You've identified the shit out of Morales and you're like, okay, but what else is there? How do you. How do you do that?
I would say it's just like any other skill that you get. Right. Like, sure. That you didn't just start out, you know, knowing everything that there really is to know about audio editing and stuff like that. When it came to the podcast, it's just with repetition and practice and asking other people that know more about it, and then you just slowly start putting more things in that toolbox that you have and getting more information. There are, like I said, wonderful communities of people online. If you live in an area that has, you know, a decent amount of wild mushrooms, there's probably a local community that you could find where people will help with the identification and teach you tricks that way. I will say to trust, you know, people and reputable organizations that produce books for identification over AI or massive websites.
Does a. Are there AI. Are there AI tools for identifying mushrooms? That's. That sounds terrifying.
I don't like. I'm sure there are. I would not trust them. I do not trust them. There was recently a family in Australia that purchased a book that they did not realize was written by AI off of Amazon, and they all ended up getting poisoned by mushrooms that the book said was safe. So, yeah, this is not something that you want to trust. A language learning program to tell you what's safe.
Yeah, yeah. Talk to people. Yeah, I guess. Are there. That is. That's like a new level of terrifying. And it's on the level of, like, AI is gonna, like, get us all fucking killed.
Yeah, it's. Yeah. Might be good for some things, but people need to learn to keep it in its lane and not let it do everything.
Yeah. Yeah. So one of our Patreon subscribers asked about good resources to seek out for local foraging. I think you mostly covered that. Are there, like, is it, like. I'm curious about the Audubon Society now? And, like, is the Audubon Society, like, a good place to hit up for these kinds of things?
I mean, I know about their book because it is. It is ridiculously detailed. My only complaint with the Copy that I had was that nothing was in color.
That seems important for.
But like, it. The level of detail that it gives in the written description, like it tells you the color and everything. It just. The pictures are drawn and that's probably just for, you know, printing price or something, you know, not having color print.
Yeah.
But also I would say, you know, your local farmers market there, if there's someone there that sells mushrooms, even if they grow them themselves, there's a decent chance that they forage or. You know, I've just. It's strange because like I said, I'm in Kansas and we don't have the large amounts of rain that they get in, like the Pacific Northwest, where there's the really big culture around mushrooms. But I've still found people. I've moved to a couple different cities since I've been in. Been doing this and like, I just happen upon people that kind of are into the same thing.
Yeah. Yeah. What kind of. I think it's. I haven't really. I've never been to Kansas, but I was suddenly like, wait, mushrooms grow in Kansas? What kind of like, I guess environments do mushrooms grow in? We, like, I live in a desert and I occasionally see mushrooms, which is so ridiculous.
It'S crazy. There's. From my understanding, any sort of healthy soil has a level of fungus in it. It's just. It's just kind of needed. And so most regions will have some sort of mushrooms that grow there. It's a matter of how many, you know, what types, how long throughout the year they're available and things like that. And unfortunately, with climate change, that's screwing things up more. What would have, you know, the morel season used to be a couple months here when I first started foraging, and now it seems like it's been weeks the last couple years. Just because they. Mushrooms will start to fruit when the conditions are right. Like they'll. They kind of feel some stress and then they pop out. And the fruit is its way of spreading its spores and kind of going to a new area. So it's. And a lot of them have specific temperature ranges or humidity levels that they go through. And you know, unfortunately, as the world is getting hotter and rainfalls are more weird and wacky, either too dry in some areas or way too wet in others. It's just harder to predict.
Yeah. And there's like. I think this was just for. Or I guess I don't know if this is just for them. Like, I went harvesting chanterelles with some friends in Washington and it was like the. It was like it rained and then it was like a couple days after it rained was like the time to go.
Yeah.
And I sort of have a question mark at the end of this. I don't know if what we did was right or not, but.
Yeah, that really been my experience with a lot of them is, you know, you get a good rain, you know, and kind of within the temperature range. Chanterelles are, you know, one of the ones that show up and when it's a little bit warmer out generally, and. But, you know, after there's been time for the ground to ground or the wood to absorb all that moisture, then there's enough resources for the fungus to build the mushroom, kind of.
I see. And the, the, like the fruiting body is like the thing that you're picking off to eat or whatever that, like, picking that off doesn't harm the larger organism, right?
