The Mushroom Story.

Transcript (Auto translated can have spelling mistakes)

Hello. So what is the story like you know uh you've been with the mushrooms along it seems like you are loving mushroom you are cooking mushroom and you are uh I think you are selling also so how does what it is started how does it started like you know what is what is going on between you and mushrooms.

Yeah. Well, cool. Thanks for uh inviting me on your podcast. It's nice to meet you. Um I my background is I grew up in Texas in the United States. So, um have a lot of barbecue in my culture, you know, that kind of thing. Um and I grew up out in West Texas, which is um out where there's a lot of petroleum, you know, it's the Perian Basin where all the oil comes out. And um my my youth I didn't have much exposure to mushrooms but uh as I moved away from there I wanted to um get educated in uh chemical engineering so that I could go back in into the oil field and make a lot of money because you know you have two options really when you work in the oil field. You can go break your back and make a lot of money that way or you can go in there with the science and make a lot of money straight out of university.

So my initial studies are in chemical engineering. And while I was studying chemical engineering, I was a fine dining chef. So I worked at a restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. um a James Beard nominated place uh that allowed me to get exposure to a lot of new and different ingredients that you just you know you don't normally come across but uh one of the main things that I came across was mushrooms and found that as a as an ingredient they gave a lot of opportunities to cook different tastes and textures and colors and uh you know they were one of the things that made people react um very strongly. So if if they weren't cooked perfectly, you know, people might have a bad experience and tell you, "Oh, I I really don't like mushrooms." But if they were cooked very well, people would often tell you, "Oh, I absolutely love mushrooms. Mushrooms are amazing." And and they elevate most things, you know, like they're a good background for any sort of meat, chicken, fish. So that that's kind of where I got my first real interaction with them. And then later on um I I I met a girl online who lives in Australia and that's why I live here because uh in the mid '9s we were talking online and she actually moved over to the states. Uh we were together there for a very long time while I got my degree in chemical engineering and while I was working as a chef and we uh applied for a visa to come back here to Australia but it took a really long time. Um, so what happened is she got a job offer out in California and I still didn't have my visa. So, we followed her opportunity out there and instead of going into back into fine dining or or going to do something to pursue chemical engineering because that was all about the oil field, I actually just went online and and looked for a job sort of as a science job in the area of the north s North California. And uh they have a site over there called Craigslist. And on Craigslist, they were looking for a spawn supervisor on a mushroom farm. And I didn't know what that was, but it sounded really cool and I, you know, wanted to go get the title of spawn supervisor. And I went to work on that mushroom farm. And um yeah, I just absolutely fell in love um with not only the the actual growing of mushrooms, but the whole industry and everything about it, you know. I got to work on a Japanese bottle farm which we brought in raw materials in one end and through a very um efficient process like of clockwork timing. You know how the Japanese precision is, you know, you bring in raw materials.

Yeah. and go through all the processes and then have like clockwork timing of carpets of mushrooms growing. I just fell absolutely in love with that. And we grew six different culinary varieties of mushrooms there in it's called gourmet mushrooms. And uh also 47 different neutrautical varieties. So all these different medicinal mushrooms which you know have some functionality which spoke to me on a chemical chemistry level. It spoke to me on a functional level. It spoke to me on a food level. Mhm. And not only did I live and work on a mushroom farm, but living in the North Bay area of San Francisco, it rains 9 months out of the year. So, not only did I live and work there, but I took on the hobby of going and and learning about hunting the mushrooms in nature and applying, you know, Latin binomial and taxonomy to them. There's something so so uh lovely and primitive and and and fulfilling about being able to walk through nature and find something and and know what it is and know that it's either something that's super valuable or super nutritious or even something that could kill you, you know, that could be super dangerous if in the wrong hands. So, that's just a lovely aspect of of what I fell down the rabbit hole of. And um yeah, my career from there was all about mushrooms.

Everything from that moment has been you know something to do with mushrooms. Mhm. When you've been working over there all these mushrooms were just edible or how was it like you know my first experience with the mushrooms comes with the cyosin. I mean the magic mushrooms basically like uh you know we cook mushrooms in India and uh I was not knowing there are multiple types of mushrooms are there and what happened is that I was uh living in a one place in Bangalore and uh there is all of sudden this magic mushrooms start to pop up in the garden and uh the lady she's taking care of this particular garden uh she made the uh mushroom to be eaten by a cat and this cat was crazily jumping afterwards like you know and that that was that is when I came to know about these mushrooms are really powerful you see so when you're growing these mushrooms this was the uh you all the mushrooms were just edible or any other kind of properties for example there are rishi mushrooms that will actually increase the uh um you know the the increase the limit of your aging like you know you you can be become more younger and stuffs like that. So what was the story there like you know? Yeah.

