Speaker 1: All right, the Last of Us just wrapped in. I
Speaker 1: wasn't impressed to nothing me either.
Speaker 2: I just did not think it was as interesting or
Speaker 2: as gripping as the previous seasons. I was very bored, and.
Speaker 1: I feel like the only takeaway was that I was
Speaker 1: sideye in the oyster mushrooms at the Farmer's market and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, listen, this is the first season of the
Speaker 2: Last of Us. We've been needing to talk about this.
Speaker 2: So oh, because did I tell you I am taking
Speaker 2: a mushroom supplement. I'm taking Lion's main mushroom girl.
Speaker 1: No, I mean nothing wrong with it. Do you feel okay?
Speaker 2: I feel I mean, you know, I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's just like all in my mind or if it's
Speaker 2: actually doing something because I took it because I wanted
Speaker 2: to like make sure that I wasn't like having so
Speaker 2: much brain fog and stuff like that. Okay, so to
Speaker 2: help me focus, and I think it's going okay. I
Speaker 2: am not sure if it's doing anything, but I don't
Speaker 2: feel like I haven't been focused.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, long as you're not clicking like on
Speaker 1: the Last of Us, we're good. We're good.
Speaker 2: Could you imagine I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah, and this
Speaker 2: is Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast
Speaker 2: that mixes hardcore science with pop culture and a healthy
Speaker 2: dose of friendship. All Right, I think we already know
Speaker 2: funger everywhere. Yes, that is one of the first things
Speaker 2: that we know.
Speaker 1: And I know just from a little bit of microbiology background.
Speaker 1: I got to learn a little bit about fungus, but
Speaker 1: I know they have these like vast underground networks. They
Speaker 1: live on our skin and our guts, and they can
Speaker 1: even be spores in the air.
Speaker 2: I don't have a biology background, so I know nothing
Speaker 2: of those things. But I do know the pop culture,
Speaker 2: which is that everyone is obsessed. HBO's the Last of Us,
Speaker 2: put Cordyceps on the center stage, and TikTok Wellness keeps
Speaker 2: pushing lines made lattes and creams and all these different things.
Speaker 1: Girl, I had a mushroom beer the other day. I
Speaker 1: mean mushroom root beer.
Speaker 2: Oh there's mushroom coffee.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is also foraging for mushrooms is booming.
Speaker 2: Too, absolutely Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's one thing to id birds. That's
Speaker 1: because I'm not gonna eat them. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can I d mushrooms?
Speaker 2: You well, the only bird I mean is chicken. I think,
Speaker 2: oh in those quail eggs. We won't talk about it.
Speaker 1: And you're eating turkey, girl, What are you told?
Speaker 2: Right? I do eat turkey? Okay, So you know these
Speaker 2: these animals just don't register my mind when I'm eating.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Peter thinking about the mushrooms and fun guy, Like,
Speaker 1: what do we want to know?
Speaker 2: I think what I want to know is which parts
Speaker 2: of the Cordyceps horror are rooted in like real actual
Speaker 2: mushrooms science, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, where does the science separate from the fiction?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Where is the line between the sigh and the five?
Speaker 2: That whole show.
Speaker 1: Made me so nervous and I want to know, like
Speaker 1: I'm a Marketer's dream. Okay, I'll try it.
Speaker 2: All.
Speaker 1: Are these mushroom coffees and tinctures and brain elixers, you know,
Speaker 1: things to help lift the fog? Are they legit or
Speaker 1: are they just clever marketing?
Speaker 2: M Yeah? I mean if we take it a step further,
Speaker 2: it's like, how do fungi affect us every day? Like?
Speaker 2: How does it? How does it impact our well being
Speaker 2: and like our lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it's pretty clear today we're diving
Speaker 1: into fungui, those mysterious little things. And I'm not talking
Speaker 1: like Mario Brothers little you know, Tolstool. We're talking about
Speaker 1: things that are in our food, under our feet and
Speaker 1: on the last of us, controlling dead people. So we
Speaker 1: went to an expert in fungui and in foraging for
Speaker 1: fungui too.
