Barbell Shrugged - The Bledsoe Show w/ Jeff Chilton: Everything on Medicinal Mushrooms #79

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

Jeff Chilton is a true lover of mushrooms and has been a pioneer in the Medicinal Mushroom industry ever since he began his career working on a large commercial mushroom farm in 1973. Today, his company NAMMEX (North American Medicinal Mushroom Extracts), is the largest medicinal mushroom raw materials supplier in North America. In this episode, we talk about supplements that are grown in shit. We cover what type of mushrooms we should be eating, why your mushroom supplement may not actually be mushrooms, where your supplements and food are coming from, how to consume different types of mushrooms, what are adaptogens, and much more. Enjoy! -Mike ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: https://shruggedcollective.com/tbs_chilton ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please support our partners! Onnit's is a Total Human Optimization company with a mission to inspire peak performance through a combination of unique products and actionable information. As the founder and CEO Aubrey Marcus likes to say, Total Human Optimizaion is a commitment to get strong in the places where we are weak, become great in places where we’re good, and shine a light on the stuff we need take a look at. Improve your focus, concentration and productivity by getting a bottle of Onnit’s flagship neutropic supplement FOR FREE ($80 value) by going to: http://www.onnit.com/bledsoe ► Travel thru Europe with us on the Shrugged Voyage, more info here: https://www.theshruggedvoyage.com/ ► What is the Shrugged Collective? Click below for more info: https://youtu.be/iUELlwmn57o ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals. Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Welcome to the Bledsoe Show. This is your host, Mike Bledsoe. And today we're discussing one of my favorite subjects, and that is mushrooms. Now we're going to be talking about all types of mushrooms, not just the ones you're thinking about. I've been hot on mushrooms for quite a few years. I've had so many conversations with people in the industry and people asking, what's going to be the next supplement, the big craze in supplements that are coming up? And I've always said, in the few years, I've always been saying mushrooms and adaptogens and a lot of things we're going to discuss on this show.

And I say that because they are getting more and more popular. And I've also noticed some of the most beneficial supplements I've taken the last few years have been mushrooms. So real big fan of that. And one thing I want to mention is I have some of the blood show shows that I put out are, they don't come up on the Shrug Collective because we put all the health and fitness stuff here. Now I've got a show I'm putting out on Thursday with Dennis McKenna and Dennis McKenna is, uh, famous for his conversations around psychedelic mushrooms and psychedelics in general. So if you want to

catch that, that will be posted on Thursday on the blood. So show, so you'll have to go over to the blood, so show.com and check that out. It'll be a different channel. So if you really want to dig into that, we do get into the psilocybin mushrooms a little bit at the end of this show. We talk about the benefits of the psychedelic mushrooms. So I think if you do want some of that information, that'll be here too. But most of the show, we're talking about the health benefits and the performance benefits of all sorts of different mushrooms. And what's really cool about this, and I'm going to bring up Organifi right now. Organifi is a company we've been working with. And one of the things that really excited me is when I started looking at their entire

supplement line, as they started putting out more supplements, I noticed they're putting medicinal mushrooms into their mixes. They're putting shiaga, reishi, turkey tail, and some other medicinal mushrooms as well into their powders. So the gold has some mushrooms in it, and the red juice have mushrooms in them as well. So a lot of things we're talking about on this show, you'd get the benefits of it from taking the Organifi products. So if you want to save 20% on any of the Organifi products, use the code BLEDSO. So BLEDSO at checkout gets you 20% off Organifi.com. I take the green, red, and gold every day. So green juice when I wake up.

Before I work out, I'm doing that red juice. It's got some of the cordyceps we were talking about on the show. That red juice does, in fact. And then before bed, I do the gold. And like I said last show, pro tip on that. Mix a little bit of collagen in with that gold. And a lot of the stuff that's in that product is really good for improving digestion as well as helping you get better rest. So while you're resting and digesting, that's a really good idea. So the gold helps with with all that and then throwing in that throwing in a little bit of that. What am I trying to say? Throwing in some of that collagen also helps the digestion as well. So I hope you enjoy the show.

We get very nerdy. If you like science, this is the show for you. We're going to be talking about mushrooms, why they've gotten so popular, and why I think they will remain popular. Enjoy the show. How are you enjoying Paleo FX? Oh man, yeah, it's awesome. There's so many interesting people here.

It's just one of those places where you never know who you're going to run into or what new things you're going to learn about. Yeah, I really like coming down here. Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. It was about two years ago. I've been familiar with mushrooms for its health benefits. I've been hearing things for maybe three, four years. I played around with cordyceps to improve sports performance and things like that. Enjoyed that. And then about two years ago, I went to a

retreat where they were serving smoothies that was just loaded with 10 different medicinal mushrooms and all that kind of stuff. And by the end of the weekend of this retreat, I was feeling more energized, lighter. My digestion seemed better in just a handful of days. And I thought, well, I'm going to keep up this regimen. So I was like, hey, what do you put in these smoothies? I think there's something really magical in there. And none of the ingredients in it was anything I hadn't been exposed to previously, except for the mushrooms. Oh, wow. Cool. So two years ago, I started, you know, adding a lot of different types of mushrooms into my diet consistently. And I started feeling really, really good. And so now it's a regular part of my life

and I started listening to more podcasts about mushrooms and reading some blogs. So I'm really excited to talk to you. You're somebody who's been in it for what, since the 70s? Is that right? Well, you know what? I studied mushrooms at university back in the 60s. That was part of my study.

I studied mycology at university and also anthropology. So my study was actually ethnomycology, how mushrooms are used by indigenous people worldwide. Because one of the things I discovered was that mushrooms actually have been with us for the longest of times. We don't even know how long. It could be from the beginning. And mushrooms used in a healing way have been used from way back. So for me, that just made me even more interested. And then the thing was, it's after university when you're like, okay, now I'm going to go to work somewhere. And you're like, well, anthropology is not quite hiring right now. So I went to my mycology professor and I said, you know, what do you think? I'm kind of interested in growing mushrooms.

What would I do? And he said, well, there's a mushroom farm 60 miles down the road. The only mushroom farm in Washington State. Okay. And I went down there. I applied for a job. I'm like nervous. Man, you know, am I going to get this job?

I really want it so bad. And how much education did you have at that point? What was your... I just for a job. I'm like nervous. Man, you know, am I going to get this job? I really want it so bad. And how much education did you have at that point? What was your – I just had a degree in anthropology. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I got a call back a couple days later. Hey, you got the job. I was like, oh, my God.

