From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.
You are listening to Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher. My guest today is Robert Dale Rogers. Robert has been a student of native plants and fungi from the Canadian prairies for over forty years. He teaches plant medicine at Grant MacEwan University and the Northern Star College of Mystical Studies in Edmonton. He's a professional member of the American Herbalist Guild and chair of the medicinal mushroom committee of the North American Association and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms.
Robert is author of fourteen books including his latest, The Fungal Pharmacy, The Complete Guide to Medicinal Mushrooms and Lichens of North America. You can see Robert Teach this July at the Montana Herb Gathering as well as in December at the North American Psychological Association.
Robert's website is self heal distributing dot com. Robert, welcome.
Oh, thank you.
Well, you know, Robert, we're focusing, on our fun fungi friends today. Yeah.
Though you are an herbalist and you've written a lot of books.
So on Herb Mentor, we love hearing the stories about, how people got into what they got into. So how did you begin learning about plants? Did you start at a young age, or was that something in your family, or something you just kinda picked up along the way?
Well, I this is the story I often tell, is when I was six years old, I actually, contracted, tuberculosis from my uncle who came back from the Korean war. So we're going back to the mid nineteen fifties.
And, of course, I was the most affected and and I remembered many years later that during that summer, I would take, small glass jars and fill them with water and go around the neighborhood, and I was putting flower petals on top of the water and putting them out in the sun and, and then drinking them, of course. And, many years later, I realized that I was actually giving myself flower essence, infusions.
And, so I guess that's where I started when I was about six years old. And later, I became to Edmonton in Canada here to become a medical doctor. And after two years of pre med, I just didn't have the heart for it, and I I finished a degree in botany.
And from there on, I started studying, plant medicine with local native healers of the region, and started to expand from there. And then I finally, went to England, went to Spain, studied there in Barcelona for a while, and then I went to, Peru and did a two year kind of a apprentice in Peru. And I started the clinical practice in nineteen eighty four in in Edmonton where I live now.
Okay. And, so it's that this is really interesting. So you had some native elders along the way too. So just to teach you about the plants of your area. I mean, have you been centered in the Edmonton area most of your life?
Just since university and and on. I, I actually was born in Prince Edward Island, a small province in Eastern Canada and, then in Nova Scotia and Halifax, but came out here came out west for university.
Okay. And and in in Canada, there's a, it's it's it's legal to is it it's legal to be an herbalist. Right?
No. It's not.
It's not.
It's not. There in Alberta, the province I'm in, it actually is, there is no status.
No status.
In British Columbia, on the West Coast, there is actually is a legal association at this point. But no. I I, I no longer practice, herbalism in clinically, for having for about ten years. I've kinda concentrated more on research and and teaching and, thing and writing. So that's more where I've been the last ten years.
And did that lead you to wanting to work more with mushrooms?
Well, I only really, really started to investigate mushrooms, less than ten years ago. I, you have to realize in northern in Canada, in northern Alberta, we only have about, twelve hundred plants that are, believe it or not, that are, indigenous.
And as I as I tell people, after thirty years of studying plants and you learn about forty a year, that's it. They're all you know them all.
And so and so I started looking around, I looked at the mosses and I looked at the lichens and then I started looking at the mushrooms and it wasn't until I joined the mycological society and, many of the people there who have helped me a lot including Martin Ossus, who's the past president of the Alberta Mycological Society, that I actually started learning about the mushrooms of our region. And then I put two and two together that that many of the mushrooms that I had been suggesting in my clinical practice actually Nope. No pun intended. No. No.
Nope. No pun intended. No. No.
You know, we're we're studying mushrooms, medicinal mushrooms. These on HerbMentor, every two months we do a different featured plant. But this we just kinda did a blanket medicinal mushrooms to get our feet wet. So feet dirty, I should say, so to say.
And, because it's been an area that we, well, you know, shy away from because just none of us on the site have really done a whole lot to really call ourselves and, you know, we feel qualified to do so, so we we, we set that this month and Rosalie on the site, is a big fan of your book, Fungal Pharmacy. And she said, oh, you gotta get Robert Rogers on the on the line, you know. So thank you. Thanks for being with us.
And and so, I wanna start for folks, you know, just at the beginning because, you know, people listen to this podcast, not just on Herb Mentor but beyond too.
And and, so exactly what is a mushroom? Because a lot of people just, you know, think it's well, I know. You know, we we see we see them in the store, but we also just see the parts that are above ground. So what what exactly is a mushroom?
That's a great question. I mean, the fungal pharmacy name, suggests that it deals with fungi.
And of course, fungi is a huge kingdom. In fact, you know, it's one of the, I would say, the third after animals, plants, fungi, major kingdom on the planet. And in fact, probably less than ten percent of the fungi on on the planet have actually been identified or named, and so it's a it's a vast area of study. I've concentrated mainly in the book here to deal with mushrooms. That is either the polypores, that is their pore type shape, a way release of spores from trees, and or the gilled mushrooms that often grow more on the ground.