Well at that particular farm we like I said we grew six different culinary edible species of mushrooms but they also were regularly growing 47 different neutrautical varieties. So ones that were made just for their medicinal properties. Um and they had a catalog of of a lot more than that but those were the ones that they regularly grew. So as I got exposure on that farm to medicinal mushrooms of course it was reishi cortiseps um so many different aspects like heresium this long before you know lion's mane was was even really widely known and this was oh 20 years ago now um I was learning about how to grow the mcelium for them and turn that into a neutrutical product but oysters turkey tail lion's mane reishi Ganoderma, uh, you know, like a whole list of these things and and you know, you can't see what all these books are behind me, but they're all related to something to do with functional mushrooms. So mushrooms are known to do all kinds of things.

Like you said, the rishi is used as a long life tonic or it's, you know, sometimes called the fountain of youth mushroom, you know, but cortiseps, um, which there are different species of cortiseps all over the world, but it's a a very cool one with a lot of history and lure about its ability to give you longevity in exercise and increase your V2 max, endurance, and stamina. And also it's marketed as herbal Viagra, you know. So there in India, you have at the back you have Utraand. Actually, I'm headed over to Utraand in maybe a week and a half. I'm going to go visit my friend. He has a mushroom farm in Utraand. And uh you know that's that's not too far away on the Himalayas where they actually hunt Cortiseps uh fungi and and and they sell that from there.

But yeah, there's so many different functional types of mushrooms and they are so powerful in so many different ways and psilocybin is absolutely one of the first mushrooms that a lot of people get exposure to because you know it it it it shakes you to make you wake up. It shakes you to say you know this is super powerful stuff. That's exactly like you know when I had the psilocybin first time it was there in the garden and my vision has changed a lot after that like you know for it give me some 2 3 hours I think uh my perception has changed for some 2 three hours then after that uh uh I think it was in one of the rainbow gathering in the uh Himalayas basically.

So this guy he came from US and he was having a bottle of uh uh American mushroom and uh from there I started to learn how to do the micro doing so but it it is really you know pleasant basically and recently in Kerala the high court made it is legal basically so that's great there yeah not everywhere in India only in Kerala okay in Kerala yeah exactly uh so not in the commercial quantity but uh you can uh I mean consumable quantity like for one person or something like that. So this is become legal over here and uh uh you know when we talking about the mushroom like can you show these images whether it is possible in your laptop or if you want I can search for that like uh you want to see an image of a psilocybin mushroom or of a different type of mushroom?

uh different types of mushroom because many of the uh listeners may not be knowing the properties of the mushrooms and different types of mushroom for example these mushrooms glows in the dark you know some of the mushrooms which is not everywhere available and there is one of the mushroom which is actually very expensive that is in the Nepal not in India in Himalayan region uh yeah that's the cortiseps cortiseps okay yeah I'm pulling have some and I can show them. Yeah. Yeah. Cortiseps, mushrooms.

Yeah. Okay, cool. I will bring up a couple of different things. So, should I just should I share my screen? I can present here. Yes, exactly. Share screen. Okay. Uh, yeah. All right. So, first I'm going to share. I think I cannot see this.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Can you see now? There we go. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, this is uh actually my company. This is called Fable. And I, you know, you see Fable on my shirt here. This is um the website that we have. It's at fablefood.co.

And this shows our products are made from shitake mushrooms. And uh you know, we've got one of the world's best chefs there, H Blumenthal. You see Zack Efron there with me. We're on the Netflix program, Down to Earth. Uh you can see we're at retailers and restaurants all over the world. So we're we are based in Australia, but we sell in uh Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom, and also USA.

So we've got a lot of different things there. And here you can sort of go to a locator to find it all the recipes. But you see where I'm putting my mouse there? That's what Fable looks like. It looks like me. I have developed a mushroombased meat. So that's that's what my business is. And you know, my long my long passion with mushrooms has led to me creating you see it says Jim's secret Texas barbecue style. So like I said, I'm from Texas. The reason I wanted to create mushroombased meat was because I went vegan for a year and uh I wanted to make a product so that I could enjoy the the meaty delicious tastes of meat but not have to actually kill anything to do it. So that that's that's the background of my business. I'll show you some images here of shiakei mushroom. Uh you can see lots of different things here.

Um and I'm just going to zoom in. So, um, I'll zoom in on this so you can see, uh, mushroom stem here. You know, where I'm putting my my mouse and I'm Oh, it's uh taking a taking a while to go onto the screen. Let's see.

Uh, why? Oh, because I'm only sharing that screen. I need to change the screen that I'm sharing. I'm sorry about that. So let me stop that one and then change to another screen. Okay, now I will share the shiakei mushroom screen. Here we go.

So shiakei mushrooms are what I make fable out of. And here you have picture. You know this is a very famous mushroom in in Asia. It's very very strong glutamates, very strong umami. And uh that makes a wonderful thing to to make mushroom uh meat from because it's got a very meaty texture. So if you see where my mouse is over here taste also uh it it tastes like meat meat actually like uh well it's a very strong it's a very strong taste as it is but when you cook it and this is a bit of my background is I have a culinary background and I have a chemical engineering background so I can manipulate the way that they taste by cooking and with a full understanding of you know you need to change the mushroom taste to a meaty taste. That means essentially there's a a cooking reaction called the mayard reaction. That changes mushroom taste to generic meaty taste.