I couldn't believe it. You know, I was just like so stoked. Okay. Yeah, Yeah. And the funny thing was, I found out later that that mushroom farming was like the bottom of the line for any kind of jobs. And you thought you were getting like a premier job. It's like, oh, man. And it's like, you know, nobody wanted to work at the mushroom farm because that particular farm, they they they grow mushrooms on compost. And, like, we were making literally 300 tons of compost every week. 300 tons.

And when you're making that much compost, well, you know. It's hard to wrap my head around. We have huge front-end loaders that are moving all this raw material around. Straw and different horse manure and all sorts of stuff. And so the bottom line is, like, it has an odor. I mean, it smells like farm country. Right. And for a lot of people, farm country is like, oh, my God, you know, it's like, I don't like this smell. So that put a lot of people off to even wanting to work at a mushroom farm.

And it was farm labor for most of the jobs there if you weren't in management and so at any rate didn't matter to me I was there I was just in heaven because all of a sudden I mean I'm literally living with mushrooms at that point in time and and every week we would put in four new crops of mushrooms. And these are big, like warehouses. Four new crops every week, 80 tons of compost into every room for a new crop and four crops would be taken out and dumped. Four crops a week, 50 weeks a year. I'm seeing 200 crops of mushrooms in a year. Wow.

I'm there for 10 years. Wow. 2,000 crops. Wow. How many crops does a farmer see in a lifetime? Probably one per year. Yeah, 50 maybe. Maybe 50, maybe, you know, less than 100 certainly.

Less than 100. And I've just seen 2,000 crops in 10 years. Wow. And I'm totally stoked. Every crop is a little bit different. We're still growing the same mushroom. Every crop is a little bit different. We're still growing the same mushroom. Every crop is a little bit different. You're learning all the different, okay, was that a good compost that time?

Was the environmental conditions right for this crop? What made you so excited about mushrooms? Because they're not easy to grow. I know some people who grow mushrooms, and it's a tedious thing, and you've got to stay on top of it. Absolutely. And when they pop out, you've got to get them. You've got to be there. You've got to harvest them.

Absolutely. It's a difficult thing. You know, after my studies in ethnomycology, I just thought, you know what, I'm not going to go on and study this and become a professor or anything, but I love mushrooms. I'm living in the Pacific Northwest. Mushrooms are everywhere in season. It's just kind of like almost part of my DNA. Right. When did you see the health benefits? When did you connect those dots? Were you into mushrooms before that, or was that brought – what brought you to mushrooms versus – at what point did you see it as health benefits, or did you see that from the very beginning?

Well, you know what? Certainly the health benefits of mushrooms, no, I didn't see that from the very beginning. And, you know, what's interesting about that is that classical nutritionists have always looked at mushrooms, edible mushrooms, and said, you know what? Yeah, they're flavorful, and you can put them in certain things, but there's really no food value. Now, the reason they said that was because mushrooms are low in calories. Back in the days when low calories was like, this is a non-food. We have to get some energy out of this thing. If we don't get energy, it's not a food.

Well, this is interesting. When I started taking mushrooms, when I started eating more mushrooms, I stopped eating as many calories. I felt more satiated and had more energy. And it transformed my relationship with food. And it's been interesting. Absolutely. Is that common? Oh, yeah.

And part of it is because mushrooms have a polysaccharide in there that is called mannitol. That's one of the carbohydrates. And mannitol is one of those sugars that is very slow acting. So it's slow to digest. It's not one of these sugars that's like, boom, it's flash and crash or anything like that. It's a very slow-acting sugar. It's a beneficial sugar. In fact, some of the mushrooms, they tell diabetics to get them into your diet because of that.

So polysaccharides, I started learning about the types of polysaccharides we're finding in mushrooms as being good for joints and stuff like that. Is that accurate? Well, you know what? No, not really. I don't look at them in that way at all. The polysaccharides in mushrooms are specifically called beta-glucans. And beta-glucans are a category within polysaccharide being a bigger group. And the beta-glucan is what all the scientific research has demonstrated are the

immunologically active compounds. And that's kind of where the study of mushrooms really took off was because the scientists looked at them and said, there are compounds in here that are basically creating immune cells and they're stimulating the production of these immune cells. What are those? It turns out it's these beta-glucans and it's a specific beta-glucan. It's called a beta-1,3,1,6-glucan. So you think of a beta-glucan and how it's put together. It's three different sugars that are in a row, and then at the third position and the sixth position, it branches. Okay.

And that's different from a lot of other beta-glucans, and that's what makes mushroom beta-glucans and fungal beta-glucans different, and that's where the activity comes in. Because of the branching of these beta-glucans and fungal beta-glucans different, and that's where the activity comes in. Because of the branching of these beta-glucans, that is why we have this immunological modulation with the beta-glucan. And the beta-glucan is in the mushroom cell wall. Gotcha. So the cell wall of a mushroom is 50%, up to 50% beta-glucan.

So, for example, one of the things that we are doing, we're doing a lot of testing with our products, and so we have a beta-glucan test. And the thing is, is that traditionally in the last 20 or 30 years, a lot of companies selling mushroom products will test for polysaccharides. Oh, our product is really high in polysaccharides. Isn't that a great thing? I used to think it was a great thing, too, until I learned that alpha-glucans, which are starches, are also a polysaccharide.

So you can have a product that's really high in polysaccharides, but it turns out that most of those polysaccharides come from, let's just say, a carrier. Yeah. So a lot of herbal extracts are put onto a carrier. Right. Now, that's okay for some extracts because it starts. A grain or something like that. Yeah, like, well, that is like maltodextrin or dextrin or something like that.

So an extract could be put onto that. So you could be getting a lot of polysaccharides that don't have an immunological benefit. Right. And this kind of goes to a lot of what my research and my studies in the last three or four years have done is that there are a lot of products out there that are claiming to be mushroom when in fact what they are actually is the mycelium. And mycelium is the vegetative body of this fungus. I've definitely seen packages that said mycelium husk or something like that Well, it'll say it'll say mycelium or something to say mycelium biomass

And and sometimes if you're lucky in the other ingredients, it'll say Rice or oats or something like that? But what happens is is is the mycelium is the part that is in the ground. It's in the wood. This is the actual body of this fungus. We call it the vegetative body of the fungus. We call the mushroom the fruiting body of this fungus. So they're two distinct plant parts, just like you could say an apple and an apple tree,

two distinct parts of this plant. But is it a plant? I've heard that it's more like an animal. When I say plant, I'm using that in a very broad sense. Oh, gotcha. No, it's a fungus, right? Right.