And both of those, of course, are the fruiting body. The actual organism is living in the tree, living in the ground and spreads huge mycelium mats that actually allow for, most plants, including trees, to actually exist.
Without the without the fungi, they would not have a way to really absorb nutrients and water and and so there's a little trade goes on between fungi and and plants in terms of, I'll give you some sugars, I e the fungi want sugars, and the plants want the other nutrients that are made available by the mycelium. So it's a little trade off that actually works, and they are totally interrelated.
Wow. And, I read where Paul Stamets said there could be, eight miles of mycelium and one cubic inch of soil.
Absolutely.
That's crazy. So talk a little bit about that, like mycelium and the network and how the the size of some of these organisms and stuff like that.
It's fascinating. Well, parts are there are some large organisms. In fact, and just south of you in Oregon, there is the what some people consider the largest organism in the world, which is the, a species of honey mushroom.
And, it's it's fairly significant. I think I believe it's around two thousand acres or something like that. So if you compare that to say, let's say the, blue whale, it, is significantly larger.
Yeah. And so it's one organism. I mean, and how they know it's one organism is they do DNA testing and at all the different extremes and they find that it actually is, the same organism.
And this is setting up fruit that people can harvest or that particular species or or, like, how does that Yeah.
The honey mushroom is one that is actually puts out a, it's actually twenty four hundred. I was wrong. Twenty four hundred acres. It actually is underground and then it fruits as it goes.
And it is one of the major destroyers, destructive, mushrooms to, various trees like the Douglas fir, etcetera. Oh. And so foresters don't like it. Mushroomers do.
I mean, it's one of my favorite tasting mushrooms. It's not only a great edible, but it has a number of great, medicinal properties as well including, you know, things like helping to promote, t helper cells for our immune system.
It has some definite, contributions for, blood sugar control, things of that nature. So, you know, it's a great mushroom.
So, overall, the the purpose of of, I mean, the the the fungi like, have a a lot of different purposes or, like, you know, are they are they are they cleaning the forest? Are they you know, what is the various purposes that that mushrooms or the networks there do? Maybe I mean, do you I mean, the term mushroom itself, is that just referring to the fruit or is that, like, referring to the whole organism?
It's a whole organisms that have fruiting bodies.
Right.
Yeah. And they're part of the fungi kingdom.
Some of the uses that they have, they're numerous. One of the things that I think really is very important to note is that they are the recycler on the planet. And they take all kinds of otherwise, we'd have leaf litter up to the sky high in the in the forest. So they help to break down and make these nutrients more available for the next generation of plants and animals and and after that.
They also, tend to, have an ability to keep plants healthy by by their, ability to spread and and nourish and, and feed and, and act as part of that whole ecosystem that everything's interrelated.
They also are able to degrade and to break down very nasty toxins in our environment, including a number of different petrochemical, chemical and various, phenols and, all kinds of things that are formed by the, by chemistry that need breaking down. And, and that's an area of very interest. And I know Paul Stamos has a great interest in that, and I do too.
Where I live in Alberta, we have this nasty, huge, Athabasca oil sands, taking up about a quarter of our province that needs remediation. And and they're having very limited success with, bringing back, vegetation and bioremediation and again, mycoremediation.
Actually plugging in mycelium into areas Wow. That would actually help promote the spread of introduction of various grasses and herb herbaceous plants and trees, and I think it would speed the whole process up.
That's incredible. So it's like so so the so then the mushrooms or or when we say the term mushroom again again are returned to the whole organism. Correct? Not just the fruit.
We are. Okay. And and and so they it seems like on the earth, ecologically, it seems like the big part of of the earth's immune system, a big part of the lymphatic system. Right?
In a way, if we're gonna kind of line that up with with with a human's, functions.
And, and in a in a way, I mean, a lot of body systems actually when you think about it.
So Yeah.
They had all mushrooms as a generalization now. They're they all have specific uses for different body systems.
Mhmm.
But when you talk about the immune system, one of the major constituents of mushrooms are are these beta glucans, beta one three, beta one six glucans.
These are large molecules that do not have the ability to be absorbed by the human intestinal tract into the bloodstream. Mhmm. But they do tend to stimulate lymphatic tissue that surrounds these areas and, and, therefore initiate changes in either the direction, the TH one, TH two direction of the immune system, or function to, encourage more macrophage or interleukin or interferon type production.
So incredibly valuable.
It's just incredible how, like, you can just line up. I love that when you can line up how something is doing ecologically and also can do for ourselves as well. And it seems like there really is a beautiful example of that.
Well, herbalists like to do that. And, and and and and really to be honest, I think really it's interesting that herbalists, herbs, working with herbs, that it's very exciting that I would say in the last half dozen years, herbalists have embraced, mushroom therapies into their practices much more widely than was ever accepted before.
At least Western herbalists.
Right. Right.
Let's see. And, yeah, you were talking about the immune system. So you you you say in your book that the mushrooms contain bioactive metabolites capable of helping revitalize and modulate our immune systems. Can you talk a little more about that?
Yeah. Well, I think the greatest example of this is, let me use an example out of biomedicine.
