Realfoodology - The Power and Potential of Medicinal Mushrooms | Benjamin Lillibridge of Malama Mushrooms

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

EP. 169: On this installment of Realfoodology, we take a journey into the world of functional mushrooms with our special guest, Ben Lillibridge, the founder of Malama Mushrooms. We explore the potential of these amazing fungi, uncovering how they can be incredibly beneficial to our overall health, from cognitive function to immune system support. Ben gives us an insight into his journey into mushroom farming and the discoveries being made in the fascinating field of mushroom research. We talk about the unique biochemical properties of functional mushrooms, including adaptogenic characteristics that allow them to adjust to our body's needs and communicate with each other. Ben enlightens us on a variety of mushrooms such as Lion's Mane, Turkey Tail, and Reishi, discussing their medicinal properties and how they can be used for different health benefits. We also touch on the interesting controversy of mushroom cultivation in Hawaii and the process of discovering new mushroom species. Check Out Ben and Malama Mushrooms: Online Instagram Links Mentioned: Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World https://mauibiorem.org/ iNaturalist App Sponsored By: BTR Nation www.btrnation.com Use code REALFOODOLOGY for 20% off site-wide Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off LMNT Get 8 FREE packs with any order at drinkLMNT.com/realfoodology ARMRA Colostrum tryarmra.com/realfoodology enter REALFOODOLOGY to get 15% off your first order Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic seed.com/realfoodology Use code REALFOODOLOGY for 30% off your first month's supply of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic Check Out Courtney: Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson Edited By: Mike Frey www.resonantmediagroup.com

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. People assume there's a lot of academic research happening on the discovery of new mushrooms and new species. Right now, we only know about 7% of the entire world's fungicide. I'm really inspired by all these community scientists that are making the discoveries. And what's even more inspiring about that is each of those new species has a potential treasure trove of unique biochemical properties that could have novel compounds. We're barely scratching the surface of what's out there. Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Swan. Today's episode is all about mushrooms, functional mushrooms.

We're not talking about psilocybin today, although I do have an episode all about psychedelics and psilocybin. Definitely go back and check out the episode that I did with Allie Shaper. We dove as deep as we could go into psilocybin. So fascinating subject. But anyways, I have the founder of Malama Mushrooms. His name is Ben Lillibridge on the podcast today. We talk about a lot of really exciting stuff. So we talk about his journey, how he got started in mushrooms, also where he thinks that the forefront is for mushrooms as we dive more into the research. Mushrooms is a really cool conversation right now because we realize that there's so little that we know, but what we do know is incredibly fascinating. Like the fact that they are all connected with this mycelium web and they

essentially talk to each other and they talk to all the plants around them, which is just fascinating. And it also goes to show that there's probably a lot there that we don't know about yet, which I think is really cool. But what we do know and what has been heavily researched is the effect that these mushrooms have on our brain, on our immune system, and how when used correctly, they can be really beneficial to our overall health. And when I say used correctly, the cool thing is there's no concern for overdosing, so you can't overdo it. But I guess more when I think about, when I say correctly, is when used for the right context. So for example, if you're looking for better cognitive function, you want to turn to something like Lion's Mane, or if you're dealing with something

with your immune system and you really need to turn on your immune system, Turkey Tail is a great one. Or if you're wanting to calm down and go to sleep, Reishi is great. I'm really excited about this conversation. I hope you guys love it. As always, if you are loving the podcast, if you could take a moment to rate and review it, it means so much to me. It really helps the show. And tag me on Instagram. If you love the episode, let me know what you think or send me a DM. I love getting your DMs. I love seeing your tags. It really means a lot and I'm forever grateful for your support. So thank you guys for listening. I hope you enjoy it. BTR Nation is on a mission to help fix our broken food system one snack at a time. If that is not