So it's not a plant. It's not an animal. And of course, what you've heard is probably the fact that we share certain characteristics with these fungi. Yeah. Like one of them is that they make glycogen as their storage carbohydrate. Yeah. That's what we make. We make glycogen.

Plants don't have glycogen. They have the starches, right? That's the plant carbohydrate. And that's what happens when a company will take that. And what they do is they take the mycelium and they'll grow it on a sterilized grain. And then at the end of the process, after the mycelium has completely colonized that grain, they will dry the whole thing out, grind it to a powder, grain and all, and then they'll sell it as a mushroom.

Interesting. There's no mushroom in it. And this would be why I feel greater impacts with different brands. Absolutely right. Some brands of mushrooms, I'm like, eh, I feel pretty good. And then there's certain brands when I take their mushrooms, I'm like, oh, a few days in, I'm like, I can feel a real difference with this brand. Well, not only that, if you actually taste some of those products, you would taste them and you'd go, for example, reishi mushroom,

which is kind of like the premier medicinal mushroom. It's very bitter because it has these compounds in it called triterpenoids. These compounds are bitter, bitter, bitter compounds. Some reishi products out there on the market, you taste them and you go, well, that's kind of sweet. Yeah. And kind of tastes a little bit like a grain or something. Yeah.

That's because it is. Yeah. It's not, doesn't have the bitter compounds at all because the majority of that product is just the grain or let's just call it the substrate that this mycelium was produced on and rather than growing a mushroom and here's the the issue mike is that growing mushrooms is a very expensive thing to do yeah it takes a lot of money to grow a mushroom and take it and and when you grow mushrooms and and we grow mushrooms here in the united states we have lots of farms and you take it out to market and you get, let's just, let's just say $5 a pound for your fresh mushrooms. A mushroom is 90% water, like most vegetables. Yep. Well, supplements are not sold fresh. They're sold as a dry powder. So all of a sudden that $5, you have to get $50. Right. So, so it's over a hundred dollars for a

dried kilo of just mushroom powder. I would say the mushroom powder I bought that I've used, I was spending a couple hundred bucks a month on, and that was like the best stuff I've found. Yeah, well, exactly, exactly. I want to back up a little bit because I want, you know, most listeners are interested in how this is going to impact their health. Yes.

So before we go any further, you know, most listeners are interested in how this is going to impact their health. Yes. So before we go any further, can you list off the types of mushrooms we should be eating? So what type of mushrooms would we like to see in our diets, and what benefits do they bring us? Like what does reishi do? What does shiitake do? What does cordyceps do? Could you just like run us through a list? Sure, absolutely. as cordyceps do yeah could you just like run us through it sure absolutely and and let me just say to start this off is that eating mushrooms is the first thing i tell people you know before you even

supplement i say look eat mushrooms put them into your diet yeah and and fortunately here in the u.s we've got maybe six or seven different fresh mushrooms that we can buy if you're in the right location. And first off, I'd say shiitake. Shiitake's wonderful. It's a great mushroom. And interestingly enough, a lot of these fresh mushrooms that we have out there are also medicinal. All mushrooms are medicinal because they all have these beta-glucans, but it gets back to this beta-glucan architecture again.

Certain mushrooms have an architecture that makes them a little more powerful immunologically than others. And they have different types of effects. So shiitake versus cordyceps. They do. They absolutely do. So, for example, shiitake. Shiitake is one of those mushrooms where I'd say they've done a lot of research. In fact, they did most of the early research on medicinal effects on shiitake and they found that with certain tumor systems it was very very active against these tumor systems so they they actually developed shiitake in japan into a drug product called lentonin which was a a purified beta glucan

now that's different than what we're going to get but but this beta-glucan in shiitake, it's there. You eat the shiitake, you'll get the benefits of it. So shiitake, in terms of its benefits, primarily immunologically modulating. And the thing to remember about mushrooms is that don't expect them to work overnight. That's not how they really work. Unless you're ultra-sensitive, don't expect them to work overnight. Okay. That's not how they really work. You know, unless you're ultra sensitive, don't expect them to work overnight. They're there. They're kind of in the background.

They're keeping you. I mean, mushrooms are. I'm lucky. I'm very sensitive. So, usually, like, when I take something, I know fairly quickly. I've got a lot of friends who are like, it would take them weeks to notice the same thing. It took me days to notice. Yeah.

See, I'm very insensitive, too. When people call me up and say, oh, yeah, I had this effect, and I'm going like, wow, that's amazing. You know, I don't get that. You know, it's like, and I tell my friends, I just say, yeah, I'm just not that sensitive. Yeah. But shiitake is a fabulous mushroom. Definitely get it into your diet. And before we go about the other mushrooms, let me just say this. All mushrooms have B vitamins, riboflavin, niacin, great B vitamins that are, would be, you know,

could be anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of your, if you ate a certain amount of them, of your daily recommended amount that you would need. So B vitamins, they've got a certain amount of them, of your daily recommended amount that you would need. So B vitamins, they've got a reasonable amount of protein, and then they have a lot of these carbohydrates, which are really good carbohydrates, the beta-glucans, the mannitol, and they're very high in fiber. And that's what threw off the traditional nutritionists because fiber now we know i mean we should have known all along is super important for our health yeah mushrooms have a tremendous amount of fiber in them so they're feeding the microbiome they're a really great food that way so um shiitake the other one

that you'd probably get is uh maitake maaitake also is something that they did a lot of research in Japan on. And one of the reasons why Japan was so in the forefront of actual scientific research is because they have very large mushroom industries over there. They're producing a lot of shiitake, a lot of maitake. So the growers just went, well, let's look further because we've got a lot of this product well it turns out that that maitake also has these immunological benefits so that and and actually they use maitake for uh diabetics now too they find that it actually has a modulating effect on your insulin production and yeah so So, my talkie there, see, another one that's actually an edible mushroom would be lion's mane.