Say you have a inflammatory condition like arthritis or something like that, and you decide to go that you wanna seek some help with, using, pharmaceutical approach, one of the things that you may be given, you know, maybe some quick kinds of corticosteroid, which help reduce the inflammation, but at the same time, actually depress your immune system and, actually cause other problems as well as we know.
Let's look at an example of an autoimmune condition of rheumatoid arthritis.
In this particular case, the tissue body is destroying its own tissue.
One of the great advantages of medicinal mushrooms by being modulators means that when the immune system is deficient, when it's down, it has the ability to boost and support.
But when it's autoimmune condition, that is an up over ramped kind of condition, it allows to damp it down and relieve the inflammatory process.
You know, inflammation is the big killer. I mean, inflammation is what really causes so many problems of health in humans. And so by modulating, it's not stimulating, it's not depressing, it's making it optimal. And that's what's so excited exciting to me about the mushrooms in general.
So I wanna get into specific mushrooms in a little bit because, you know, so people feel like a mini field guide, if you will. Things they can take with them from this and maybe start, experimenting or bringing some mushrooms into their life. Before we get into specifics of individual species, I was wondering, like a lot of people, you know, most people are probably listening, Most of their experience with mushrooms is just going to the market and, you know, buying some button mushrooms and chopping them up and putting them in the stir fry. So, what's the best way for people to start out or, you know, or how they should use mushrooms?
Well, that's a great question.
I'm glad you mentioned that they put them in their stir fry because, I do wanna caution people in general that, against eating any mushrooms raw.
I know that, you know, there's people out there who are still making their little spinach and raw button mushroom salads, and I want you to stop doing that. There are compounds in the basic, mushrooms, deragus that have that are not very good for you and shouldn't not be taken on a cumulative level. And so cooking the mushroom does not destroy any of the medicinal value and, actually makes them taste better anyways.
Exactly.
But I would say if you go to your general, supermarket, number one, you'll notice that in the last few years, virtually everything's turned over to organic mushrooms.
The buttons, the, oysters, the shiitakes, the Inoki, they're all organic. And and one of the reasons for that is, of course, that they're traditionally the fungicides that were used in the industry because let's face it, these large burns that were used for mushroom production of buttons, for example, lend themselves perfectly for fungi growth.
And and so huge amounts of antifungal agents were used and these were not very healthy a lot of people will get in the market, do do those themselves, are is it quality?
Oh, extremely. I mean, one of as a herbalist, you're probably very familiar with the, concept of, aromatase inhibitors.
Mhmm. These are for hormone sensitive cancers, you know, some things some herbs like, nettle root, for example. But button mushrooms have a great capacity for, containing aromatase inhibitors, especially against hormone sensitive cancers. And, that's one. They also are extremely useful for, blood sugar regulation, added into their diet. They also have a number of different compounds that suggest that they may be very useful in prevention, preventing the development of, neoplasms in people who are already have cancer or undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancers.
So yeah, button mushrooms are just a given.
They're they're not my favorite taste And And and and so do do you yourself like use like because I also I I seen like tinctures of mushrooms and capsules, and dried, and, like, so do you use those?
Yeah.
When would you use those? Like, why would you do that and not just cook them?
Well, you would if if it's an edible mushroom, like shiitake or oyster mushroom oysters, by the way, are a great mushroom for they contain natural, lovastatin, which, helps to, of course, lower cholesterol levels.
And two big meals of oyster mushrooms a week may be as good for you as your statin drug. And so that's another one, but of course cook it as well.
But if it's an edible mushroom, eat it as your food. Make food your medicine, medicine your food.
Some of the mushrooms are not edible. They're especially the conchs, the, the very hard, woody, polyporas that grow on trees, they need to be prepared. They need to be either boiled to release those multiple oligosaccharides, polysaccharide chains, these really complex sugar chains that have such benefit for us. And so, alcohol water extracts, there's controversy about whether hot water, cold water are equally good. There's everybody has an opinion, of course. And, but there needs to be some extraction method for those. And then, of course, some of those are then put into concentrated extracts and sold in stores.
I'm I'm kind of a an old hippie who likes to make my own medicines, so I I rarely buy them. But occasionally, is nice to buy the powders.
Right. Right. So for convenience or if you're just, like, trying to do a certain therapy or something, you might find that the tincture or something might be a a good way to keep going.
Right. And and and and as a further to this, I think it's important to note that many of the products on the market are not just from the fruiting bodies.
That is the, you know, the apple and the tree, but the mycelium that is the living organism in laboratory settings, very sophisticated, very pristine clean environments grown, they, that they are, the mycelium part is also sometimes added into formulas.
And so the mycelium has well been well researched as well, and they contain compounds that are not available to the average woodland harvester.
I see. I see.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, we do on this, on our site. We're pretty much, very much about the do it yourselfer like like you are personally.
So, and I think that, at least it's it's even true personally because you hear all the stories and anecdotes of the people who killed themselves.
So, for for those who wanna get started in in harvesting mushrooms, you know, when you do a class like, where do you where do you look? How do you do this safely? You know, how do you have?