No, not at all. Yeah, that's. Like I said that. That mycelium is. Especially if, you know, you're in a wooded area or if it's a place where you've seen mushrooms come back year after year, that mycelium network underneath is just huge. So you're not going to do, short of, you know, just excavating a couple city blocks. You're not gonna really do anything to harm it.
Yeah. And it's like, likewise, you can't really, like, over harvest them.
No, no. Which is a good thing when, you know, compared to herbs or something like that.
Yeah. And I think I knew more about mushrooms than I thought I did. But you also like. Or. I've heard that. I've heard that if you find a spot, like a chanterelle spot or whatever, or whatever, morel spot that, like, if mushrooms grow there at one point, it's likely that, like, the next time it rains or the next season or whatever, that mushroom, that similar mushrooms will grow in those places. Is that true?
Yeah, it's. It is. It's also really kind of hit and miss, too, especially with, like, chanterelles and morels. They have. They're. They're very. And it's the same reason that they can't really be cultivated, because they have a weird symbiotic relationship with the trees. And it's part of what tells them when the fruit is like the condition of the nearby trees, whether one is starting to die off. So, like, they're not going to be getting the sugars from the roots of that tree. So they're like, okay, we need to spread somewhere else.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Freaky.
Yeah. There's studies like, there's mushrooms apparently can like do some communication between different plants. Like some people refer to it as a wood wide web.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard a little bit about this and it's like, it's crazy. Yeah. And I've heard that in like, I guess maybe I've heard this about the Southeast as opposed to the Northeast or, sorry, the Northwest, for example. In the Northwest, you can really measure an old growth forest by the size of the trees or the age of the trees. But in the Southeast, for example, old growth really has more to do with the amount of fungal connections going on in the soil and like between the trees. I don't know if that's true, but that's like a weird thing that I've.
Heard that would, that would make sense. I mean, it's just, I've heard that, you know, and just also as woodlands mature, like there's less bacteria in the, in the soil and more fungus in there. So like that's, that tracks with some of the things that I've heard.
Yeah. Before switching gears into kind of talking about like more like growing mushrooms, I just want to mention, or I guess bring this up. What. So we've, you know, obviously prefaced that mushrooms can be dangerous. What are, what are the dangers of eating not the right mushroom, I guess. And like, what do you, what do you do if you might have messed up, if you think you've messed up an ID and are suddenly unsure about what you've eaten or if like you start to feel weird and have symptoms from eating something.
Yeah. I will say, to start with, there's a humorous quote from Terry Pratchett that goes into this a little bit. It's all mushrooms are edible. Some mushrooms are only edible once.
Oh God.
And that's true. I mean, it's just again, just like plants the wrong, if you eat the wrong one, it could make you sick. There are some like death caps that, you know, could kill you. I would say if you're, if you think that you misidentified something and you're starting to notice symptoms first, you might just take, you know, a quick self evaluation to, you know, double check, make sure that you know, because it's something new to you, that you're not causing yourself to have an anxiety or panic attack. But also I would say reach out to some sort of healthcare provider, whether that's poison control, 911 for EMS, something like that, if that's not available and you might see if you can vomit up whatever you've eaten to where hopefully the poison hasn't bound to anything, or if you have access to activated charcoal. I know it does interact weirdly with a lot of different medications that people might be on, but it also is pretty good broadly about dealing with different talk ingested toxins and poisons. But yeah, definitely, I would. It. Yeah. It's just one of those things of. There are so many different types and there's not like one specific way that mushroom poisoning works. It's kind of like there's, you know, plants that are deadly don't work in one specific way. Kind of similarly. So going to a healthcare provider and, you know, bringing what information that you have about the mushroom so that they can figure out the best way to treat you is you're going to be your best bet.
Yeah. Like, would it be helpful to, like, I guess if you're. Especially if you're maybe new to a new. New to a new kind of mushroom or whatever. I like, I just want to repeat this because you told. You said it to me like, off air. It's like the best thing is to have, like, to do the identification correctly and to, like, feel confident in the identification.
Yes. Always make sure. I mean, I. Unless I know for sure what it is, I don't eat it.
Yeah.
And I've been doing this for over a decade because I just don't know enough about what other potential side effects there are and what all the dangerous ones are in my area. So it's. Yeah. The identification is really a key thing. Don't just go out and, you know, decide, oh, this one looks like it should be tasty. It smells nice. It kind of smells, you know, fruity. Let's try it in the salad.