Speaker 3: My name is Darling Go and you know I would
Speaker 3: say that first and foremost, I am a scientist. I
Speaker 3: do study and I major in data science at Georgia
Speaker 3: State University and so Apart from being a full time student,
Speaker 3: I'm also a park ranger at the Arabia Mountain National
Speaker 3: Heritage Area. I am the founder of Hikes of Georgia
Speaker 3: as well Hikes of Georgia as an educational and science
Speaker 3: based organization that's really meant to educate people on the
Speaker 3: study of fungi and mold as well as just general
Speaker 3: nature knowledge and you know, helping our community become better
Speaker 3: stewards of our land, because if not us, who will awesome.
Speaker 2: From park ranger to data scientists, you're connecting the dots
Speaker 2: between nature and technology and that is really really cool
Speaker 2: and we're really excited to have you. Okay, So my
Speaker 2: question is is that we want to break down mycology
Speaker 2: for our audience. What does the word mean?
Speaker 3: Mycology works from es centrally just a study of fungi,
Speaker 3: and the fungi comes from the micopart and so the
Speaker 3: ology we would know as generally being attributed to fields
Speaker 3: of study. When we think of the word mushroom and
Speaker 3: we think of the word fung gui, they can be synonymous.
Speaker 3: But technically the fung guy is the body.
Speaker 1: So we know the fruiting body that we typically see
Speaker 1: or we think of having that top and stem, that
Speaker 1: is what we typically call a mushroom. But there's so
Speaker 1: much more that you mentioned where the fun guy are
Speaker 1: growing underground, and sometimes there are things that we can't
Speaker 1: even see. I can remember growing up thinking about fung
Speaker 1: guy as decomposers, like they help stuff go away, or
Speaker 1: when wood is rotting, you're gonna see mushrooms there. Yes.
Speaker 1: Since then, and as I've grown, I've learned more. I
Speaker 1: think about the micro rhizal networks and I think they
Speaker 1: don't get enough credit. You know, I'm all about giving
Speaker 1: credit whorres to. But I feel like they don't get
Speaker 1: enough credit. Yeah, so I want to tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about these networks. It help us imagine what
Speaker 1: would our force look like without those fun guy in
Speaker 1: the mix, because I think we don't really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Y's right, absolutely, it's a wonderful question. By the way, Zakia,
Speaker 3: this opens up a whole You know, we can get
Speaker 3: very abstract here, but let's start very low level and
Speaker 3: we'll work our way up. There are three main categories.
Speaker 3: Off mushrooms or a fun guy. One of the main
Speaker 3: categories which are the saprophetic mushrooms. Saprophetic mushrooms, it's just
Speaker 3: the technical term for a decomposer, right, okay, And primarily
Speaker 3: a cool thing about them is usually on your hikes.
Speaker 3: This is going to be one of the more popular
Speaker 3: categories of mushrooms that you come across, because decomposition is
Speaker 3: always occurring in the ecosystem. And then we have another
Speaker 3: minor category with the smallest category would be the parasitic mushrooms.
Speaker 3: They have their own important ecological functions. For example, if
Speaker 3: there was a subset of an ecosystem of trees and
Speaker 3: an ecosystem that was already susceptible to a given disease.
Speaker 3: They're a compromisation by these parasitic fungi a lot easier.
Speaker 3: And this is generally what sort of trees. These parasitic
Speaker 3: fungi will prey on organisms that are already susceptible, and
Speaker 3: sometimes this parasitic fungui could easily mitigate the spread of
Speaker 3: disease to the greater population of the ecosystem. So exactly,
Speaker 3: although they're pretty gnarly right in nature, things are just
Speaker 3: merely designed beautifully with a cause and effect, and I
Speaker 3: think the more we understand that, the better we understand
Speaker 3: ourselves too. But getting onto your main point, these infamous
Speaker 3: Michael rises mushrooms and what's all to talk about them
Speaker 3: or microhyzel fungi. Think of it as filamentous threads that
Speaker 3: are roughly just one cell wall thick, and they're just
Speaker 3: moving underground, just spreading right. No eyes, no ears, no
Speaker 3: taste buds. It's super cool. These are organisms with no
Speaker 3: central nervous system that are still one of the most
Speaker 3: effective at acquiring resources, which is what makes it profound.