And that's what I do. Because they have such a a high amount of glutamic acid, glutamates, that's the umami thing. You can cook them so that they do taste like meat, but whenever they're raw, they they don't taste like meat. They taste almost like um very sulfuric. You think of like uh sulfur like uh cooked eggs, you know, sulfur gas sulfuric. If you you have to cook that out, but once you cook that out, they have a very a very earthy, deep umami taste. So, yeah, this is what shiakei look like. And this is what they look like when they grow. Uh you know, they have a a lovely silky cap, but what we do is we actually use the stem. This is actually regional specific mushroom like for example this will only grow in the parts of the texat only. No no so this one grew in the wild of all over Asia and it it actually grows in the in nature in Australia and on different continents but this is the second most widely cultivated mushroom in the world. So people who grow mushrooms, the big commercial farmers, they this is the second largest one in the world. The other one is called Aggericus. It's the white button mushroom. Um I'll show you Aggericus because Aggericus is also becoming famous in India. Um you know this white button mushroom. Agaricus white button.

Yes. Yes. This is commonly grown everywhere. There are a lot of places it is actually. Yeah. Yeah. You can see here like what they look like in cultivation. Yeah. But farms. Yeah. Yeah. So, whenever I I'm going to travel to Utraand in a week and a half, I'm going to go visit a mushroom farm that grows this mushroom there. Mhm.

Yeah. So, that's the white button mushroom. Now, there's the one that you were talking about before. You were talking about reishi mushroom. Mhm. And I'll just pull that up and you can see these have a very interesting shape. Um you know they they call this one uh a kidney shape and if you can kind of see the kidney look there um this is everywhere in the place which I am right now.

It generally comes out from the uh the wood which is actually um decaying you know. Yeah absolutely. So this is a wood growing mushroom. Most of the ones that grow in that Asia has cultivated is cultivated from wood. So in the rest of the world, everyone calls those exotic mushrooms or woodloving mushrooms. And then the agaricus ones that we were looking at before, they grow on compost.

So they grow on like wheat straw that's been composted, so not on wood. There are lots of different types of mushrooms that grow in nature. Um all the ones that are farmed are they're decomposers, so they grow on dead and decaying organic material. But there are mushrooms like the high value ones, uh, porchini. I'll show you porchini mushroom. This one is really high value, but it doesn't you can't grow this on compost. You you don't grow this on decaying wood. This actually grows underneath the trees, and you need the tree to be alive for this mushroom to grow. And this one, you can get up to three or $400 per kilo because it's wild. It only comes around in a season, and you must go to the woods to find this. So these are called micoorisal mushrooms. Mico is for mushroom. Risle is for root. So mushroom root. You must have the plant alive so that you can go harvest these. And another very famous expensive one is called the chanterel mushroom. Uh this is also another very expensive mushroom because it grows only in the wild. You would probably see this in the rainforests. Um very very common all around the world. Uh, but this one you can get, you know, a couple hundred dollars per kilo for this mushroom, too.

But that's because it's rare and it's wild only. You can't grow that in a kind of lychen. It's a kind of lyken, like jelly kind of stuff. So, lychen is a different thing. Lychen is a combination of two different things. It's a fungus and a a bacteria.

Um, but this is it. It's like it requires the two different um organisms to grow. But this is all just one organism. So the mushroom itself is an organism that's working in symbiosis with the tree organism. So these would be growing, you know, underneath redwoods or something like that. Here you can look like probably like a birch.

You can see that it might be a birch tree that that's growing under this one. These were definitely you see the little needles there. These are growing under redwood. Um yeah, so these are what we would call micorisal mushrooms. All the ones that are grown on a mushroom farm are called sap saffrophytes. Those are the decayer mushrooms. And then the other ones, the really interesting ones are parasites.

So you talked about this before, the ones that are growing in Nepal up in the Himalayas, the cortiseps mushroom. So this is the very the long one. Exactly. The Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I say very common. It's not very common.

This is very rare mushroom to to have, but it's very common in um traditional Chinese medicine. Uh the most valuable ingredient in all of the world. This can be up to $200,000 US per kilo. Very very very expensive. Yeah. And people go all the way up. This is this is really I I saw I saw this in Nepal actually like you know we can get this stuff. Lucky.

Wow. Yeah. very lucky if you find this because some people spend a few a few weeks a year going to hunt this mushroom and they make more money in those few weeks than they make the entire year doing anything else because it's so valuable. Yeah. and in Nepal, uh, Bhutan, uh, on the other side in Ching Dao, um, you know, in China. So, all through the Himalayas, these are a very high altitude um, moth that that that inhabits this high altitude and the fungus must consume the larae of the moth. So, you see what I'm that's a larae. It's like a worm.

The fungus has consumed the worm. So it's no more any worm material there. It's totally converted to fungus. So they call this the zombie mushroom because before the mushroom consumes the worm, it first gets into its brain and drives it around like a zombie. So this is called zombie fungus. And there are lots of different interesting cultural things that have come from the zombie fungus. Um have you heard of the the show or the game The Last of Us?