Yeah. And I imagine that there are particular mushrooms that grow in your area. There's also probably notably dangerous ones that live in your area that you could probably easily look up to be on the lookout for.
Yeah. There's one particularly that when it metabolizes, it makes something similar to rocket fuel in your body. What? And my God, that will slowly build up over time and eventually cause a lot of health issues.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Would it make sense to. Maybe this is me being paranoid, but I feel like I'm like, okay, I got this new mushroom. I found this mushroom. I'm 100% sure that I know what it is, but maybe I'm gonna take a picture of it and not eat all of it so that if I start to feel weird, I have really solid evidence for what I've eaten. Or something.
Yeah. I mean, also, it's just kind of cool to, you know, take pictures of the stuff. You know, the cool stuff that you find when you're out foraging anyways. So. Yeah, I mean, you'll. You might just have that. But yeah, having. Having the picture evidence and when it is something new, you know, getting. Getting second opinions about your identification is completely valid. Unfortunately, like, kind. Like you said towards the top, there has been a stigma about foraging in the US for so long that there's a lot of the knowledge that you get is things that is kind of folklorish or things that people have heard second or third hand. And there's not this really. You have to really go out and look for good, solid information. There's not the robust amount of it. Like there are. For identifying animals or identifying plants or any. Or trees or anything like that.
Yeah, yeah. To give like a. It's like, I guess maybe like. I like what you said about like making sure that you're not having a panic attack as like a symptom, because it's like, I don't know, like, I had a friend who once had thought that they ate a lethal mushroom and after thinking it was maybe misidentified or like a lookalike for something and they started freaking out. They absolutely had a panic attack. And like, they were fine. You know, they were totally fine. They were having a panic attack, but they kind of like they made themselves throw up a lot and then they like, were just feeling sick from having thrown up so much. And so they were suddenly in this state of being like, well, I have no clue what's going on anymore because I can't trust my body anymore. And it was. Which was more harrowing than any danger that they were actually in.
Yeah, people are great about. I mean, our brains are great about tricking our bodies and doing things and faking symptoms and stuff like that. So like the, the placebo effect is real and it can work both ways.
Yeah. And maybe like we've. I feel like we've talked about the dangers more than I wanted to. But like, are there any, like, solid symptoms for like, something is wrong, like across the board with mushrooms?
Unfortunately, I. Not really. I mean, some of them, it's things that, you know, take time. Like the one that I mentioned earlier, you know, it would be having a decent amount of it over years before you started to have issues. There's others that will just, you know, kind of will make you sick to your stomach. And there's some that start to have like, some Paralytic type properties that you know will start to, will cause issues with your esophagus, your stomach, all of that. And because all of those rely on movement to do things. And so yeah, there's really not a general way, but I would say as someone who has anxiety issues myself and has had panic attacks and just taking a step back to reflect and see if it's like, okay, does this feel like something that I've gone through before in stressful situations or is this new, Is this a new type of bad that I need to deal with?
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, thanks for talking about some of the dangers.
Yeah.
To end the foraging part on a happier note, what's your favorite, what foraged mushroom to eat or what are some like notably tasty ones?
I mean, morels, they have a taste that's kind of similar to like red meat and they, they have that umami type and that is interesting. Then there's the chanterelles, like what you had. The last place I lived actually I had those growing in my yard crazily enough. So yeah, they have a little bit of a lighter kind of nutty taste sometimes. And then just because it's. They're cool looking and different. There's one called pheasant back and the top of it almost looks like there's little, there's these little. Almost reminds you of feathers pattern on the top that's brown. The smell is somewhat similar to like a melon and it does have a little bit of a fruity taste to it. Yeah, it's. It's crazy just the amount of variety and I'm actually growing some lion's mane that I'm. Like I said it doesn't grow naturally in my area, so I haven't tried it before. But I'm excited because I have a shellfish. I developed a shellfish allergy like five, six years ago. So I'm excited to try the fake seafood version of it and kind of scratch that itch.
Nice. Nice. That sounds really. I don't know if I've ever had lion's mane. I've had chicken of the wood. I think that's the other.
Yep. That I've had. And that's another one. Like it's. They're pretty. It's a bright, you know, yellow or orange mushroom that's kind of hard to misidentify. That there if kind of unique in how that one looks.