Speaker 3: But these microizal mushrooms is they're underground, they're looking for
Speaker 3: certain chemicals, and these chemicals are exactly what the trees
Speaker 3: are providing. There's always a chemical universe and a chemical
Speaker 3: relationship and dynamics going on underground. The roots of trees
Speaker 3: are pumping out these chemicals that attract mushrooms that can
Speaker 3: help provide them more resources. And here's where it gets
Speaker 3: even more fun. So this michael rhyzel mycilium, which is
Speaker 3: the network of this body of fungi, right, we refer
Speaker 3: to it as just a mycilium network. This myceilial network
Speaker 3: is it's spreading underground but encounters a chemical from a
Speaker 3: root of a tree that it thinks it can work
Speaker 3: with and maybe pair up for life. And what happens
Speaker 3: here is super cool. When they're within proximity of each other,
Speaker 3: the tree will keep letting out the chemical that's attracting
Speaker 3: this michel rhyzel mushroom that wants to form a relationship
Speaker 3: with it, and the micro hyzel myceolium realizes this and
Speaker 3: it starts letting out a specific chemical that lets it
Speaker 3: know that, hey, you know your best friends here type
Speaker 3: of deal.
Speaker 1: So that's chemotaxis moving away from or in this case,
Speaker 1: towards different chemical signals.
Speaker 3: Right, it's like their secret chemical message. And what happens
Speaker 3: is is and this is science and we've been able
Speaker 3: to figure out in the last decade. But as we
Speaker 3: know now, the root of the tree will let down
Speaker 3: it saw wall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw that. Plants or trees recognize it as
Speaker 1: a symbiotic relationship, and the plants just dissolve their seal
Speaker 1: walls in that region that's near the fun guy and
Speaker 1: say like, come on in, I'm rolling out the red
Speaker 1: carpet for you.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, I think I get it. So it's building
Speaker 2: an infrastructure. It's kind of like a sidewalk welcoming you
Speaker 2: into the tree.
Speaker 3: Not just a sidewalk, a highway where nutrients and information
Speaker 3: is being passed twenty four to seven, three hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty five days of the week. Right, And this is
Speaker 3: the mic hoorizal relationship that's formed.
Speaker 2: This is really interesting. How does it affect us or
Speaker 2: does it affect us?
Speaker 3: Well, roughly eighty percent of trees are connected to a
Speaker 3: symbiotic relationship with some fungi, right, So they're connected with
Speaker 3: some sort of mic rhizo fungi, and fungi can be
Speaker 3: found everywhere in the World's the Arctic apart from those
Speaker 3: two poles, but everywhere else it's fair game. Even in
Speaker 3: deserts it's it's interesting. So essentially, this tree is siphering
Speaker 3: off carbon and it doesn't use all of this carbon,
Speaker 3: though it saves roughly twenty to thirty percent. It turns
Speaker 3: it into glucose and it trades it with the micylorhizol mushroom.
Speaker 3: It gives it sugar, and then what does the micro
Speaker 3: rhizal mushroom give in return? The myceelial network is so
Speaker 3: adept it can reach deep underground reservoirs the roots of
Speaker 3: trees can never dare imagine to reach right or just
Speaker 3: nutrient spots from dead animals or highly nutrient locations that
Speaker 3: are a little bit further off from the tree's main
Speaker 3: location that its roots can't reach to, and it's sending
Speaker 3: over the phosphorus, the nitrogen, and these are some of
Speaker 3: the main nutrients provide.
Speaker 1: We're talking about chemical signals that are saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: me and you, two different species, let's cooperate. And I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a little wild because when we think
Speaker 1: about cooperative I'm always thinking like in one species, you know.
Speaker 2: I, Yeah, that's wild. I mean that's a strong scent,
Speaker 2: that's strong cologne, strong perfume. You know, is that baccarat rouge?
Speaker 2: I heard that that's what all the young folks are.
Speaker 1: Wearing these I'm not smelling that. Now.
Speaker 2: Is this limited to just tree or plant communicating with
Speaker 2: symbiotic fungus or does this type of communication exist between
Speaker 2: one tree to the next tree.