Okay. Well, there's a couple of rules about mushrooms. Right? Mhmm. There's a couple of things. One is, if you cannot name the mushroom, don't eat it.
That makes sense.
And don't make a medicine of it. You have to be able to name it. That's the first rule.
And, so, you know, if if you can't do that, then I think it's really, that then you have to start from that. And I you go out with someone who actually is experienced and knows. So that when you see it and you name it, after a while, you'll start to get familiar with it. And some of the books that just are pictorials, they're not accurate enough sometimes. You really need several books.
And, my bookshelf is full of, of, fungi picture books and, you know, you can't carry them all with in the woods with you, but you can bring many of them back and then start to learn how to use keys and identify for yourself. It's really important.
You have some nice color shots as well in the in in your in your giant book that I'm holding.
Oh, thank you. Yeah. I I I probably took about eighty percent of them, but I Wow. But I had help from some other, students of mine as well as a great photographer called, his name is John Pleschke, out of Pennsylvania, contributed some wonderful pictures as well.
Mhmm.
Okay. So so you've identified it. You've got an expert. You've gone out there.
That that's great. I love that. That's a nice safe answer.
And, and so is there any, as far as location goes, is there any red flags? Or, you know, like, is it because most of them are growing in a forest that you're not really dealing with side of the road issues and things like that?
Or Oh, well, they do concentrate heavy metals and, things of that very, very distinctly.
You do need to be very cautious when you're picking mushrooms both on trees and on the ground particularly.
Mhmm.
Some of them accumulate cadmium and arsenic and and various, things. Cesium radioactive areas. I mean, you know, there's reason to believe that, radiation, came over from Japan recently, you know. And, and so that would be picked up and accumulated by organisms including fungi.
So, yeah, you where you pick is very important. You don't wanna be picking down stream from, you know, petrochemical plants or even from farming, nitrates. And nitrites are very common in some farming practices, nitrogen fertilizers, and be careful about those kind of areas. Yeah.
What about look alikes? I mean, that's usually the big thing people say, like, oh, so and so thought they were picking, you know, a Morel or Chanterelle or something, and then they picked it was a wrong time of year, and then they harvested, and then they died. You know, you know, hearts are hearing those stories also.
People people are dying. I mean, there's, there's some new, there's very recent I mean, Michael Bug, who's, head of the toxicology, for NAMA, North American Mycological Association, was just up in Edmonton a few weeks ago. And we released that poster that, Martinosis and I worked on for about a year that is on poisonous mushrooms. And for that specifically, that purpose, what mushrooms could people misidentify and ingest by accident? And then what are the standard treatments of measuring and naming that mushroom and then treating as soon as possible in emergency wards.
And, we've now got this all over the province, this particular mush, poster, and I'm kinda happy that we got that out here.
Nice.
So what what would you consider, like, the number one misidentified, you know, look alike one that's poisonous but might look a lot look like something that's people might wanna pick or is there any any Oh, there's a classic one.
It's the one that's probably responsible for eighty percent of the poisonings in North America. Oh.
There is a Which one's that?
Well Tune in next time.
It's it has a profound name.
It's called the destroying angel.
Mhmm. And, it's Amanita.
And Amanitas, of course, are white gilled, white spored mushrooms that have a little vulva on them. But when they're very young, when they're just popping over the ground, they can easily be mistaken for the common wild button mushroom.
Unless you actually dig down further into the ground and then cut it in half so you see this, little encased, amenita, you could easily mistake that. And if you would took those home and fry them up and ate them, about, a few hours later, up to, you know, maybe up to eight hours later, you start to feel quite sick, vomit, feverish, etcetera, cramping, and then you feel okay. Then you go, oh, I guess I just, you know, eat something bad. And then three days later, you die an excruciating death of kidney and liver failure.
I thought you were gonna say it all got better after a few hours, but you give me three more days to die.
It's it's one of the most deadly. In fact, the, standard, great anecdote for this is, a silibinin, which is, from milk thistle as all of our herbal friends know, milk thistle seed.
Silibinin is used intravenously to reverse the kidney and liver failure that is associated with this toxin.
And, it's unfortunate that many hospitals in Canada and United States don't stock it. They it's it's the number one thing that will save lives.
Wow. Wow. That's that's, probably something you keep on hand then.
It's something it's something that I am encouraging our own health care system in our in the province here to make sure that we do re re look at this issue because it isn't come up very often, but if it saves one life, it's worth it.
Does the do these two different mushrooms, the wild button mushrooms and the destroying angel, would they be coming up around the same time?
Or is it like, you know Yeah.
They're coming up at the same time. And they come up they come up on lawns. I mean, I live on a ravine in the middle of a larger city.
Mhmm.
And I often go down into the valley there and pick, and I I I walk by lots of, button mushrooms all the time. I'm kinda, you know, I like more try more exotic things, but, yeah. And I also have to keep in mind that when I go and pick that I have to bring home for supper something that my wife enjoys as well.
So just my favorites.