Man, if you can get... I use that. Mike, if you can get fresh lion's mane, dude, it's delicious also. I have a friend up in Canada. She'll go hiking sometimes and come across it. Oh, good for her because, you know what, I don't think I've ever found a lion's mane and I'm still looking, you know. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, you haven't talked. Maybe we'll connect with her. Yeah, yeah, maybe so. And, you know, it's like some of these mushrooms too, they might grow on the west coast but not on the east coast or vice versa. So in some regions you can find them, other regions you can't find them. Right. Yeah, and some locations you can find them, other regions you can't find them. Right. And some locations you can find them, others you can't.

But lion's mane. And lion's mane, a lot of people have heard about lion's mane because of the fact that it can stimulate cognition, help your memory out a bit. Also, they've used it in China for dementia. Oh, man, dementia. Can you imagine what that must be like? You're losing your mind. Oh, yeah. I mean, I use Lion's Mane for

cognition, and I also just, you know, everything I've read about it is, it's just good for the nervous system. You know what? And I put my body through a lot of shit in my life. A lot of stress as well. And my nervous system has taken a beating, and my body doesn't always fire the way it's supposed to fire or the way I want it to.

Yeah. And so I use it as a way of keeping my nervous system clean. No, you know what? And Lion's Mane, the research shows that it is stimulating what's called nerve growth factor. Okay. And nerve growth factor is something that we're producing all the time because we're constantly producing new neurites. That's going on all the time. But like you say, that slows down. For one, it slows down as we age. And it could also slow down due to other things that we've done to ourselves over time, you know. So who can't be helped by a little bit of extra nerve

growth stimulation, right? Yeah. I've actually seen improvements in my nervous system from a lot of different things and always learning new skills. Yeah. And there are things that I'm doing nutritionally, but there's also things I'm doing physically and intellectually that are stimulating the nervous system. So I think that when we stop stimulating the nervous system is when we start dying. Yeah, I know. I hear you. So have it stimulated, but also give it the proper nutrition

so it can be active and get the most out of it. Well, and let's face it, you know, if you look at humans in a holistic way, you know, we can kind of talk about certain parts of the body and isolate them and everything but we're a whole system and food and what we take in nourishes all parts of our body right i mean it is so important so so um so lion's mane is another one the other ones i'm going to talk about here are not mushrooms that you would be eating. Okay. For example, reishi mushroom.

Reishi mushroom is, if you've ever held or looked at a reishi mushroom, and if you haven't come to our booth because it's like a piece of wood. Would it be really bitter? And it's bitter. And it grows off of trees and dead wood. And it is, I used to, I started my company Namex in 1989. I was walking around the Natural Foods Expo in Los Angeles with a reishi mushroom in my hand. And I was trying to introduce it to companies that had the complete line of green herbs.

Yeah. And I'm saying, look, mushrooms have been used in traditional Chinese medicine along with all these herbs. It's been used there for thousands of years. And they're just looking at that like, what is that thing you've got in your hand? It looks like an ornament. It looks like it's made out of, I don't know, wood or something. And I'm like, well, yeah, it's actually a very woody polypore.

It's a mushroom, and it's been used in China for thousands of years. It took the full 90s to actually get companies to buy mushrooms and put them in as a supplement. I mean, it took a long time it was pure education i wrote articles i had books produced all just to educate people to the fact of yeah mushrooms are part of that whole traditional chinese medicine um culture yeah so so this is something that with reishi now and what's cool about reishi is it has compounds that the other mushrooms don't have. It's got these triterpenes, and that's where with our reishi, for example, most of our products, we can do a water extract, and it's the water-soluble beta-glucans that are the active ones. So we can help pre-digest that mushroom to get it into a form that is a little more active, that's a little more quick-acting for people. With a reishi, one of the steps is an alcohol extraction. So we'll

do two water extractions, one alcohol extraction. People call that these days, they call it a dual extract. So our reishi and our chaga will be dual extracts because of these compounds called triterpenoids. And they're very important compounds. And that's what makes reishi in a different class than all the others because all of the mushrooms have the beta-glucans. But only reishi and, for example, chaga will have these special types of triterpenoids that have this other activity. For reishi, one of the things that it does is it cleanses the liver and the blood.

And, in fact, one of the conferences that I went to in China, there was a traditional Chinese medicine therapist there, and it was a mushroom conference. And I was talking to him about the mushrooms, and he said, hey, reishi is my number one herb for the liver, the number one herb for the liver. And I thought, wow, that's just amazing, you know. Wow, yeah. And coming from a guy who's

like been practicing and you know that's the cool thing this is what's interesting I think it'd be interesting a lot of my listeners who have like a movement practice if your liver is inflamed which mine has been in the past it sits right underneath your right lung and you can I can tell when I'm inflamed because my breath the way I breathe is impacted and now I can't get as much air. So I know that if I do something like reishi mushrooms, it actually, or some other method of keeping the liver really clean, it'll be less inflamed. It actually will get smaller and put less pressure on the lung. And you can actually get bigger breaths. Wow. There's, like, lots of little things like the mushroom stuff blows me away

because, again, it does these things. It's like, okay, well, it cleans the blood. What does that mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or it cleans the liver. But what does that actually mean for the person? And so these are, like, the things I've been discovering here and there. That's really interesting.

Yeah. You know, because that kind of shows you the compound effect that these things can have. You think they're just working in one way, but they're actually working in a lot of other ways. Yeah, a lot of these things are impacting your organs. But every one of your organs is impacting your musculoskeletal system, without the organs making sure everything's operating and producing all the hormones and running all the blood and delivering all the nutrients, none of this works. Well, that's a holistic approach, right?

Right. Right. Exactly. And that's what's missing in a lot of our Western medicine is they just sort of go right in. And supplement lines. Yeah, that too. Yeah. Narrow view. Yeah, that too, yeah.

Very narrow view. All right, so we got Reishi. Reishi. Turkey Tail is another one that maybe you've heard a lot about. I've heard that's specific to just boosting the immune system. Turkey Tail is pretty much specific to the immune system. And one of the things with Turkey Tail is that's, like I was talking about Shitake, how they actually refined one of the beta-glucans out and turned it into a drug.

They've done the same with Turkey Tail in Japan. Oh, wow. And they produced a product called polysaccharide Crestin. Were they able to patent that? Yes. That's why they got it. I know. Yeah, I know.

That's what they do. Well, you know, I mean, that's the whole thing with drug discovery, right? 100%. And it's just like with even with all the science on the mushrooms, what they're really looking for is some drug there, right? And they're looking for a way to patent it. Yeah, yeah. So they can sell it for a long time without competition.