Speaker 3: This is how the communication also happens. And if ecosystem
Speaker 3: and there was a mother tree that was doing pretty
Speaker 3: well off, but then you had saplings a couple miles
Speaker 3: off in the forest that were in danger. There's this communication,
Speaker 3: there's a distress signal that's sent from the sapling and
Speaker 3: they're all communicating via this micro ryzel network. And what
Speaker 3: happens is the mother could decide to channel its resources
Speaker 3: to the saplings in helping it grow some more, which
Speaker 3: is just it's beautiful. And so it brings on a
Speaker 3: new meaning of you know, we have this notion of
Speaker 3: saying the forest is alive. Right, these things are just communicating,
Speaker 3: transferring information and resources. And micro rhizel mushrooms are the
Speaker 3: nervous system of the forest, right, many ways of looking
Speaker 3: at it, but without microhizel mushrooms. We wouldn't have trees
Speaker 3: in a lot of places that we do now, or
Speaker 3: you wouldn't have forest as dense and deep in the growth.
Speaker 3: So then this plays into how much forest can actually
Speaker 3: siphon off from sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Microhizal mushrooms
Speaker 3: or by far one of my favorite categories of mushrooms.
Speaker 2: I really loved how you describe that, because, I mean,
Speaker 2: at first I was like, oh, this sounds scary, but
Speaker 2: then you you describe such a beautiful relationship between the
Speaker 2: tree and the fungus, and it's it's like almost emotional,
Speaker 2: like how much they depend on each other and they used,
Speaker 2: how much they use each other. The way you described
Speaker 2: how the fungus moves underground and it is moving through things,
Speaker 2: you know what reminded me of They reminded me of
Speaker 2: the Last of Us. I don't know if you've been
Speaker 2: watching that as a mushroom expert, cortescep, but they talk
Speaker 2: about cordyceps all the time, and I feel like the
Speaker 2: word cordycep now is now a part of the zeitgeist
Speaker 2: because of this show, and we don't know a lot
Speaker 2: about it, and this show is basically teaching us, and
Speaker 2: we don't know if it's true or not, right, so
Speaker 2: we just want to kind of have a little bit
Speaker 2: of a reality check when it comes to courtusps and
Speaker 2: human zombies.
Speaker 3: I always always get at least one person on the
Speaker 3: high Ku recommends that show and I still haven't yet
Speaker 3: watched it. I've heard about it so much that I
Speaker 3: actually went I've read up on the show. Quartersps are
Speaker 3: really cool because they sort of are the prime example
Speaker 3: of a zombie like takeover and what that could look like.
Speaker 3: Mushrooms are shaped in all sorts of ways, right. You'll
Speaker 3: see some with caps, You'll see some with oozing jelly,
Speaker 3: You'll see some with multiple fronds. But they're all meant
Speaker 3: to enhance their sporelation process, which is just the way
Speaker 3: that they released their sports, and the spores could germinate
Speaker 3: on a lot of different things, right. It doesn't just
Speaker 3: have to be the dead wood or the leaf litter
Speaker 3: in the forest ecosystem. It can be a living tree.
Speaker 3: Primarily a lot of insects and a ragnet are the
Speaker 3: favorite host for the quarter steps. The way mushrooms grow
Speaker 3: is by way of external excretion of enzymes, and these
Speaker 3: enzymes are ponent enough to break down the kitan, which
Speaker 3: is just the shell of these insects, and so once
Speaker 3: a spore, which is microscopic, it's almost invisible to the eye.
Speaker 3: It lands on this and to lands on this beetle.
Speaker 3: As it eats its way into its body, it starts
Speaker 3: filling it with mycilium. And the insect has no idea
Speaker 3: this is happening. It is just living life as it
Speaker 3: always was. It's a PG Friday, It's Taco Tuesday for it.
Speaker 3: There is nothing going on. Slowly, but surely, the mysilium
Speaker 3: completely encapsulates this insect, and at that point then something
Speaker 3: very special happens. We still have here a chemical relationship.