Yeah. Like, yeah, it makes me wanna go out and do some identification on my lawn, when that time of the year comes because sometimes my entire lawn there is just covered with mushrooms. Just like right now it's just covered in moss. My my son's out there mowing the yard. He's like, dad, there's no grass out here. It's just moss anyway.
Lucky there.
Yeah. Out here in the wet zone.
Well, you know, it's funny that it is, it does strike me as ironic that somebody who lives on the Bald Prairies of, Northern Canada actually wrote a book like this on medicinal mushrooms. And you'd think that I'd be living in Washington or Oregon or at least in Vancouver.
Yeah. Vancouver Island or something.
Yeah. Exactly.
That'd be perfect place probably on Vancouver Island, I imagine, with all those forests.
Well, I I do try to get out once or twice a year to do a usually do a two day, one day in classroom talking about medicinal mushrooms and how to prepare them, how to use them, what they're good for. And then the second day, of course, we get out into the old growth forests and find them. And, that's what I really like doing.
I'm I'm gonna be, moving in a year or so to a place not too far from Victoria. So I'm gonna hop over and catch one of your classes in a year or two.
Oh, it'd be nice to meet you. That'd be great.
Excellent.
Or I could yeah. We'll talk about that later.
So so, so what about people who, I had a friend. We I I was amazed when, like, when I first moved out to Washington in ninety five and there's a lot of earthy people out here and people do, you know, do it yourself people. It's got I'm from New Jersey, so this is kind of a new thing for me, you know, wide eyed and looking around seeing what people do. And there's this guy who's this chef who lived on this inoculated with shiitakes.
And so is that is that is that easy to do for me or is that just more bioregional like because I live in a wet place or Well, ideally, I mean, most Shiitake likes oaks.
So if you have some scrub oaks or bur oaks or whatever you have out your way, the Shiitake really likes to inoculate. You can, but you but in my area, for example, I do a lot of inoculation of poplar trees with oyster And and buy spawn plugs or, powder and I last two summers ago, I did a thousand plugs in different on a friend's, property, on aspen poplar.
And I'm looking forward to just going out this summer and seeing what, what's gonna pop up.
Oh, that's fun. And I and I've seen there's a lot of, there's various websites and places out there where you can, learn about this and get those supplies. Right? I mean, do you have one that you like and specifically, I think, does Paul Stamets have one?
Oh, Paul Stamets has, a number of different varieties that he offers as, but you see, it takes a very specialized, kind of a setting in order to produce this mycelium.
But once the mycelium's in the tree, it basically, it likes it or it doesn't and takes off a they're now doing Shiitake, growing in Scotland, and they're using birch trees, which is a great way to, use utilize a tree that is underutilized.
So any hardwood really Okay. Could be tried with Shiitake.
Nice. Alright. So now let's speak in Shiitake. Let's get to some, let's get to the the fungal pharmacy here.
And let's talk about some specifics. And that way people might know ones that they wanna start with or look out for, maybe put in their diet or learn about and do a little research on. So since we mentioned Shiitake, let's start with that one. That's a popular one.
Well, Shiitake, Shiitake is, you know, it's a challenge to grow. I mean, like I say, it's an introduced, species. So you're not going to find it just walking in the woods yourself.
But It's in the supermarket though, I mean Oh, all over the place.
And and one of the things you wanna do is when you buy them, of course, you end up with a, the stipe or the stem and the and the other part. And don't throw that stem away. It's not truly edible in the terms of take the caps, slice them up, saute them, whatever, however you wanna prepare them and then take the, stipes or the stems and give them a a gentle decoction or boil and then use that as broth because a lot of the compounds will come out in that and otherwise you're just wasting and, wasting half the mushroom. And so I found that that's a great way to, to use the Shiitake, mushroom.
It's a great medicinal. It has, definitely has proven, benefit for people who want an alternative choice for, who are HIV to to keep their viral loads low. It specifically has been shown to be very very good for that. Oh, okay.
Shiitake, antiviral in general, I mean, very, the herpes virus, the cold sore virus, things of that nature. Shiitake, very, very useful.
Immune system generally, a good modulator.
And, you know, it it is one of those, well studied, mushrooms that has a bit of a has a bit of a myth to it that I need to say. Lentinan, which is the one of the active ingredients of Shiitake, is not easily absorbed by, eating.
Right?
It's by ingestion. Most of the studies that have been done on it have been from injections from of the active ingredient lintinin in, in Japan.
So you don't think that you're gonna get the same benefit from eating the mushroom that you would from some of the studies that have been done.
Having said that, there are other compounds out there. For example, there's a product that's available in the markets called AHCC, which, stands for active HECOSE correlated compound is not relevant. But what they've done is they've grown it on particular substrates, and this has been found to be extremely useful for different things such as liver cancers, gastrointestinal cancers, helping improve tolerance for, people who have low immune markers.
So it's avian flu Yeah.
West Nile virus, things of that nature. So it has been shown to be extremely useful for those kinds of things.
Wow.
Yeah.
Now, I I I usually like, you know, it's of course it tastes better when you when you when you get the fresh mushrooms and all, but it can be pricey. And I I've been in, some markets where I've seen, like, these big bags. Sometimes you go into an Asian market or something. These big bags of, like, dried shiitake mushroom.