Absolutely. But, you know, what happens there is when they do that, they're fractionating. They're getting all these different fractions, and they end up with certain active fractions. Totally. And if they think that that fraction's got some kind of benefit that they can carry on with, then they will. They'll carry on with that particular fraction, leave the rest behind. And, of course, that just gets away from the whole holistic thing as well, right?

Well, it gets interesting because with a lot of medicines, the way they do that, they'll take a fraction of the thing thing and they give it to the human and now there's all these side effects. Well, if you would have taken the whole plant or fungus or herb or whatever at one time, it actually self-mitigates any of those things. So a lot of times people go, this was happening with THC. They were making these really like THC extract type things with cannabis. Like, oh, this is not good.

It's not acting the same as THC from the whole plant. Of course not. Yeah, of course not. It's just not going to be as beneficial. Now there's negative side effects. It's like, yeah, we try to distill something down and we usually end up fucking up the whole thing. Oh, no, that's absolutely right.

And you know, one of the things that we do with our extracts, a lot of people think an extract means, okay, you're building up one particular compound in the product. Some extracts are made that way. But like with our extracts, what we're trying to do is we're trying to maintain the natural profile of everything in there. Full spectrum. Yes, yes. But in some cases, it's like, look, unless you create an extract to where,

because everybody's like, okay, I just want to take two capsules today. I want to take 20. Right, right. So with certain products, you have to concentrate it down into a form where somebody can actually take a 500 milligram capsule or two 500 milligram to get enough of the active compounds. A big problem in the supplement industry is a lot of the products, they simply don't have enough of the active compounds in that product to do you any good. So you take two capsules. And listen, that's one of those 60 capsules. Take two a day.

Guess what? You got them on supply. 100%. What do you think about tinctures? Because I travel a lot, and tinctures seem to be an easier way for me. But I've been using the tinctures recently, but then like five days in, I got thinking, I think I might be missing something with the tinctures. Well, you know what?

What I would say with tinctures is that I know companies that do a very good job. I mean, a tincture is simply, you know, an extract of some sort, and the alcohol is still in there. And it just depends on the company because a lot of tinctures are just watered down. And, you know, they'll take 10 drops or something like that. It's like, no, that's not going to do you any good whatsoever. You know, you might have to drink the whole bottle to get any benefits, right? Yeah.

So I'm not a big fan of tinctures, but I do know some companies that make really high-quality tinctures. I mean, one of the companies that I was associated with back in the 90s, I knew the owner of the company, good friends. He loved mushrooms. His thing was, I'm going to make you an extract, and it's going to be a liquid extract. And his thing was, when you take my extract, I want you to feel something. I want it to be strong enough that when you take it, you're going to feel it. That was his thing. And I thought, you know what?

Because in Chinese medicine, it's was his thing. And I thought, you know what? Because in Chinese medicine, it's the same thing. They don't want to give you something that doesn't quite do the job because you're not getting enough of it. In a lot of cases, they'll give you more of whatever it is and make you drink it down because they want to make sure something happens. I mean, I think it's good for the customer to know that it's working. And the only way you can do it is give them a hybrid. That's right. That's right. And again, getting back to the mushrooms, unless you're sensitive like yourself, what I would say, the thing with the mushrooms is that generally speaking, it's not something that you're going to feel immediately.

I mean, I tell people all the time, I time, most supplements, I give them at least eight weeks if I'm trying something new. Yeah. And some things I just need to adjust to at times too. It's interesting. All right. So we got Turkey Tail. Turkey Tail.

What else? We did Reishi. Have we done chaga yet? No, no. But chaga is super famous at this point. Like I see chaga everywhere. Yeah, don't get me started on chaga, Mike. It's all a hoax now.

No, no, no. But chaga is what I call the flavor of the month. Oh, yeah. It's really popular right now. Yeah, exactly. And when you go out there chaga's the king of mushrooms right oh yeah you know and and there's nothing that chaga can't do reshi the queen chaga's the king that's what some people say i'm just like oh man help me out here no no it's good

marketing well you know what and and that kind of marketing hype, I don't like at all. I really don't because they make it into a panacea and then everybody gets excited about it. And then ultimately the buzz goes away and then people get disappointed in it. But what is the benefit of chaga? It's good. I mean, I've had quite a bit of like fresh. My friend makes like fresh chaga tea. Good for you, man. And I say to people, look, if you've got somebody in your neighborhood that's harvesting wild chaga, grab it. Make your own teas at home. You can do that. Yeah. And when you do those chaga teas, what you do is you boil it down, pour off the water, maybe bust it up a little more because it's a hard thing

that chaga. Pour more water in, boil it down, pour it off. Do that a number of times until the water stops turning. Then you can take that fluid, you can boil it down to whatever or just simmer it off and get some of the water off until you've got a nice, very strong extract. And then you can just put it in your fridge whenever you want it. You can just, like, pour it out, take a bit, however much you normally take. Yep.

But you've got it right there. No, chaga is great that way. But traditionally, and where chaga has been used a lot was in Russia and Eastern Europe. It was a folk remedy for cancer. But where they used it mostly and where I would recommend using it is you have any stomach issues at all. If you have any gastrointestinal issues, that is where they use chaga a lot. And I don't think that gets a lot of coverage. And that's why when people start talking about panaceas, I'm just like, okay, just stop right there. I don't want to hear it. Because to me, what we're looking for is one or two or three beneficial properties.

If it does other things, wonderful. But we're looking for the main benefits here. That's what we really want to talk about. We're looking for the research that is robust. We're not looking for, you know, I mean, there's lots of research out there that will give you a hundred different things that medicinal mushrooms has shown activity in. So what am I going to do? Go out there and say, oh, yeah, it does a hundred different things,

and let me list them off for you. Oh, yeah. You know? People can't hear that. No. Either. Like you say, oh, this is good for 20 things. People are like, people just want to hear the one thing that's going to fix for them or whatever.

But I think, and again, I think it's important that we keep it fairly simple. And, you know, again, you see the Chaga hype and I swear to God, is there anything it doesn't do? Right. However, I mean, if it's improving digestion, then it's going to improve the entire system. And you know what? What's happening now is some companies that are working on products for irritable bowel syndrome and any of those types of issues, which a lot of people have, and it is a serious problem. My late wife had that issue. And let me tell you, it is horrible for people that have it.