Speaker 3: The masilium starts flooding the brain of this insect with
Speaker 3: chemicals of dopamine and a lot of excitement and a
Speaker 3: lot of rage, and it starts to take control of
Speaker 3: the movement of this insect, and it forces it not
Speaker 3: too far off from its colony. It forces it to
Speaker 3: the highest point by the colony, close enough to where
Speaker 3: when the mushroom sprouts, its spores have a higher probability
Speaker 3: of encountering more hosts like it. So this ant climbs
Speaker 3: up the closest tree, looks at the twig that's really
Speaker 3: high up, finds a leaf, clamps on the leaf, and
Speaker 3: that's the last thing this insect ever does. Within yep,
Speaker 3: and within days two weeks, the mushroom completely eats the
Speaker 3: ant or the insect insight. And then we get this
Speaker 3: cool and this really awesome looking horn that comes out
Speaker 3: of the mushroom in the form of quartersps and quartersps.
Speaker 3: Because at this point people may be like, ah, a
Speaker 3: parasitic mushroom, Like it's kind of gross. I get why
Speaker 3: they'd make a show about it, But it's actually really
Speaker 3: popular in holistic medical practices.
Speaker 1: All right, wait wait, wait, wait wait, because you would
Speaker 1: just talking about something a little while. That's not the
Speaker 1: plot twist that I saw coming right.
Speaker 3: Quartersps are known, especially in Asian medicine, right to enhance
Speaker 3: athletic performance, speed up recovery.
Speaker 2: So today we learn mushrooms can either create insect zombies
Speaker 2: or boost your athletic performance. Choose your fighter.
Speaker 3: It's really cool. It's really cool. So as far as
Speaker 3: the clinical trials that are being done in the West
Speaker 3: right now, it's primarily for enhance energy, athletic performance and
Speaker 3: speeding up recovery. There's also another medicinal factor. It's known
Speaker 3: for in a lot of Asian countries, and it's known
Speaker 3: as the mushroom that can slow down aging. It's really cool.
Speaker 3: But just for more practical clinical research, we have found
Speaker 3: that there is a specific compound known as quarti sapin
Speaker 3: in these quartersap mushrooms. But believe me, this thing is
Speaker 3: only going to get more popular because from what trial
Speaker 3: is already showing from the last several decades, i'd say
Speaker 3: ten to twenty years, there's a lot of research that's
Speaker 3: being backed up and corroborated now in the scientific world
Speaker 3: regarding the medicinal benefits of mushrooms and quarters apps. It's
Speaker 3: right there with the top along with Lion's main and
Speaker 3: the like.
Speaker 1: Listen, the benefits seem great, but I don't feel like
Speaker 1: those advances are enough to make me want to be
Speaker 1: infected by mushrooms like Courtyceps last of Us style. I'm
Speaker 1: just glad that's not possible, Okay.
Speaker 3: Same, Can I ask you a question?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Because here's the thing. Every time we breathe in, unless
Speaker 3: you're in a cleanly ventilated closed system. Yeah, every time
Speaker 3: we're breathing in. You're breathing in at least ten to
Speaker 3: at least thirty different mushroom spores, So why don't mushrooms? No,
Speaker 3: it's okay, like breathe it in, Come on, come on, okay, okay, right,
Speaker 3: So then the question is, you know, I know, is
Speaker 3: I ask this and I get some funny answers, But
Speaker 3: it's really simple. Why don't mushrooms grow inside of us?
Speaker 1: We're too warm for them.
Speaker 3: Yes, our temperatures are hot enough to inhibit its growth,
Speaker 3: but they can survive pretty warm temperatures.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm glad spores aren't germinating and growing in
Speaker 1: my lungs, but I do know we have them on
Speaker 1: our skin. We have a microbiome, so fun Guy exists
Speaker 1: in our scalps, our hands, our feet, and you know,
Speaker 1: instead of just the two of us, it's just the
Speaker 1: three of us, fun God, bacteria and ourselves. And sometimes
Speaker 1: you know, that balance gets out of line, and that's
Speaker 1: when you start to see yeast or some other component
Speaker 1: like growing too much. So when you see babies having
Speaker 1: thrush all that white stuff in their mouth, or some
Speaker 1: types of dandruff and acne are caused by yeast overgrowing
Speaker 1: like Malicesia is the name of that yeast.
Speaker 2: Wow, I did not know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the cool thing about this dance we call
Speaker 3: life and the dance that we have here in the universes.