Right. And and they're cheap and all when you buy them. And, what's your opinion on those? I mean, should they be avoided?
Are there like fungicides and things that are they're being used on some of the, like, do you get what you pay for and just certain quality you should look out for?
Purchasing mushrooms, in Like if you're getting them dried.
If you're buying them dry.
Oh, if you're buying dry? Yeah. Yeah. If you're buying big bags of mushrooms from, China, like shiitake mushrooms or you see big bags in Chinese supermarkets Yeah.
Yeah.
You can almost be assured that they've used something or other.
Yeah. Yeah.
So just saying that just for people to look out for that, that don't be fooled and, and try to look always remember quality when you're Exactly.
When you're getting your when you're getting your products.
Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, generally speaking, because they're so available fresh, they're much more delicious that way. Although they do reconstitute well. Mhmm. I mean, if you're growing a lot of them and you have, plethora of them, yeah, dry them for yourself indefinitely.
By the way, work some of the work done by Stamets was interesting is that he he exposed various mushrooms, including shiitake to, sunlight for a brief period of time, before harvesting. They found that they really increased the vitamin d levels significantly.
And so that's something you can think about as well. That, even though they many of them grow well in the dark initially anyways, that natural vitamin d and and ergosterols, which are full all the mushrooms are full of these compounds are precursors to vitamin d. And people who live in areas like Seattle and and parts of the West Coast, West Coast as you call it, you're not you're not getting in the winter time anywhere near the kind of sunshine that you should have. And vitamin d has been shown to be a significant, contributor, to well-being, particularly to a number of conditions like diabetes, in fact.
Yeah. We have to supplement here. It's one of the it's like the one supplement that I take that, I had to take, a lot of every day.
And if you ate mushrooms, you wouldn't have to.
Good to know. Alright. I like this. I like this.
Makes me wanna go, inoculate some trees in my my tiny little two tree. My two tree, I call my forest and my little postage stamp suburban backyard.
And and of course, there are some other indications with some mushrooms. They do interact with, drugs.
People who are on blood thinners, for example, should use Shiitakes with some caution that that there are compounds in there that are natural blood thinners.
That means if someone is, has a normal physiology and no problems, that's a good thing. But if they're already taking a number of drugs for blood thinning, that that may put them one step over that line. So just use it with caution.
Okay. And, how about Reishi?
Well, Reishi is the classic. It's been the most researched of probably all the mushrooms.
There's controversy about whether you actually have reishi on the coast there.
I don't think you do. I think you have a very closely related mushroom called Ganoderma, tsugae, t s u g a e, that has many of the same benefits. And so, you know, whenever it has that nice shiny red, shiny brown coating to it and, fantastic. I mean, there's probably I have in the back of my book, a, some charts about what mushrooms are good for what conditions.
And Reishi, Ganoderma, Ganodermasugae, and Lucidum, they go straight across the chart and fill in just about every category. So for everything.
Wow. Including calming the spirit, which was the traditional use by Daoist monks of Reishi because it really has this really profound effect when taken over time of really causing a meditative type of, clear mind.
And and is this one that you just get fresh or buy fresh and cook up?
Or is it something you have to Well, they're they're they're extremely woody.
They cannot be eaten. They have to be actually, processed on some level. And so on the market, you'll often see mycelium and fruiting body combinations, which both have a number of uses. And in fact, in some work they've been doing now, they're actually taking and processing the spores.
You know, each of these fruiting bodies will produce millions of spores a day, and these are very tiny, if you can imagine.
And, these spores have compounds in them that also have been shown to have medical purposes. It would be like if if the mycelium is the apple tree and the apple is the fruit Mhmm. Then the spore is the seed inside of the fruit.
And so they're doing work with Reishi and it's for everything. It's for any kinds of, I mean, liver tonic, kidney tonic, cardiovascular, for blood pressure, for cancers, diabetes, you name it.
This is one you could buy dried and then tincture yourself, You can.
And again, I caution you that if you see big barrels of reishi in your local, Chinese superstore that, those may not be the optimal mushrooms to be utilizing. I mean, maybe okay, maybe not. So, you know, use discretion. But if you're going to make a a a tincture of, any of the fruiting bodies, it's important for you to know that you want both the alcohol and the water soluble constituents out of it.
You want both.
You want both. Okay. So tincturing and like a a vodka would be good.
Yeah. But think about this. Yeah. That's actually correct. But think about this.
If you need to boil the mushroom to get out the active ingredients, which order do you do this in?
Oh, right. So you're gonna do decoction and then maybe just go with, grain alcohol for the rest.
Yeah. I here I mean, many people have their own opinions about how you do this. Like, if you if you, if you boil first and then you have this mushroom, the mark left over, You put into alcohol. What are you gonna do for two weeks with this water?
So my suggestion is this, that you actually take the mushroom, chop it up finely, put it into ninety five percent ethanol, you've got air clear out your way I assume, right?
Right.