Um, not so sure. That's That's this game. It's the most popular uh Sony PlayStation video game ever, and they turned it into a um a uh HBO um uh uh series. So, it is a postapocalyptic zombie game, and it is now a zombie series. It's called The Last of Us, but it's based on Cortiseps infecting humans. Now, there are no cortiseps mushrooms that can infect animals, but right now they can infect any of the insect world. Um, could you see um if I were to play this, could you see and hear that? Because this is a very very good video.

Okay. Okay. Let's try. Yeah. Can you hear that? Uh, no. I think you opened it in another tab. Okay. So, let me close this tab and then I'll open that other one. So, let's stop sharing here and then we will do a share on the next one. Let's see if we can get that here.

Incredibly, 80% of all insects live in jungles. Few are more successful than the ants. There can be 8 million individuals in a single hectare. But jungle ants don't have it all their own way. Can you hear the audio? Yes.

Yes. Yes. Okay. These bullet ants are showing some worrying symptoms. Spores from a parasitic fungus called cortiseps have infiltrated their bodies and their minds. [Music] Its infected brain directs this ant upwards.

Then utterly disorientated, it grips a stem with its mandibles. Those afflicted that are discovered by the workers are quickly taken away and dumped far away from the colony. It seems extreme, but this is the reason why.

Like something out of science fiction, the fruing body of the cordiceps erupts from the ant's head. [Music] It can take 3 weeks to grow, and when finished, the deadly spores will burst from its tip. Then any ant in the vicinity will be in serious risk of death.

The fungus is so virulent it can wipe out whole colonies of ants. And it's not just ants that fall victim to this killer. There are literally thousands of different types of cordiseps fungi and remarkably each specializes on just one species.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] But these attacks do have a positive effect on the jungle's diversity since parasites like these stop any one group of animal getting the upper hand. The more numerous a species becomes, the more likely it will be attacked by its nemesis, a cordiceps fungus.

Yeah. So that is the parasite. We we talked about the the different ones, the decaying ones. So they grow on things that are like fallen trees. Then there's the ones who work together with the trees to keep the tree alive and the tree gives the sugars to the mushroom. Um and the mushroom gives like minerals and water back to the tree. And then you have the parasites who only take and kill. So, three different ways that mushrooms get their nutrition and feed essentially the ecosystem.

So, this particular mushroom kills the entire colony of the ant basically. Well, it it keeps the balance in check. So, it doesn't necessarily always kill whole colonies, but it does keep the the number of them quite low, especially whenever there's an outbreak. So, if you saw in the beginning of the video, the ants, they can recognize the infected and they they get them away because if if that ant crawls up over the colony and the spores come down, then everybody gets infected. So, they recognize that.

Yeah. And I mean, it truly is it's it's very much it's a zombie. It's a zombie mushroom. [Music] So, also there are mushrooms that can grow on human beings also. No. No. So right now fortunately that's not the case. The case is that they can infect insects because insects are not hotblooded that you know what but but humans the reason that we can't um really fight off a fungal infection when they get into us is because fungi are way too similar to to humans. So if you get a fungal infection really really hard to get rid of. And people would know like um you know if you get a a parasite on your toe like a fungus infection on your toe, it's so hard to get rid of. Um but but if you get one in your lungs or in your blood, I'm I'm sorry, but it's almost impossible to kill because they're so similar to us.

The thing about fungi is that they don't tolerate our high temperature. So really around 36° is really too much. Um, but around 30° is kind of the edge of where a fungal a fungus wants to be and they can tolerate it a little bit harder. But this is what people are concerned about.

And they brought a real concern whenever they made this HBO series The Last of Us. The whole concept there was that Cortiseps mushrooms thanks to global warming have adapted the ability to live in hotter environments. And that means that eventually they may be able to adapt the ability to live inside of a human because they can live in the hotter environments. But right now it's not true that that hasn't happened and it's not a worry at the moment. But if if global warming keeps happening, you know, global warming, if it keeps getting hotter and hotter, then that's something that mushrooms are known to adapt quite quickly to environmental changes. So, it's something that you could expect as a potential plausible outcome is that fungi could then start tolerating the human heat and and start growing inside of us. That that wouldn't be very nice. See, I have also heard some cases mostly the cancerous cases.

There are cancerous cell which is growing on lungs along with some sort of mushroom infection also. I mean some fungal infection also. Uh this is I have here like you know um so is that something what what is happening there like well there are a couple of different things that uh that fungi can get into the lungs of people with uh weak immune systems and and the immune system isn't strong enough to fight away spores. Um so in some cases you can get lung infections from fungi but really it's the immunompromised people who who have a worry there. The other people who are at risk are ones who work on mushroom farms and they're amongst the spores often and they you know work in a harvest room all day long sort of.

That's that's where you can get uh what's called mushroom growers long because you're basically just inhaling lots and lots of spores all the time. And just uh through the law of numbers, the law of averages, you know, some of those might develop the ability to germinate. And in the case of where you've inhaled lots and lots of spores, your body creates mucosal linings, you know, like mucus. And just like whenever you inhale spores into your nose, you get mucus and you can blow them out.