Speaker 3: Not everything is a giver, some things are takers. But
Speaker 3: in some way, the levels of which these relationships are working,
Speaker 3: it can create a whole organ system. For example, I
Speaker 3: think you alluded to a perfect fact that our body
Speaker 3: actually carries more helpful bacteria than not just the majority
Speaker 3: of these bacteria or parasitic in nature and actually giving
Speaker 3: us something back. They're helping us live. And of course,
Speaker 3: when you have this imbalance between givers and takers, right
Speaker 3: between these parasites that are just exploiting and not giving
Speaker 3: us much back, this imbalance creates a wreck in the body,
Speaker 3: and we see that in the form of rashes and
Speaker 3: fungal infections and disease and illness. Right, But a healthy
Speaker 3: symbiotic system is a body that has healthy parasites.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: And some people may be put off by this, and
Speaker 3: I get that, but honestly, it's really the reality.
Speaker 1: That's such a good point.
Speaker 2: I'm on TikTok, I'm a I won't say I'm a TikToker,
Speaker 2: but I'm a TikTok watcher, and I feel like I
Speaker 2: am on the mushroom side of TikTok where everybody's talking
Speaker 2: about all these different mushrooms that can help you. Like
Speaker 2: you mentioned that in the earlier on in our conversation,
Speaker 2: Lions Maine. That's the one that's been creeping up a
Speaker 2: lot on my for you page, And I feel like
Speaker 2: people like the videos I'm seeing. I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: started taking lines made. Now is it a placebo I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Even if it.
Speaker 2: Is, it's working, Oh wonderful. But that's the one that
Speaker 2: I hear about a lot, is Lines Maine mushroom.
Speaker 3: It is a huge boom right now. What's going on
Speaker 3: with the mushroom herbal medicinal space, right You have companies
Speaker 3: coming out of the woodwork touting whatever remedies, whatever benefits
Speaker 3: for their latest mushroom supplement and their latest mushroom. It's great.
Speaker 3: The best way I would say is to keep yourself
Speaker 3: informed and keep yourself protected obviously by you know, getting
Speaker 3: in touch with Hyser Georgia. If you need a company
Speaker 3: to be reviewed, of course, get in touch with us.
Speaker 2: Oh but perfect.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, of course, But I would say that generally
Speaker 3: you want to get in the habit of understanding the
Speaker 3: dosages that these companies are working with, because that's really
Speaker 3: the whole playing field here that they're weeding through the companies.
Speaker 3: In general, we know for sure that these mushrooms are
Speaker 3: backed up scientifically with clinical research. Quarter steps enhance energy
Speaker 3: and it speeds up recovery great because it has these
Speaker 3: compounds known as polysaccharites that can help your immune system
Speaker 3: benefit our health. So the main compounds that we derive
Speaker 3: from these mushrooms think of your turkey tail, your Lion's maine,
Speaker 3: your rati mushrooms, your quarter steps. These have unique groupings
Speaker 3: of polysaccharides that either help strengthen our immune system, help
Speaker 3: us fight against illness, help us provide energy. Taga is
Speaker 3: one of the best mushrooms for information. Well, I think
Speaker 3: it's the best mushroom for information, something like Lion's Main,
Speaker 3: which is hands down the best mushroom for combating neurodegenerative diseases. Right,
Speaker 3: health is a layered thing. Mushrooms can be used to
Speaker 3: target the gut, They can be used to target the brain,
Speaker 3: They can be used to target the heart for example.
Speaker 3: I mean, this wouldn't be your primary treatment modality. But
Speaker 3: try to think about what it is you want right,
Speaker 3: what it is you're looking to enhance or optimize within
Speaker 3: your system? Is it brain health? Is it focus? Is
Speaker 3: it energy? Is it gut health? Is it better sleep
Speaker 3: and move modulation? Because they are specific mushrooms that can
Speaker 3: really help you get closer towards this at a much
Speaker 3: faster rate.
Speaker 2: Do you have to eat these mushrooms raw in order
Speaker 2: to get the benefits?