Yeah. Do that at one to five, let that sit for a couple of weeks, then strain out and then take the mark that's left over and then make a one to twenty decoction with that.
Slim simmer that down to half and then combine the two.
That's for almost any woody polypore that seems to be a formula that gives you an optimal thirty percent extract in the end and, you get both this valuable water and alcohol soluble Excellent.
Thank you for that tip. Appreciate that.
Sure.
How about how about chanterelle mushrooms?
Oh, they're tasty, aren't they?
Yeah. They are. They that that's, to be honest, I haven't done a lot of mushrooms, but that is the one that I, have, you know, apparently correctly identified because I'm still here. Okay. And, and and and found and found in spots. And the the the the the the heartbreaking part here is when I found spots and you finally find them and you go and you harvest, I've you know, you go back the next year and and often it's back in logging areas and then the areas log the next year, you know. And so it's like, oh, my spot's gone, you know.
And so I Oh, that's such a drag.
Sometimes I just give up, you know, and it's time to harvest because I know. Yeah.
It's, it's good. I mean, I often go out, this year, I'm looking forward again. I'm going out to the, they have, Sycamouse in Bridge, Columbia. They have a great mushroom festival in September and, the, the chanterelles are everywhere and the pine mushrooms, of course, which people you know, harvest commercially, big money for them or used to be.
And the lobster mushrooms are everywhere. And these great big, you know, rustlers that were turned bright orange, that are popping out of the moss. That's one of my favorite times. I just kinda go like a kid in a candy store.
And that wasn't processing those. And I eat those all winter. I freeze those up and I have those for the winter.
You like a new term we have to come up with instead of kid in a candy store. It'd be like a like a mycologist in the forest and fall.
A fun guy in the forest or a fun gecko. Mhmm.
Yeah. Chanterelle, you know, chanterelles are great. I mean, they're great source of vitamin d, like we were talking about earlier. And, they definitely, are, extremely useful for, you know, in fact, they're used as part of combinations in in parts of Africa.
They have chanterelles there. They use them as part of mixtures to treat HIV in the, Kaposi's, carso if carso carcinoma sarcoma that is involved with that. So it's a great, you gotta be careful though. It does accumulate different kinds of radioactive cesium.
So where you pick it's quite a kind of important.
Really? Yeah.
Yeah. It's, it's probably one of my favorite tasty mushrooms.
We unfortunately don't have any chanterelle at all in Alberta.
We do in British Columbia and then we do to our east in Saskatchewan. It's a big industry actually. But right here, we don't have any of those great apricot scented mushrooms.
Yeah. That's it's, yeah. There's some great spots around here. So, unfortunately, a lot of the ones are, yeah. Sometimes they don't get there in time. You know?
Someone else has gotten there first.
Well, a friend of mine who I mushroom pick with, he he lives in Manitoba, and he he does a favorite thing. He takes chanterelles, and he pours vodka over them. Like this crams them in a bottle and just covers them barely with the vodka and leaves them for about a month. And that it does give a really interesting, flavor that can be used for sauces and things like that.
It's really quite good. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
What's, well, what what's another one or two of your favorite things to do with, well, any mushroom that you that's like things like that, little tips or Well well, oh, tips of how to use them?
Yeah.
Something you like to do, some of your favorite things or Well, I like to use them for, decoration.
Mhmm.
I often pick some of the little polypours and I make necklaces and hat bands and things like that out of them just for fun. I also have, in the past, steam distilled them, and, you actually end up with hydrosols that can contain some of the compounds that are very useful for for health and well-being. So so I also like to photograph them, of course.
And and and I and I like some of the mushrooms that have both edibility and medicinal. And one of my very favorites are the hericiums. These are these kind of white brain like coral mushrooms that that you see in the forests. And, they have been shown to contain compounds that are extremely valuable for, dementia. And one study in Japan with Alzheimer's showing that there was cognitive improvement while people were taking them. So that's the kind of stuff that interests me a lot.
And I and I wanna say folks to me, I mean, this this this, very this this five hundred plus page book of yours covers so many species. And how many species would you say are in?
Yeah. I'd say there's around three hundred.
K. And and, let's see.
And good pictures so you can identify them, I think. And pictures. Yeah.
And and there's information on traditional uses, medicinal use, cosmetics, cultivation, all kinds of just great information. Just a kind of your overall handbook.
Well, that's pretty kind. Yeah. I I did it because I love it and I I think that, my love of the mushroom shows through. And I I did a lot of a little bit of the, ethno mycological aspects of it as well, like how it was used some of these were used traditionally by native peoples of this continent, which is not really literature you find everywhere as well.
I love this shot on, of you with the, giant western puffball.
Oh, yeah. That's okay.
You know what?
It's it's giant.
You know what I won for that? What? I I won three hundred dollars in a contest for that.
Wow. Just for finding this really big profile?
They had a humongous fungus, contest in Edmonton.
And I was on a television station, one of these morning early breakfast shows. And I showed up with that and I won hands down twenty two point five pounds.
Oh my goodness. Can you do anything with these puffball?
Well, you certainly can eat them while they're, at that stage of, before they turn into, yellowish and then brown and dark.