Yeah. Yeah. I guess this is still sort of related to foraging but like I feel like there's this kind of. It's I guess maybe a myth that's like kind of perpetuated by like movies and TV and stuff. But like how easy is it to rely on foraging for like nutrition or calories, especially if you're in like a. I don't know, like a survival situation? It seems like very like entirely season dependent.
Yeah, it really is. It's, it's a very seasonal thing and it's even when they're, when they're in season, you know, you. I've gone out to areas where I found them before and spent hours looking in the woods and came back with nothing, which can be a downer. But I think of it as like a grown up Easter egg hunt where you know, kind of. Because morel season in my area is. And you know, usually around early April, so about the same time frame that that holiday usually falls. But it's just. And it's an excuse to go walk around in the woods. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, it's. I wouldn't, I wouldn't count on it as a main source of calories and also I, I wouldn't, I'd expect that there would be needed like vitamins and things that you just aren't going to get from mushrooms.
Yeah. So what kind of like on a food level, like what, what are mushrooms? Are they like a protein, a carbohydrate? Like what are they nutritional?
God. Well, the, the government classifies them the same way as like produce, like fruits and vegetables.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I would say as far as like where they fit in on a grocery store. Yeah, the, the produce section with the fruits and veggies is probably the best fit. And also that's usually where you'll find them, especially if you go to like the more like natural food stores and they have a bigger variety of them.
Yeah. Are there any kind of like more nutritionally dense like mushrooms that you know of that are like, like is chicken of the woods like a more nutritionally dense mushroom just because it like feels heartier?
I don't know for sure about that one. I will say they're all, they are all actually pretty nutritionally dense. They have a decent amount of not necessarily calories, but vitamins, minerals, things of that nature in them. And you'll notice when you cook them that they're a lot of them are a lot of it is water weight inside slides. So when you cook them down they really shrink a lot. And that's just a kind of a thing with mushrooms.
Yeah, yeah. I've like. You really like see it with like chanterelles especially, like, you gotta like use them pretty quickly or they get, they get weird really quickly.
Yeah.
But are there, are there mushrooms that you can like if. Are there any kind of foraged mushroom? I guess, I guess you could forage any mushroom. But are there ones that store particularly well? Like, can you like dry them, powder them? Is it totally, totally dependent on the, on the mushroom?
Actually, most mushrooms, because they're mostly water, they will, they'll dehydrate really well, they might. And then when you want to, you know, end up using them, I've taken dried ones and just like toss them in the crock pot with a roast or something like that and they'll rehydrate in there. Or you can just soak them in some warm water for half hour or so to let them reabsorb. It can mess with the texture a little bit doing it that way it won't be the same as when they were fresh.
Totally.
And then. But also, you know, after they're dried, if you just want to use them as like an additive, you can definitely make a mushroom powder. Just take all the dried ones and put them in a blender or food processor and until it's just a powder. And I actually have some that I have sitting in a mason jar with a little oxygen absorber that I add to pastas, soups, things like that.
Yeah, that sounds good.
Yeah, it's. It's just like a nice little, nice little addition and not having to, you know, you don't have to cook down whole mushrooms for it. It's just you've got this little powder that, you know, in the time that everything else is cooking, it's going to cook along with it.
Yeah, that is really cool. I want to. I wish I lived somewhere with. I live in a desert. There's maybe there's edible mushrooms here, but.
Yeah, I don't know. The only thing that coming to mind they would be like, it's considered a parasitic fungus on corn that came from Mexico. Corn smut. It's also. They also call it Mexican truffle or I might butcher the pronunciation. It's hot lacoche, I think. But it's just this mushroom that grows on the ear of the year of corn. So. Yeah, in places like that it's different and it's kind of. I guess there's a lack of a lot of other different type of life in that region too.
Yeah, well, I don't know. Depends.
Yeah.
I live in one of the most biodiverse deserts on the planet.
Oh, that's Crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's what. It's wonderful and weird. So another question from a Patreon subscriber. Are there, I know like plant medicine. It's like there's so many ways to store them. Whether it's like dried plant or like tincture or like glycerin based things or whatever. You know, whether you're using it for. For tea or however.
Yeah.
Are there different ways to store mushrooms? Does it all kind of like do. Is it kind of just powder or can you like. I don't know, can you tincture a mushroom?
Yeah, you can. There's people make tinctures out of the more medicinal type mushrooms like lion's mane and chaga and things like that. And drying is kind of the most. I think just one of the most accessible ones. But there's definitely other ways. I, I don't see a reason why even like pickling wouldn't work.