That's your body's line of defense. That happens in your lungs as well. So, when you inhale lots of spores, you can get lots and lots of mucus. And in the case of developing lots of mucus, um there is the ability for the temperature gradient within your body to be a little bit different in your lungs. So, you're not absolutely at your hottest in the mucus and you might be able to germinate some mycelium in that mucosal lining. So, you know, that's that's the thing. Mushroom growers should always wear masks because they're exposed to spores all day long.

Mhm. Also, the there are mushrooms that grows I mean that glows on the um you know when night like you know it will glow like uh very uh idle you know is that those mushrooms are edible? Uh we can eat those or no no the glowing mushrooms typically aren't known to be edible. I will present and show umpalotus nitapformis. Give us a second and I'll share my screen.

Boom. Share here. So this is a glowing mushroom umpalotus nitapformis. And pull up some images there. And you can see so these have what's called bioluminescence. Um, as far as I know, they they are toxic and will cause massive stomach upset and you'll be vomiting for quite a while. But I don't think that they are toxic to the point of actually uh uh being deadly, but they will cause Yeah, they would cause stomach upsets. But here you go. You can see this is here in Australia. They have these um amplotus nitis. So they grow these are uh decomposers. They grow on decaying wood stumps.

H and these psilocybin mushrooms that uh grows uh like many people take this as a psychedelic is there any uh you know side effect like you know which which you have observed like like for example if you are keep on smoking a cigarette like for it has nicotine in it and it can give you uh some sort of uh cancerous um oh yeah cancerous cells.

Yeah. So these sort of things like because uh when we are taking the magic mushroom actually what happens the mind got expanded and uh it it can give an opportunity to think through I mean if you are taking in that particular way not just to get into highending to some music no but if you are taking into some meditative way uh this can actually give you a lot of lot more perception about life and things like that and it can open up your mind also but what happens if somebody just keep taking this?

Yeah. Well, um what we have as far as the data around people who continuously consume mushrooms is that um they have essentially prolonged beneficial side effects. And uh we haven't, you know, I don't know of any research that's saying that there's any long-term detriment.

Only research that's saying that there is long-term benefit. um especially around trauma, especially around uh people with post-traumatic stress disorder. um those types of traumas. Other ones that uh have really good benefits are people with terminal illnesses because um mushrooms, you can see here I've got I've got a a little diagram up that's been pretty famous um where on the left hand side it shows this is sort of a map of normal brain activity and then when you have psilocybin mushroom here on the right hand side you see uh a lot more different brain activity. So what actually has been recorded to happen is when you're normally operating your normal uh uh brain function they call a default mode network. So it's like things that run just quite normally um and it is like your ego and you know who you are and all things like that.

Whenever you have the serotonin like psychedelic mushroom, this comes in and it changes the way that you actually think and it changes your perception of all kinds of different things. Your perception of who you are, your perception of time and space and your perception of how you relate and connect to reality. So, what it does is it makes you look at potentially traumatic um situations with a different view. And when you can look at things with a different view, it helps you to not only uh accept them but process them. And this is why it's been really good for u people with trauma or post-traumatic stress, but also for those who have terminal illnesses because they become um sort of comfortable with the situation and and fear the outcome uh much less because they're able to think about it in different ways.

So the thing is like uh I have shared you the story which we have given the magic mushroom to the cat. The cat was all of sudden jumping around like you know like becoming so crazy. Uh so what exactly like you know what kind of components are getting developed in our brain when we are consuming the magic machines? Well psilocybin I'll show the physical structure. So siloscybin molecule when we pull that up we got here we want to show one that is very it shows that let's see tryptoman tryptophen salsil in serotonin so if you can see over here on the right hand side salosin and psilocybin they have a very sim similar structure to this compound right here called serotonin.

Now serotonin is one of the um uh one of the compounds that your brain uses for a specific type of feeling. So serotonin uh effect show you this. What does serotonin do? It influences your mood, sleep, appetite, digestion. It it influences so many different things. And it actually in it influences the way that you experience different experiences. And so when this neurotransmitter instead of serotonin comes into your um receptor, you then have a different perception of reality. Now, it doesn't get broken down in the way that you um would break down alcohol or sugar or another macronutrient. That's not the same. This is a neurotransmitter. So, what it does is it comes and it sits in a neuron for a period of time and then after a certain period of time, your neuron lets it go and then it will leave your body.

So, you'll you'll urinate it out. You don't do anything. It doesn't have any downstream effects other than your feeling about what you experience. So you can have all sorts of a range of different experiences on psilocybin. And depending on whether or not you um integrate that, you might have a traumatic experience because it it can be quite challenging. They call it a hero's journey. Whenever you have, you know, a good large amount of mushrooms and then, you know, you experience some of the darkness that you don't normally think about, you know, you you don't have the ability to stop that kind of thinking, but also you experience like deep connections with nature and with other people and with, you know, your surroundings. So you get presented with a whole balance of different things and it is up to you to then sort of integrate that take and and realize that you know that was simply a psychedelic experience you know and and it's on you to go forward and do what you will with it. For most people they find the integration is actually quite cathartic and it makes them feel very good and you get what's called an afterglow. So after you have a large amount of psilocybin, typically you go through some difficulty, but then you get through the through the experience and you realize that you're a little bit stronger in some sort of way because of it. And then after that, not only have you experienced that those psychedelic effects, but during them, you ex you extended your bandwidth of perception.