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and use code realfoodology. You guys know I'm always on the lookout for ways to strengthen my immunity, especially more than ever right now as we're going into fall and winter. And on top of that, I've been traveling a ton. So I was really excited when I discovered Armra Colostrum. I've actually been taking Colostrum for a long time. It was something that my mom put me on years ago because of its immune defense properties. And when I discovered Armra, I was so excited because it's really good high quality sourcing and it really works. Colostrum is the first nutrition that we receive in life and it contains all the essential nutrients that we need in order to thrive. Armra is a proprietary concentrate of bovine colostrum that harnesses these 200 plus

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fortifies your entire gut wall system, replenishing your microbiome, repairing the gut wall architecture and blocking irritants that can trigger symptoms like bloating, constipation, and IBS. It also enhances nutrient absorption, stabilizes blood sugar levels, and accelerates fat burning for a revved up metabolism. Pretty crazy, right? And as I said before, it can reactivate hair growth and help growing skin. It reduces inflammation, especially like puffiness in your face and neck, stimulates stem cells to produce collagen and increase elasticity for plumper skin. Now, the cool thing is we have worked out a special offer for you guys, my audience, receive 15% off your first order. Go to tryarmra.com slash realfoodology or enter realfoodology to get 15% off your first order. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A.com slash realfoodology. Ben, I'm so excited to have you on.

This podcast is such a long time coming. We met through my dear friend, who's also your friend, and who happens to also be the producer of my podcast, Drake. And I'm so happy that he introduced you guys. And I'm so excited to dive into all things mushrooms. So I have actually been putting your functional superfood mushroom powder extract mix in my coffee every single morning. And so is my mom. I also have my mom on the mushrooms too. So thank you. Yeah, shout out mom. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I'm so honored and stoked to be here. Big fan, first and foremost. Love everything you're doing, exposing transparencies or much-needed transparencies in the food world. So yeah, super stoked to be here.

Thank you. Well, thanks for coming on today. So I'm curious to know a little bit about your background. How did you get into mushrooms? How did you start your company? Yeah, what's your background and all that? Totally. So I actually began kind of more as an environmental scientist and agriculturist, disenfranchised with the industrial food system, conventional ag, which I know you're also keen on and have been exploring. Yeah, mostly the use of like pesticides and CAFOs and kind of doing more harm than good for the planet and people like us that occupy it. So yeah, I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin around a lot of this industrial ag and just disenfranchised with it, wanted to study more slow food systems and how to do more good for

the planet. And studying that, I kind of came across this ted talk called six ways mushrooms could save the world by now famous mycologist paul stamets and and he talks about how mushrooms can actually break down these things in our ecosystem like pesticides even plastics motor oil etc so i was thrilled to learn more, started actually experimenting with mushrooms myself, grew, started cultivating them, and then was living in Hawaii, South Kona, and knew I wanted to make mushrooms my life. No one was hiring for enthusiastic mushroom guys, so knew I had to create the job myself. And I started growing mushrooms in a lava tube cave in South Kona, and

just selling them at my local market, really had this vision of like a bigger project working on remediation, micro-remediation, cleaning up damaged ecosystems with that. And it's kind of just snowballed from there and grown and grown. And now we create value-added products like the one you mentioned and stores around the nation. And yeah, that's

kind of the short story or yeah, the short version of it. Yeah, that's awesome. And you know what I was just thinking about as you were talking, there's this common thread that I've noticed with all of my friends that are in some way or another involved with mushrooms, whether they have their own mushroom company or they're very passionate about them and they write books about them, whatever it is, you guys all have this vitality and this energy about you. I don't know if you know who Allie Shaper is, but she's a dear friend of mine here in LA and she's very much involved. She has her own company called Super Mush and then she's also very much involved in more of the political side of things like trying to get laws passed and

like Sol Simon and et cetera. And you guys have this energy and vitality about you that you guys are the literal definition of the people that everyone's like, what are they doing? What are they doing? Because I want some of that. And I think it's a testament to how amazing mushrooms are. And I do want to specify for my listeners, because I have done episodes before about psilocybin.