Speaker 3: When we speak about medicinal mushrooms, we take a bit
Speaker 3: of a different perspective. These are generally found in a
Speaker 3: heart like texture once these mushrooms fruit, so some of
Speaker 3: them are already hard. Think of your raichi mushrooms, your
Speaker 3: turkey tail mushrooms, your you know, cordus steps aren't necessarily hard,
Speaker 3: but they're usually dried out and a lot of these
Speaker 3: are turned into powders.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Taga is really hard Lion's made. Although it's very fleshy
Speaker 3: and moist, it's usually dried out and turned into a powder,
Speaker 3: And so these are usually turned into powders and then
Speaker 3: used in the form of teas. Now for something like
Speaker 3: the tinstures. They're using certain chemical compounds to dissolve the
Speaker 3: mushroom and this liquid and this is what we get
Speaker 3: and as the concentrated form of this, mushrooms medicinal properties.
Speaker 3: And so that's how the tinctures are made. But primarily
Speaker 3: a lot is turned into powder. Tinctures are sort of
Speaker 3: less in volume in the market. And then apart from
Speaker 3: the tinctures, you have the powders. And then the powders
Speaker 3: could be turned into capsules, okay, or or they're like yes,
Speaker 3: but generally powder formed and then tea or you know,
Speaker 3: directly turned into a tincture.
Speaker 1: I think this just has me even more excited to
Speaker 1: finally start my mushroom forging. I won't be eating anything, wrang,
Speaker 1: I actually won't be picking anything. I'll just be taking
Speaker 1: pictures and tagging hikes of Georgia.
Speaker 3: Wait until after our workshop, I think you'll you'll definitely
Speaker 3: feel a lot more confident.
Speaker 1: And Hikes of Georgia workshop.
Speaker 2: This was a really beautiful lab because it helped me
Speaker 2: get out of the binary. The last of us had
Speaker 2: me side eyeing my krimini mushrooms. You know, I like
Speaker 2: them in my eggs. I like and with my chick
Speaker 2: I like mushrooms with everything. I like it on my pizza.
Speaker 2: But after watching that, I was like, maybe I need
Speaker 2: to be a little bit more careful looking futy in
Speaker 2: the light.
Speaker 1: And then even when thinking about breathing in spores, like
Speaker 1: maybe we are just a messy blob of sales carrying
Speaker 1: other organisms on our backs. Like everything is yuckie.
Speaker 2: There's stuff everywhere.
Speaker 3: I know, the deeper you go into it, the more
Speaker 3: convoluted it gets. And that's the beautiful thing, you know.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of that quote. You gaze into this
Speaker 3: abyss and the abyss gazes back, and it's this beautiful
Speaker 3: process of you know, uncovering. Within the last two decades,
Speaker 3: we've had a proliferation in DNA sequencing processes being amortized
Speaker 3: across the globe. What this means is that we have
Speaker 3: much more of an accurate way we can categorize these
Speaker 3: mushrooms that were formerly unknown to us within their taxonomical
Speaker 3: categorization to the highest degree of certainty. And so now
Speaker 3: there are countless mushrooms being reclassified. Their countless mushrooms that
Speaker 3: are being found. I believe within the next twenty to
Speaker 3: thirty years, they are going to be even more edible
Speaker 3: and medicinal mushrooms that we can talk about because the
Speaker 3: classification technology has just gotten much better than what it
Speaker 3: was before.
Speaker 2: I think that that is a great way to say it.
Speaker 1: I wonder what's next. Is it that we just haven't
Speaker 1: found something that can do what they're doing on the
Speaker 1: less of us? I don't know. Let's don't get into that.
Speaker 1: If you're in Georgia and interested in learning more, be
Speaker 1: sure to check out Ranger Darling and Hikes of Georgia
Speaker 1: to see the workshops they're offering and guide it tours
Speaker 1: so you can forge your own mushrooms. Zekiah, I'm packing
Speaker 1: my bag now, scoot over, let's go. You can find
Speaker 1: us on X and Instagram at Dope Labs podcast, tt
Speaker 1: is on X and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho.
Speaker 2: And you can find Takia at Z he said so.
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media.
Speaker 2: Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate
Speaker 2: producer is Issara Savez.
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is sound design edited and mixed by James Barber,
Speaker 1: Lamanada Media's Vice president of Partnerships and production is Jackie Danziger.
Speaker 1: Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead
Speaker 1: is Alison Kanter.
Speaker 2: Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex
Speaker 2: sudi Ura, with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Labs
Speaker 2: is executive produced by us T T Show Dia and
Speaker 2: Zakia Wattley.