And if there's anything that can help people with that, that would be absolutely wonderful. So that's what I would say to people. Try chaga for that. It might just be the thing you're looking for. So that's what I would say with chaga. And chaga does have these triterpenoids in it that are antiviral. It's shown very strong antiviral activity with these specific triterpenoids. And here's the other thing about chaga and most of the other. It's really interesting.

Medicinal mushrooms, the majority of them grow on wood. Yeah. They get their precursors to make these compounds from the wood. So chaga, it's on birch trees. It gets precursors from that birch tree to make the triterpenoids that are in it. A lot of the compounds in chaga, you can find those compounds right in the birch tree. Interesting. Yeah.

In fact, in the birch bark, they have compounds called betulin. And betulin, in fact, they make extracts of birch bark that are high-level betulin amount. Well, chaga also has betulin in it too. So that's where all of these compounds come. They need, these fungi need those precursors to turn them on and make them produce the compounds that we're looking for. Gotcha. All right, what else we got?

What other mushrooms we have? I'm trying to think whether there are any that we left out. I mean, it was like we've got reishi, shiitake, maitake, cordyceps, lion's mane, turkey tail, and chaga. That's the big seven. You know, one of the things, too, that I would say, and this is something that people really need to know. Do you know the products out there in the market that are like the kitchen sink products? Yep. They've got everything in it. And they say, you don't need to take anything.

I just take our product and you're good. Man. Companies have done that with mushrooms, too. It started out, somebody came out with a product with 10 different species in it. Right. Next thing you know, somebody's got one out with 16 different species. The highest one I've seen so far is 24 different species. Most I've seen is 14.

Yeah. Okay. So here's what happens is that they end up diluting the important ones. With the cheaper ones? Well, with the cheaper ones and also with ones that don't have this powerful architecture. So you're putting in all these different species. And some people out there claim, oh, man, this is so great. We've got all of these different species in there.

And it's just nothing but hype. Those products. And here's what's interesting because we, again, do a lot of testing. We test, the thing that really we kicked off three years ago is I did a white paper called Redefining Medicinal Mushrooms. In that white paper, I tested 95 different products. I tested dried mushrooms. I tested some of our mushroom extracts. I bought 40 different products off the internet. Most of those products were these mycelium on grain products. And so we tested them all for beta-glucan.

We tested them all for ergosterol. And that's when we were able to conclude that all those products that were mycelium on grain were mostly starch with very low levels of beta-glucan. You know what were the worst products of all? Those multi-mushroom products. Those 16 to 1s. And again, let me be clear. When I'm talking mushrooms, I'm talking mushrooms.

And when I say multi, those were multi-species products and mostly mycelium on grain. But those had the lowest amounts of the beta-glucans and the highest amounts of starch. Well, we don't need that. No, we don't need that. And, you know, the funny thing is that those are some of the most popular and best-selling products out there. Well, I don't have to think about it.

I just take this one thing for everything. Exactly. Which mushrooms did I take? Yeah. All right, so you named out the seven that you really believe in. I heard oyster mushrooms are really good, too. Oyster mushrooms I take? Yeah. All right. So you named out the seven that you really believe in. I heard oyster mushrooms are really good, too. Oyster mushrooms are good, yeah.

And interestingly enough, they have, have you ever heard of lovastatin? No. Lovastatin is actually a compound that lowers cholesterol. They actually have a drug out there that is lovastatin. Oyster mushrooms produce it naturally. Oh, wow. Now, these days, I don't know quite what to think whether lowering cholesterol is good or bad, right? Because we need cholesterol. The more data I see on it, the less important it seems. Exactly. And what seems to be more important, okay, is it low density or high

density? Is your balance correct? Right now, I think what we're seeing is the year HDL to triglyceride ratio is the most important piece. Even if, that one probably matters. So, say I'm an athlete and I train a lot, but I also want to be mentally sharp, what mushrooms would I take? Well, you know, you would probably be looking at cordyceps, you know, mentally, lion's mane, reishi. But remember that these beta-glucans in there are going to affect every single part of what you do because they're not only just immunologically active.

The beta-glucans are antiviral. They do all sorts of other things that we need. So they're working the background on a lot of our systems. And that's kind of like the whole idea of mushrooms as adaptogens. It was two or three months of taking the mushrooms. I was taking them before I noticed big visible changes in my body. Yeah. I looked different.

Yes. Like my face was different. My skin had changed. Yes. So it did take months to see those other benefits, which I wasn't even focused on. I was focused on am I going to feel better today? Is my energy going to be better? All this stuff.

And it's like, yes, I'm moving better. And then months later, it's like, man, even my skin has improved. I was like, this is interesting. So there's a lot of things going on in the background. And I don't get sick. Yeah, well, you know what? And part of that. That's working mushrooms.

I think my immune system is pretty dialed in. Well, yes, exactly. I mean, part of that is that the way mushrooms are looked at to a large degree in Asia is as prevention. Yeah. That's like an insurance policy. 100%. Yeah.

And that's especially true because, like, in a lot of cases, when people get up to a certain age in China, and as you get older, your immunity is not as quick, you don't heal as fast, all of that sort of thing. So that's where a lot of people as they get older are taking reishi, and you might give your older uncle reishi mushrooms for his birthday or something like this, right? So that's like a standard as an anti-aging.

And anti-aging just in the sense of let's keep our bodily systems functioning at a higher level. You said adaptogens earlier, and I've talked a little bit about that, but I'd like to hear from you. What is an adaptogen? Well, and why is it a good or a bad idea? Well, you know, an adaptogen was a word that came around, and it was something that basically modulates different systems in our bodies, whether it's the adrenal system or whether it's like our blood circulation

or immunological cells. And that's exactly what we're talking. We're talking about immune modulation. Stimulation is not really the wrong term for that. It's like modulation. So modulation means... It's not going to just keep ramping you up. No, that's right.

That's the whole idea. Modulation is something that... And listen, here's the way I look at health. Health is finding that and listen here's here's the way i look at health health is finding that balance you know we eat certain things we supplement certain things we're trying to find that balance where we're in harmony our body just feels like like we don't even have to think about it because it just feels so normal, right? Right. And that's kind of the idea behind an adaptogen is it's something that normalizes things. It modulates these different systems to the point where you're feeling like, man, this is just 100%. I just feel so good right now because everything seems to be working the way it's supposed to be working.