Oh, interesting.
It would. I mean you'd have to figure out the right spices to kind of offset the vinegary bit of it. But yeah, I mean it's all doable and they're. The main thing is just the water content. So you, you just have to find a way to deal with that for long term storage.
Yeah. Yeah. It seems almost like if you wanted to do a tincture you'd have to like dry it first.
Yeah.
To deal to like remediate the water or something.
I mean which that honestly is if you're in, you know, as long as it's not ridiculously humid, you can just leave mushrooms on wire racks and they'll. Or honest put them on a string, you know, with a needle and thread and hang them up and they'll dry. Or you know, you can use a normal dehydrator or put them on the lowest setting in an oven.
Oh cool. Yeah, that is good to know. That was my next question to kind of coming up towards the end of our time but I wanted to remember to talk about them. So we've talked a little bit about growing mushrooms on like logs for the most part. But I know you had a couple other methods you wanted to mention that are kind of. That might be even like easier than logs.
Yeah. I would say the simplest way for anyone that you know wants to try and see if growing mushrooms is for them, you can still. You can buy the ready to fruit bags and you can get those from. I recommend going to a place like Field and Forest which I think Rocklow Farms also mentions them when you interviewed them. Or there's North Spore there's a few other. There's so many different places online that sell mushroom products and they'll sell this bag that has, you know, all the hard work's been done. You just get something, you kind of. You cut an X in it, spray it with distilled water a couple times a day to just keep the humidity up, and within a week you're harvesting mushrooms off of it.
And the thing is, the components here are like, you're like inoculant and your substrate.
Yeah, I mean, they've already done all of that. It's already fully colonized at that point, and it's just ready to go for you. You can also. The next, like I will say, as far as difficulty goes, the next step is one that I did kind of as an experiment a little while ago is you can get a. Get a. Some. I would recommend oyster spawn. Just any, any variety of oyster mushrooms that will tolerate your climate or wherever you want to grow them. And I will say that if you're going to grow them inside, you're going to want to have a way to protect the rest of your house from the mushroom spores because you don't want them growing on the wood of your house. You don't want to breathe in the spores or anything like that. It's. It's kind of like if you were to breathe in like fine dust particulates, it's not good for you. And then oysters are really aggressive. If there's damp wood, they'll find it and they'll decide to make that their home. It start growing.
Just imagine having oyster mushrooms growing off your bookshelf though, you know. Yeah, just imagine it.
You can find pictures of ones that are growing in people's bathroom and stuff. But so you get a bag of the spawn or, you know, you could also get a bag of just sterilized grain spawn and a syringe with the spores that you inject into it. And then once that's ready, you also will get some chopped straw that you can usually pick up for pretty cheap. I think the last time I looked, it was like $14 at like a tractor supply type store, you know, where they deal with large animals and then get, you know, one of those cheap plastic laundry baskets with holes all over it.
Yeah.
And so you're going to need something that you can put this, put the straw in first and you need to pasteurize it. One way is to just pour a bunch of boiling water over it and let it soak in that for a couple hours and what we're doing is just trying to kill any other like microorganisms or competing fungus or anything else that might be in there.
I love the low tech.
Yeah, it's, it's solution. Yeah, I started looking into low tech stuff. Something else was and this is what I did because I, you know, I like playing around and experimenting. You can also take and in a, you know, good sized barrel, put in all that chopped straw, probably put it in inside a pillowcase or something first so it's easy to pull out. And then fill it full of water and add a lot of, add enough wood ash to where you raise the PH up to like an 8 or a 9. It takes a lot of, it takes a lot of ash. I was doing a lot of grilling and had a fire pit going pretty constantly when I did this. But I had some trip some test strips from my fish aquarium and I just would dunk it and you know, check the, check that. And that's also going to kill off any microorganisms. And al. Also you're adding some nutrients from the wood into it. And then, you know, once you've done pasteurized the straw, whichever way, kind of let it, you know, take it out of the water, let it drip dry to where, you know, if you squeeze it, it could wring out some water, but it's not just completely saturated anymore. And then you're just going to layer, you know, some of the straw, then some of that colonized grain spawn that you had, then more straw and just kind of make a lasagna out of it and stack it up. And then, you know, I would say cover it with a trash bag or something just to help keep contaminants out while it's colonizing. And then, and you know, take a peek at it, check on it every once in a while. And once you start seeing that most of the straw has turned white, you can just leave it open to air. If it's outside, spray it down with the hose every once in a while just to keep things damp. If it's inside, put a humidifier in the little area that you have it in. And then that. The one that I did produced so many mushrooms. It lasted a long time and it was, it was kind of ridiculous how much I had growing off of it.