Like it feeds the whole, the whole town.
Well, you could. One of those. I mean, if you like tofu, you would like puffballs. Oh. Because they basically take on the flavor of whatever you combine them with. They're just cut them up in the cubes and use it just like tofu in their stir fries. They're delicious.
There is, you know, it's also been this book is a complete guide to medicinal mushrooms and lichens. And so, let's let's just throw a lichen in there.
I'm thinking, well, what what's your favorite one of my favorite lysons?
The classic lichen is Eusnea species. Mhmm. Some genus of Eusnea have containing eustic acid, which is, a profound medicine. I mean, make it at ninety five percent alcohol, you know, and, you have it and then great for strep, streptococcus, strep throat, staphylococcus, great for, you know, hip attack and and staph infections of the skin. Mhmm. And, and has been traditionally show has shows activity and was used traditionally by native people for tuberculosis.
Very insoluble in water, soluble in alcohol, and very soluble in oil. And so I also, not only do I make a tincture of it, I also make a, crock pot one to five, use the oil, slow heat, and then you have that oil, which is extremely good for ringworm, athlete's foot, all those fungal conditions.
Very powerful. Very powerful.
Thank you for that. I could use that. I appreciate that. I'm going to, that because we have lots of that around here. I I love it. Now tincturing, would you recommend just on making the tincture, a similar process to how you explained to do the, No.
For Stina, you can just go straight. It's so dry. Just take your make sure it's used to you by getting that little, you know, central cord that has a little elastic, you know, to make sure you get used to you. And then just a one to two at ninety five, and that's it.
Excellent. Alright. So, your book once again, Bifungal Pharmacy. And folks can get that on Amazon. Right?
Oh, yeah. That's it. It it weighs three point six pounds. So I think the way to do it is get the free shipping. Absolutely.
Exactly. If you can, get the free shipping. How about if you're Canadian? Same place. Go to Amazon.
Amazon dot c a.
Alright. Then, let's see. And can you get other books of yours on Amazon as well?
What else is available on Amazon? I don't think so. I if people go to my website, self healdistributing dot com, you'll see a list of some of the books that I have done. I've I've done books on herbal drug interactions.
I've done plant books. I have one called Rogers, manual, which is herbal manual, which is about two hundred and forty of, our more obscure boreal forest, plants that some people who are not from that part of the world might find interesting and and has, you know, great detail into all the different ways that those plants can be used. So they can check it out on my website.
So let's see. Upcoming dates to go see Robert.
We have the Montana Herb Gathering headlining there. I saw Montana Herb Gathering dot o r g. That's in early July.
I you can go there to see the exact dates, just for those, wondering, also just to mention some of other friends on Herb Mentor, Rosalie, who's, the teacher here on on Herb Mentor will be teaching there. So I'm sure you will meet her, Robert, when you're there.
I look forward to that.
And, as well as I think is Matthew Wood and, few others too.
I love Matt. He's great.
A few other folks that you all know from our mentor interviews and all be there. So that that looks like a great one. I wish I could go to that myself.
I I will get out there one of these days.
And, you know, every second year, Alberta, we now have a herd gathering up our way. We had one last summer, it was very successful.
Matt came up and we had different people, from all over the Pacific Northwest came and, in in, in late July of twenty thirteen, we're gonna have our second Herbert and Herb gathering. And so you can go Facebook that and you can find a little bit of information. We haven't lined up all the speakers yet, but it's coming.
Oh, cool. Cool. Yeah. That's great. I was just looking on the Montana site here. Oh, gosh. Got Corey Pine Shane, Tuck Caldecott.
There's Darcy Williamson, Chuck Garcia.
It's a it's actually packed. I Yeah. I don't even wanna teach. I just wanna go to workshops.
Have you have you met have you met, Chuck Garcia?
I have not.
No. You're you're you got he's a trippy. You gotta meet this. He's gonna be teaching there. He's from California, and he's, he taught he'd last couple of years at the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference, and the guy's awesome.
Oh, good.
Yeah. You'll have a good time.
He's a great story to tell.
And then so we've got, in Victoria, Pacific Rim College. That's in October. You can go to pacific rim college dot c a. And that is also accessible to us Northwesterners. Just go over to Port Angeles, hop on a ferry in an hour you're going to be in Victoria, bring your passports and you can get up there and also NAMA which is n a m y c o like North American mycological so n a mico dot org and that's December thirteenth to the sixteenth in California.
So that's another place to be at.
That's a nice one. That's in Santa near Santa Cruz.
There's all kinds of really interesting Northern California mushrooms out at that time of year, and I'm gonna give a little talk on medicinal mushrooms as well.
And who doesn't wanna get to California in December? That'd be awesome.
Get out of the get out of the snow.
Absolutely.
And, self heal distributing dot com is, again, is Robert's website.
And, Robert Rogers, thank you so much for joining us today on Urban2Radio. It's been very educational and enlightening and is a good time. So thanks thanks for spending time with us. I really appreciate it.
Well, thank you very much. It's very kind of you to invite me.
Thanks.
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