We get stressed out all the time. I mean, in this society, especially, I mean, the amount of stress out there. Well, we have the emotional stress, the physical stress, the environmental stress. These are all stressors on the body. And the way I think about adaptogens is it just helps us get back to homeostasis. Exactly. No, homeostasis is The word, absolutely. It's bringing us home. Yes. And, you know, the more time I can spend home, I can repair more quickly. I can do more because I'm getting my rest is a higher impact rest. I go to bed at night. My body's not having to wait hours for my levels to get to normal so it can repair, I can slide right back into homeostasis

any time I'm introduced to stress faster than the next guy. So it definitely gives me an edge. And there was somebody, and I think it was in the 70s or 80s, his name was Hans Selye. He wrote a book called The Stress of Life. And in that book, he really outlined the impact of stress on all the systems of our body. And I think that's something that at times gets kind of overlooked. And that's exactly what's happening. We need to get that homeostasis. We need things to be in harmony. We need things to be, you know, and this

is just, in a way, you think this is just common sense, right? But we tend to lose sight of these types of things. It's almost too simple. But in fact's it's not simple at all no it's pretty complex yeah you know but but we want to make it simple it's just like our diet we don't want a complex diet really no no we want a diet that we don't have to really think about oh man did i get this or did i get that or did i simple and convenient oh yeah oh boy don't get me started about convenience. Well, I mean. We have a whole society that's ruled by it. I know, and that's why we have things in capsules, right? Right, that's true.

You know? That's true. You know, I go back and forth, and, you know, when I was living in SoCal for a while, I'm nomadic right now. Oh, good for you. I have two bags, which makes traveling with powders and stuff over capsules or tinctures more difficult. I was asking about the tinctures because I was like, you know what, I can put a lot more tincture in my bag than I can even pills

and more than powders. And then if a powder breaks open in my bag, I'm just like, fuck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you go through the airport or something, the guy goes, what's this white powder you've got here, right? Oh, yeah, things get tested. Yeah. I, yeah. Then you go through the airport or something, the guy goes, what's this white powder you've got here, right? Oh, yeah, things get tested. Yeah. No, I hear you.

So, okay, adaptogens, like, are all mushrooms considered to have adaptogen properties or are certain types of mushrooms? You know what, I would say they all are, and that's why it gets back to the whole thing of the cell wall of a mushroom is made up of these beta-glucans and those are again immunologically active plus the fiber i would say they all are but again it just gets back to the fact that that certain ones are more powerful than others but if you're eating mushrooms doesn't matter what mushroom you're eating i I mean, sure, eat the shiitakes and the maitakes, but any of those that you're eating will have some benefits that way.

Yeah. So I got into psilocybin mushrooms maybe five years ago. Dude, awesome. And then it was about two, three years ago when I really started getting hip to all the other mushrooms. And I think it was the psilocybin mushrooms that... That brought you to them? Yeah, it really, it was like, hey, there's something special about this organism. And then, you know, at one point I was like, I thought, well, if that's doing that for

my mental and emotional health, what are all these doing for my physical health as well? And then I started studying, you know, how psilocin and psilocybin interact with the body. And I go, wow. And I started looking at the other mushrooms. I go, oh, wow. We should be using all of these. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We should be using all of these. Do you have any experience with psilocybin mushrooms? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, come on. I grew up in the 60s. I mean, almost everybody I know that nerds out on mushrooms,

if I go to the farmer's market, I'm like, what's up? And they're like, hey. People get in. I mean, I have quite a few friends that are into mushrooms, but that's how they got into growing, you know, the other mushrooms. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's because they first fell in love with that. Oh, I know, I know.

And you know the other mushrooms yeah yeah yeah because they first fell in love with that oh i know i know and and you know what back in the 60s and and 70s it was like we're out hunting psilocybin mushrooms wild yeah and i i literally know that was part of my studies and i lived for a year and a half in mexico i was down there for uh 71 1971 1972 i lived there for a year and a half oh no walk i was up in the mountains in oaxaca yeah yeah yeah i lived in oax there for a year and a half. I was up in the mountains hunting mushrooms. In Oaxaca, yeah. I lived in Oaxaca for a year and a half. Yeah, yo hablo espanol. No, es un parte de mi vida. No, it's like, yeah, I, so that to me was, yeah, I was intimately close to those mushrooms.

And I consider them very beneficial. And one of the things about it, I think you have to, you know, when they talk about the mushroom of immortality in China, well, wait a minute. What do you think might be the real mushroom of immortality? The mushroom of what? Immortality. Oh, yeah. That'll definitely show you.

And to me, one of the things that it does show you, I mean, once you get into the cosmic dance and you feel it i mean you can you can you can see a lot of visions and stuff like that but the overall feeling that you have of being part of the whole the oneness the oneness that is like something that experience is a seminal experience that if we could just get everybody to experience that, it would be hopefully a different world. Yeah, I think before anyone takes office, they should take a five-gram dose of mushrooms. Absolutely.

At least three times. Yes, that's right. That's right. And then like on a fairly regular basis, just to keep touching base with that so you don't forget. No, it's an important thing. And I think done in the right set and setting, it is really it is really good. And so so for me and back then, you know, there was a lot going on back then. And it's so interesting how that got reintroduced to the world because you know they were using it down in Mexico and for thousands of years and then it was suppressed when the Spaniards

came over they went back up into the mountains they kept using it and the interesting part about it was instead of instead about of talking about it in and their their whole pantheon of gods and stuff, they used the Catholic gods. They adopted the Catholic words and names and all of that, but they still kept on with their practice. Yeah. And they literally called these mushrooms God's flesh. Yes.

Think about that for a minute. That's wild. God's flesh. I mean, it's like, and what do you think the Spaniards thought when they heard that? They were like, blasphemy. Right. So the fact that this was still going on down there and that it was rediscovered in the 50s, and then actually it was such a different time that the people that rediscovered it had been down there five years in a row.