Cool. Is this, do you, would you say, is this like in any way easier than using logs or anything like that or, or just different?
Just different. So logs. The, the pros about them are kind of once you get them set and once they start fruiting they will last for years. You know, they'll. They'll keep fruiting season after season, year after year for like three or five years using straw or something, you know, something else other than a log. You will start seeing the fruits a lot faster. Whereas like putting them on logs, you'll have to wait, you know, two, three years sometimes before you start seeing the fruits.
Oh my God.
This method, you'll wait a month.
Yeah, I was like, I'm not that patient. I'm not that patient at all.
Yeah. And then like. Yeah. So like the straw in the laundry basket, probably about a month or so and you'll start seeing results. The ready to fruit, the ready to fruit bag. A couple weeks.
Yeah, yeah. This seems like a lot more low tech too. Like, I'm like, I don't need to get a log, I don't need to have a saw, I don't need to drill holes.
Yeah, it's. There's a lot of low tech methods and strangely enough, it's a lot of things that were. That have been adapted over time from the less legal mushroom cultivation into, you.
Know, I was gonna.
Yep. I mean it's, you know, things like Martha tents and stuff like that. They used to be just for the hallucinogenic mushrooms and now it's kind of moved into where cultivators have adopted that because it works.
Yeah, yeah. From like a. I know that there's different, I guess. What are the main mushrooms that you can kind of like grow? I know there's like, you know, the ones you find at the grocery store like porto bellows or shiitake or crimney or baby Bella. Like, are there like kind of like mushrooms besides that that you can grow?
So I will say that it would probably be a waste of resources to try and grow the button mushrooms, cremini, portobello, which are all actually the same species just at different stages of the life cycle. But the massive farms that they have that they grow them in and they, they grow those in a manure type thing to where it's just not worth it to grow. To try doing it at home or even, even as a business for something as small as I am. But you know, you can grow oyster mushrooms, reishi, lion's mane, hen of the woods, which is also known as maitake. You can grow shiitake enoki, which is kind of another. They're the more usually white, longer, kind of stringy looking ones that you might see in like ramen or pho bowls. Yeah. And I mean it's. If you go on to some of the websites that sell the different varieties and supply it. The amount of different types is ridiculous. They will have some like Morales that they will list as being extremely difficult or that they're still researching the best practices for it or things because like I said, it's only recently that they're kind of figuring out how these grow.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah.
So from like, I feel like, from like, you know, especially like a home preparedness perspective, if you're trying to like have like more autonomy over like how you get and produce food that like growing your own mushrooms is going to be like far more sustainable or like, or predictable.
Yeah.
Than trying to forage mushrooms.
Oh yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
And it's. And once you, I mean as far as that goes, you can do that whole thing fairly cheaply. Fairly low tech as well. I got a couple tents, like little tent greenhouses from I think Aldi and some fans to force in fresh air and a humidifier and then cheap little controller to just register how much humidity is in it and you can get that dialed in and just constantly have fresh mushrooms.
That sounds amazing.
Yeah.
I'm going to consider thought experimenting this out to see if I can do it here, here in the desert because I love mushrooms so much and I. If you keep paying for them.
If you have questions after we get done, feel free to email me about, you know, just your personal looking into this for yourself.
Cool. Yeah, yeah, cool. Yeah. Those seem like some really fun, pretty low tech solutions for setting up these little like greenhouses or whatever. Like mushroom houses. Yeah, I don't know. That's cool. Maybe as one last little question, it seems like putting them in the tent maybe kind of takes care of this. But like someone on Patreon asked like, are there any that do well in full sun? Which I don't expect the answer to be yes, but maybe there are.
Well, the thing is they don't really care. Most varieties don't care too much about light. There's some that, you know, like the button portobello type that really like the dark. But you know, you'll find them growing in, you know, sunny spots in the woods just naturally. So they, they don't really care. The main things that mushrooms that matter to them are getting enough oxygen in their growing environment because they produce a pretty large amount of carbon dioxide compared to how much is actually growing there, which is a little bit weird. So if you're doing the tent setup, you're going to want to like have either an intake or an Exhaust fan or maybe both on that, which you can do low tech waste with that too. And then the humidity.