So you heard more sounds. You saw more colors. You saw more uh more depth and brightness to uh tones and sounds and feelings. You could taste differently. So if you if you were actually eating on them, you know, you had ex uh increased experience around taste. So what happens typically after you have a large dose of of of psychedelics is that you have an extended period of time where you have that amplified bandwidth of perception and it's called the afterglow period. So very very um really you still get a good larger perception of colors and a better feeling and and and stronger taste for a for a longer period of time. And it's been shown that people with anger issues that have a large dose of magic mushrooms, they are affected beneficially for up to six months where they don't need anger management after that. So it's it's a really good outcome for people who take take these things typically.

There are underwater mushrooms. There are mushrooms which can grow inside the sea or something that sort of these mushrooms that grow inside of what? Yeah, exactly. What did you say that mushrooms that grow inside of what?

Water. Water. I mean Oh, mushrooms that grow in water. Water. I mean, yeah, exactly. Like for example, the river or sea or ocean or something like that. Yeah. Uh, typically I I'm not aware of any mushrooms that grow submerged in water. Mushrooms have a really interesting ability to um create hydrophobic barriers to protect mycelium. So most of the um the higher fungi, they're terrestrial. So they're growing in soils, they're growing in wood, they're growing in decaying organic matter, and they're not necessarily um made anymore for growing in water. However, you do have yeasts. So there's that's more the unicellular or not the multisellular fungi. So it's like yeasts uh lower fungi that are growing in water or those that are making um uh lychen like lychen type uh symbiots that that work with cyanobacteria per se. So that can that can grow in water but we don't I don't know of any mushrooms that grow in water.

So the also the uh mushrooms that can actually survive the radiations. Yeah. Yeah. So actually not only survive it but actually utilize the um the the radioactive decay as a a nutrition source. So they they actually can can grow quite well utilizing that as as a form of energy. Yeah. Mhm.

Uh so like for example if you want to come to India uh or Nepal I mean you are planning to come in another one and a half uh week I guess so. Uh so like where and all you want to go like which part of India where you feel there are lot of fungies are there uh which can be commercially viable and it can be grow in some part like for example how do how can you collect how how somebody can collect these sponges of this particular funky and take it and grow in a uh you know a kind of uh um uh lab environment.

How how do you imagine about that? Well, I think that mushrooms are a um they're a growing sort of industry in India from from the perspective of my friend who is a mushroom grower there. Um, mushrooms haven't been really that popular in India prior to this and they are now going No, I I'm telling you the India the mushroom has been used in recreational purpose purposes. Yeah.

Like you know uh if we look into the Vedas there is one kind of drink which is called the soma that is basically ended to connect you to the uh souls which is been passed before you and sort of you to make you to understand the immortality how it works how how how you can come to that core. So this particular uh drink soma uh there is a lot of mushroom has been used in that particular drink. Actually this is what I understood. I read it inva. Yeah.

Atarva is a particular book which speaks about you know medicines and how all these kind of things has been used. You know dura right like it has been offered to the lord Shiva. Like the Tura is a is a is a psychedelic which is available everywhere in India that can take you somewhere near to death and that has been offered to the Lord Shiva. So okay uh I think uh it has been used but nobody has been studied like mostly because this is most of these texts are in Sanskrit and this Sanskrit is very hard to understand. This is one okay one problem like you know well that sounds like a job for AI AI is really good at deciphering old languages yeah most of the thing but the problem with the Sanskrit is one single word is like you know it can have multiple meaning for example the Hebrew when they translated the Bible there is a lot of problem has been happened like you know they didn't translated it exactly what AI also will struggle in that way because we human beings only made AI So it is well AI is actually really good at uh at the underlying pattern recognition that it it's very difficult for us to hold sort of more than like 11 different nodes at once. So whenever you start thinking well it could have said this and that affects the downstream and then that could have said this and that affects the downstream it really difficult for us to hold the different permutations of what that could mean.

But AI is excellent at making all the different variations of what something could mean and then and then isolating um what is sensical and what's nonsensical and it may it may present you with 10 different versions of what the thing could say. Whereas if we were to interpret it, we just get lost at well the one word could mean 10 different things. So we we don't really know. So AI is really good. I think is going to help us. You know, it's it's it's um it's interpreted quite a bit that we've been unable to interpret and and and just like um you know, whenever whenever DNA became something that was more affordable, then you get all these new scientific breakthroughs and and you get lots of new information because you have the ability to use it. I think same thing's going to be with AI. You know, you push a button and and allow it to go to work and and it will do the work.