There was a New York banker called Gordon Wasson, and he went down there with a French mycologist. They cataloged them all. They had ceremonies with healers, and they came back, and they actually did a big article in a magazine called Life Magazine, which was just a mainstream magazine. And you know what it was? On the cover it said amazing discovery mushrooms that cause vision discovered in mexico nice but no one wanted to go well well the thing about it was is that the right people saw that and went holy smokes yeah

yeah and that kind of that kind of brought it back into the consciousness, and that sort of stimulated everything in North America. All of a sudden, people are like, wow, mushrooms that cause visions or mushrooms that do this. And that was a big part of that whole psychoactive side of the 60s coming to the forefront. And now they're using them in all sorts of ways with addiction. They're using it for people who have mental problems of one sort or the other. I mean, it is amazing the benefits that people are getting in those areas,

not to mention what you can get in other areas too. 100%. Yeah. I would not be sitting here right now if it weren't for mushrooms. Cool. That's so cool. Psychedelic mushrooms. I've told people many times it likely saved my life.

Yeah. Well, you know what? It definitely made my life like a million times better. You're not the only one I've heard that from. Believe me. I mean, it has saved a lot of people. It really has. And changed a lot of people for the better.

A lot of people do it and they don't seem to figure it out. But most people do. Yeah, 100%. Is there anything else you want to add? Anything that you think people should hear that we haven't touched on? Gee, let's just see. The only thing I would say is, look, you know, we've talked a lot about the benefits of mushrooms, and the really important part is that you can go, oh, wow, that's great.

I want to go out and get that mushroom. You can go out into a Whole Foods or other store, and you can end up looking at like 20 different products on the shelves, and it all says it's a mushroom. And the issue is, and what we're doing is quality control and the issue is a lot of those products that say they're mushrooms are not mushroom you need to be very careful even the person that's the clerk in there will point you to the wrong product because they don't know right so so look at the product try the best you can to ensure that it's real mushrooms one of the ways you can do it

if it says made in USA I'm sorry it's not mushrooms. One of the ways you can do it, if it says made in the USA, I'm sorry, it's not an actual mushroom product. And then you can turn it over and you look in the other ingredients. Not every company that's got those products will say that it's got grain in it, but that's a couple of ways that you can do it. But if it says made in the USA, boy, run. And look around until you can find one. And we're selling to a lot of companies now, so a lot more companies are starting to understand the issues. Your son was telling me that you were the first one to bring organic standards to China. Absolutely. For mushrooms, for the purpose of bringing back great mushrooms to the United States.

Absolutely. 1997, I went over there with OCIA, one of the major certifiers here. It was the first workshop for organic certification of mushrooms in China. And, you know, the thing about it is, is like you can either say, you know what, screw you people. You know, we're not going to ever get products from you. Or you can work with them for what I consider to be a much better ethic in every way. I mean, I'm totally on to organic products. I've been organically certified since 1992. The United States has got all sorts of products that are not good.

They are full of chemicals and all the rest. So it's really a matter of who grows it, what kind of care they take when they're doing it, and we're testing our products in every way possible. So we can't sell them if they don't come out right. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, thank you for making sure that the stuff you're selling is actually legit, because I probably consumed it at some point. I'm actually going to consume way more of it now.

I'm going to go get a lot more of your product. Well, you know what? I'm not here to make money. You know, for me, my philosophy has always been that if you follow your passion and if you do it really well, ultimately the money is going to come. Right. You know, just do what you love doing, man, and don't worry about the rest of that. I know you may end up in lean years. Like, I had many lean years, right? It's not always the most comfortable short-term answer, right?

You know, it's like, oh, I want to follow my passion and my purpose. It's like, well, that might mean you're broke for a little bit. That's right. And then one day, you know, it might take some time. It will probably take some time. Yeah. And then when it pays off, people are going to think that you did it yesterday. Yeah, that's right.

Overnight success. You know, 10 years to an overnight success. That's right. That's right. That's right. A lot of people that ask me, they send me messages like, how long was it before you started making money podcasting and interviewing people? I've been at it for three weeks.

I'm like, well, it took me about 18 months before I could, you know, before it was my largest revenue stream. I was every day, I was thinking about this, working on this for 18 months before it turned over. And now I get, now what you see is, okay, now I have comfort and money as well as being in my passion. But there was a lot of lean years. There's still things happening in business where I'm like, oh, I might have to cut back a little bit.

Well, yeah, and the thing about it is that, you know what? In life, the most important thing you've got is your own time. And if you're punching a clock for someone else and you don't like what you're doing, you're losing your life there and your life force at times. 100%. Well, you know, I think that, I mean, the whole life force, I didn't really start valuing it until I got in my mid-30s, and then I saw that it wasn't as bright.

I was like, I've got to focus this shit. Yeah, yeah. Like, I got to go from, like, I used to be like a big explosion. Yeah. Like, how do I get that big explosion down to a laser? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. I don't know.

You could probably teach me. You've been around a lot longer. Well, like you say, you know, everybody thinks it's sort of like an overnight thing, and right now mushrooms have sort of blown up. And when I tell people, yeah, I've been growing mushrooms since 1973. And my business in medicinal mushrooms started in 1989. They're like, oh, my God. That's rad.

That's rad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for all the work you've done. You know, I've benefited from mushrooms. It's guys like you that have paved the way for people like me to be able to enjoy them. And I hope to be promoting them in the future because they've changed my life in many ways, both mentally and emotionally and physically. It's been amazing. Right on. Well, it's been a pleasure talking to you, Mike. Absolutely. Where can people find more about

you and what you're up to? My website is deep with information. It's nammex.com. That's N-A-M-M-E-X.com. And then we're primarily a raw material supplier to other companies, but we also have a retail line that we do sell on Amazon. If you go to realmushrooms.com, you can sample our retail products, and that's where you'll get the real thing. Rad, if you go back to thebloodshow.com or shrugcollective.com, you'll see we have a whole blog post. We'll be putting up links. So anything that you mention, we'll put all social media posts.

So anything that you want to follow about these guys, I would do it. I personally like to follow companies on Instagram because it constantly reminds me that they're there and that's where I find a lot of alerts that something new has happened or new research and stuff like that. Well, I've got some papers, too, that I'll send you that you can put up there, too, and also links to my white paper that I was telling you about where I did all the studies. And again, we've got great slideshows on the site

that talk about how our mushrooms are grown, how they're processed, how these other products are grown and processed. So it's deep, deep, deep with information. People will really love it. Rad, looking forward to it. All right, thanks for joining me today. Thank you so much.

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Get 20% off. And I recommend doing green, red, and gold. Get the sunrise to sunset package. And if not, man, try one of them. Any one of them, you're going to notice a positive impact. So if you want to try only one, that's okay too. And I know that once you try one, you'll try more. See you next time.