Yeah. Okay, that's cool. Yeah. That's unexpected to me that they, they care more about the humidity than they do about the sun, which I guess it's like. I mean, you know, where I live, it's like sunny.
Yeah.
The sun makes it less humid, but that's not always the case.
Yeah, it's just like they don't. They don't photosynthesize at all, so it just sunlight doesn't matter to most varieties.
Oh, cool. Hell yeah. Great. Well, that's about all we have time for today. Is there any last things you want to say about. About mushrooms?
Not really. I would encourage. I mean, if someone's interested in them, definitely check them out. I mean, it's there. There are, you know, things to be aware of, but they're not as scary as what we've all kind of been led to believe throughout the years.
Yeah. And likewise how movies would make us believe. You can't just run out and eat random shelf fungus.
Oh, no, no, no.
And have that be new, save you from starvation.
No, you need to know what you're doing. Don't trust movies about any type of survival.
Yeah. Yeah. Golly. Cool. Thanks so much for coming on today. Is there anywhere on the Internet where people can find you where you would like to be found?
Yeah, I have a Facebook. It's mushroomsbylb. I'm working on kind of growing my online presence, but I am very responsive to any messages. Also, if anyone's interested in. No, no, we'll leave it at Facebook for that.
Cool. Wonderful. Great. Well, thanks so much for coming on and teaching us about how fungus is less scary than we might. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, then experiment with foraging and growing mushrooms in very responsible ways. And know again, I feel like this. We've said this so many times on the episode, but like this, this, this is information to learn about these things and go read books, seek out in depth field guides, don't run out and grab some mushrooms armed with only the knowledge in this podcast, we do not condone that. And also, if you liked us, you can maybe you could listen to the episode with a friend who's also mushroom curious and then y' all can make a plan to learn about mushrooms together. And it could be really fun. Just don't head into Penumbra City in the undercity. You know, there's strange funguses down there. Also, if you enjoyed the show, you can support us. And you, you can support it by getting Mushroom curious with your friend. And you can also support us by supporting our publisher, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. And you can support them by checking out our website, Tangled Wilderness, where we have all kinds of cool books and zines and stuff including I don't know when this episode's coming out, but it'll be out by then. Our newest book, Orso Wartime Journals of an Anarchist and it's a really awesome journal of this person, Lorenzo Orsetti, who was an internationalist fighter in Rojava who died and left behind some really incredible journals that we have the great honor of publishing the first English edition of. And also out recently is the Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice by Margaret Killjoy, the newest book in the Daniel Caine series. You can also support us by supporting our patreon@patreon.com strangersinatangled wilderness this and all of our podcasts are entirely listener supported and the only way that we can do them is by people continuing to support us on Patreon. So thank you everyone who's been doing that for years and we would especially like to thank these people who have who have signed up for our Patreon acknowledgement here. Thank you your Canadian friend, whoever they are. Vale Ferro Hunter mark tiny nonsense thegoldengate26 Jonathan the goose the KO initiative the incredible Ren Arai Alexander Gopal A Future for Abby Hyun Hee Max the Enchanted Rats of Turtle Island Prodigal Maestro Lancaster Chooses Love Karen Astoria Food Pantry Renegade Lens and Ink the Canadian Socialist Rifle association not to be confused with the very different organization of the Massachusetts chapter of the Socialist Rifle association, the New Hampshire IWW Farrell in West Virginia Blink Cat Shulva Jason, Jenny and Phoebe the Cats Aiden and Yuki the Dog Sunshine Amber Ephemeral Appalachian Liberation Library Portland's Hedron HackerSpace Boldfield E. Pitoli Eric People's University of Palestine Ju Cat Gut Marm Carson Lord Harken Community Books of Stone Mountain, Georgia Princess Miranda, Janice and Odell Ally Paparuna Milica Boise Mutual Aid Theo Hunter SJ Paige, David Dana, Chelsea Starro, Jennifer Kirk, Chris, Micaiah, Nicole and Tikvah the Dog and the Immortal Hoss the Dog. We hope everyone's doing as well as they can with everything that's going on, and we'll talk to you next time. Sam.