It'll get there. Yeah. So, yeah, I I I think the Soma is really an interesting one. And I think that um what what I do understand it is Soma is based on Ammonita Mascaria. That's the red and white one. Uh I'm pretty sure that most people would be familiar with it, but I've read quite a bit about it. Um I wonder do you have this mushroom growing wild in India? And you must have this mushroom growing wild in India because as far as I know it is grown wild everywhere in the world. So let's show you eony muscaria. You'll know as soon as you see it. But this is what um this is what this I saw. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I saw. Yeah. This is this is also psyocybin. Not psilocybin. It's a different compound. Um and there are two different compounds in this mushroom and one of them is uh believed to be quite dangerous. Um ibutinic acid and muskimal are the the couple of different um uh compounds. So muskimal is uh one that I think people recognize as being quite um transinducing.

So you get like loops of reality. And then ibotinic acid is gabaurgic and it gives you like really good rest, anti-anxiety, but causes like almost like psychedelic visions in your sleep. Um, so a couple of different compounds that may be functional in in this mushroom and that I believe are related to so many different uh folktales and cultural tales around the world. You know, you can see red and white the origin of Santa Claus. Um, reindeer love to consume this mushroom and you know that it's said that they get, you know, they get high. Um, so flying reindeer and Santa Claus, that's an understandable myth or or story. Um, people in the areas where these are found, these are found under pine trees and uh you would you would collect them and hang them on the on the branches of the pine trees to dry out so that you could save them. You can imagine these decorating a pine tree is very much like a Christmas tree. Also there is there's the tale that you know these are collected by shaman in some Siberian uh nation where it's uh in the in the time of year where it gets really snowpacked they live in yurts and the yurts have a central smoke stack and often the snow would pile higher than any door. So you would actually enter and leave the yurt through the central smoke hole in the top. Um and if you had a shaman who was actually drying out these mushrooms over a fire and would come in and collect um collect and change out the mushrooms, they would be crawling in through the chimney. So you get, you know, the correlation to some sort of a figure like Santa Claus climbing down the chimney to to remove or to take the gifts or to to leave gifts. those sorts of things, you know, you get lots of different tails that can come out of this um that a lot of people accept. And then also these grow in the time of year um down here where it's close to Easter and uh you know these are growing underneath the trees in the forest. You go out looking for very brightly colored um Easter eggs essentially because this mushroom actually has an egg form.

Emanceria egg. You see if I look that up, I just pull up the image on that egg form. Oh, I accidentally clicked too much. Amenita mascaria egg. Mhm. And then pull up I'm having some internet flow here. But you can see these mushrooms grow inside of an egg. Um, and these are ammonita mushrooms that are growing inside of of an egg form. So you can see that they might be the the progenitor of Easter egg story and you know there the the what was her name?

Ishtar. Ishtar related to Inana this this old mythical pagan myth that turned into Greek myth. Um, Ishtar took the form of a dove, but then she would in spring take the form of a rabbit and the rabbit remains to have the ability to lay eggs like the dove. So, you know, the Easter rabbit who lays Easter eggs, you know, Ishtar bunny, it it there's so many overlapping stories. And then and one more of this mushroom, the ammonita mascaria is the origin of the phoenix.

Have you heard of the the fabled phoenix? Yeah. The the the bird phoenix thing. It will come the bird in flame. Yeah. Absolutely. So, this mushroom grows through lots of different stages and uh you can see it grows quite fiery and it goes through reds and golden colors and it actually spreads its wings and it spreads the two sides of its cap up high and uh you know essentially the spores become the smoke and the spores then would birth the next egg which would then be the phoenix rising from the ashes. So it's you know so many different cultural tales come from this mushroom alone.

Yeah. Yeah. So the uh I think we can easily communicate with the mushrooms also because if we imagine the mushrooms are a giant organization like you know uh they might be having a sort of uh uh you know consciousness possible like absolutely and I mean if you think about any form of network fungi are the original network of the planet you know they're the first terrestrial organism to leave the ocean and to actually caused the greening of the planet and not only that they created the first soils. Then they essentially are forming a network between the roots of all the plants and neural um neural material is networks of of material. It's just it's all networks.

So they are the original network and they are connected right around the world long before we ever thought of connecting the planet you know. So yeah I I think they are a very intelligent organism. Um of course the tissue that they have isn't neurons it's mycelium and mycelium is sort of the progenitor of all those sorts of structures in my mind.

Mhm. So when uh we've been talking about the uh the places which you are planning to visit in India. So where all you see? Yeah. Uh uh well this time I'm only going to go to Utraand. I I I don't have much time. This is just a very very brief business trip going in and out.

And hopefully if the business becomes successful, I'll be visiting again and I will want to see lots of different places. But the fact that I get to go right up next to the Himalayas, that's great because I want to go mushroom hunting over there. Um, and then visiting my friend who has a mushroom farm, that's great. Get some of the mushroom community over there. They've started to grow morelss.

Morelss are they're calling them the Gucci mushroom in India. But, uh, yeah, he's starting to grow those mushrooms over there. So, I look forward to going to Utakon this time and then hopefully next time I get to see quite a bit more.

Mhm. Mhm. So which areas of India where you feel uh there is a repository of uh mushrooms are existing? There are wild one, there are consumable one and there are some species which is never been a splot before and that can be a splot and things like that where do you feel which areas of India you feel? I'm not familiar enough with the geography of India, but anywhere that there's forests is the great potential for for things that have not had a a wide discovery yet. So basically anywhere there's forest, mountains are great because um elevation gives you higher rainfall.

Higher rainfall meaning you get more mushrooms. So um anywhere that you have forests are definitely the right place to be for mushrooms. See uh the place which I live in uh is the bottom of India, the southern part of India, which is basically the rainforest.

If you if you if you can pull up a a map of India, I can show that. Yeah, sure. Let me just share. Yeah, you see the Sri Lanka, Langa that side and the other side of India. Langa is in the uh right hand side of you and in the left hand side of you there is Kerala. So I live here. There is uh this is called as western cut. So this is basically greenery and forest.

Okay. There is lot of funies are there around in and out. Let's see. Okay, now so the magic mushroom grows in this part one of this particular place. That's awesome. Let me go to satellite and that way I could see the forest and then I will take off. Mhm. This one take off labels. All right. So around this area.

So you said Kerala. Yeah, exactly. This is the area. Come Madurai. You've got Per National Park. Rainy forest. Is it around here? That is uh you know Idki Munar Idiki. You can see Oh, Munar. Yeah, I see Muna. Yeah, exactly. And Iduki. Yeah, I see that right here. Yeah.

Yeah, this is Yeah. So, you have quite a big area. Yeah. Yeah. This is Yeah, I have a garden here. This is like you know I'm uh cultivating all the trees and I'm having a pond here I'm making so that this Yeah, this would actually be very good.

What is the elevation? Yeah. Okay. 600 m there, 800 m there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you're actually quite good elevation. This is this is this is a great place for mushroom. Yeah. There's a lot of magic mushroom also here actually. M That's great. Actually, right now here in Australia is the is the season for magic mushrooms as well.

Mhm. [Music] So when we talking about protecting mushrooms u how do someone can uh like for example I found a particular species in the forest and that is not been uh recorded before and I want to protect I want to I mean if I keep that in one lab kind of setup it will go in 10 days or 15 days things like that I need to create the offsprings I need to cultivate it. How do someone can do that actually? Yeah. Well, there's a couple of different ways to do that. One is to create a spore print. So, hopefully you find more than one mushroom and and you can take one, collect the spores and label the label them the finding, you know, you can look online for for collection information. All the information you want to collect. You can, you know, date, time, location, and then all the different things. You can even make drawings. collect spores. Um, but then if you have the ability to take a tissue culture, then you could actually preserve that that strain and grow the mcelium. But it gets really really really um specific and and complex if you haven't done it before.

Um, it it's pretty difficult. So, it's it's easy either easier to go to someone who can or knows how or to actually go through some training because it's called aseptic culturing and you need to make sure that you don't culture any bacteria or other mushrooms otherwise um you know you're you don't know that you're actually preserving the species and and you want to be sure. So, you need to have like specific equipment to do that. But the best thing if you don't know how to to do it in a lab setting to go to somebody else or at least keep a really good record and the spore print and drive the specimen. If you dry the specimen out, you can hold it indefinitely and then keeping a spore print, you have the you actually have the genetic material that somebody else could then grow in a laboratory setting.

So the sport print how long it can survive? Yeah. Yeah. Hundreds of years. the spores, as long as they're kept dry, you can uh put them on a bit of foil or a bit of paper, close them up, put them sealed, and and they'll last forever.

Mhm. Mhm. So yeah, uh and best wishes for uh you to come in India and uh you know, if possible um test me, maybe we could connect, I don't know, but yeah. Okay. I met possible I can share you some of the mushrooms uh which is been growing around here and you know if you find some uh if you I can I could have taken I can take some spot also and see.

Excellent. I suppose yeah you want to say something to our audience which is listening to and how they can connect with you. Sure. Well uh obviously uh my business is called Fable. You've seen my website is fablefood.co. co. We're also very active on Instagram, FableFoodco. One word. And uh I myself am Jimbo Mushrooms. One word. It's Jim Boils Mushrooms. And uh yeah, that's because I have a very unique way of cooking mushrooms uh based on science. You know, you can find more about that on my Instagram.

And for what? And all people could connect with you like for example to buying the mushroom to growing the teeth. what sort of Yeah, I'm open to talk about mushrooms at any time and it's easy. Yeah, you can just reach out to me on uh on Instagram or LinkedIn either way. Mhm.

You want to say something else? No, no, I'm good. That that was perfect. I just had a nice long conversation. Yeah, you you're welcome to reach out to me and and have further discussions if you want. Yeah. Okay. We will connect soon and uh you know maybe uh I can show you some of the mushrooms which I can find uh around in and around of my area and see uh you know cool what we can do about uh this this glob of mushroom.

Yeah, for sure. Love to. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very