We are more specifically going to talk about functional mushrooms today, which are the non-psychedelic variety. Although we can absolutely talk about psilocybin too, if you have any fun facts for us to drop. But I wanted to more focus on the functional mushrooms today. Totally. Yeah. Allie's great. Psilocybin's great. That was the first variety I grew in my dorm room. Hopefully my mom doesn't listen to this, but yeah, profoundly changed my life and really got me down this path here. But yeah, we're talking about more the functional, non-psychoactive, but still super medicinal mushrooms here today. Yeah. So, okay. I have so many like different avenues I want to dive

down. I'm trying to figure out which one I won't go down first. So first and foremost, I know this is going to be like asking you to like name your favorite baby, but do you have a favorite mushroom? I do actually. Yeah. It's probably not one everybody will be totally familiar with. It's called, the genus is Latiparis. The common name is chicken of the woods. It's this beautiful, bright orange mushroom that grows. There's different species that grow throughout the world. California has a few. They can't really cultivate it. So that is partly why it's one of my favorites because you kind of just got to find it and tastes delicious. It's very medicinal, super high in antioxidants and random side note

there's a native version that occurs here in hawaii that doesn't have a name yet so we're working with some scientists to give it an official name and it's just near and dear to my heart i have a spidey sense for when it's fruiting and we'll go into the woods and reliably find it every time and yeah that's one of my favorites But of the more common ones that everybody can get, it's going to be cliche, but lion's mane. It's just, it's so awesome. There's new research coming out every, almost every year on it.

Just this year, a new study came out on it showing its ability to enhance neurotrophic factors in our brain, build nerve cells. So I just love that one both to take and consume, like consume it myself and give to my friends and family. Yeah, Lion's Mane is cool. So let's talk about it because you and I were emailing a little bit before this and we were talking about how Lion's Mane is trendy and you dropped that research. So what's the research telling us right now about Lion's Mane? The only thing I really know about it is I drink this coffee sometimes from Four Sigmatic, and they put Lion's Mane in there to help up the cognitive function.

And I have noticed for me personally, it does help with cognitive function a lot, especially when I pair it with caffeine. So what is it good for and what's the research saying right now? Yeah, well, yeah, shout out Four Sigmatic. I know you had Danielle on here before. She's awesome. And that was a great pod. I listened to it just to make sure

I didn't repeat too much. But yeah, Lion's Mane's cool. And it's one that has a lot more, I would say, like recent human double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials about it. I think in 2009, out of Japan, they had a study with two different groups, 15 people in each group, ranging from 50 to 80 years old. And one group was getting three grams of Lion's Mane per day. One group was getting just a placebo. No one knew what they were getting, neither the people giving them the tests.

And then they gave them a series of cognitive function tests over several different weeks. They didn't get eight, 12 and 16 week increments. And these cognitive function tests were like, count backwards in intervals of four from this number, who are the last four presidents and stuff of that nature. And the group that was getting the lion's mane had significantly better levels of just performed better on these tests than their group receiving the placebo. And then interestingly enough, they stopped giving them lion's mane and the placebo and kept giving them the cognitive function test. And the group getting the lion's mane still did better though eventually it did drop down to to meet the what the placebo group was getting so it's obviously works it's not a one-time fixes all

sort of you know thing like you know most herbs and natural medicines aren't and and so that that one really rad and then just this one that came out this year in January out of Australia, they took lion's mane, they put it in petri dishes with human cells in them, noticed an increase in nerve cell activity. And then they gave them to mice and also gave them a series of memory tests based on like falling mazes and whatnot and they perform better than before so pretty cool stuff there's a lot more research too even with um depression and anxiety even so it's known as kind of like the brainiac mushroom but it really goes beyond that and um yeah it's a very fascinating mushroom and the best part about it is it's a good edible too. So most medicinal

mushrooms are kind of hard and woody and definitely need an extract product to get the benefits. But lion's mane is a delicious culinary one too. You can probably find it at a store near you growing fresh or a farmer's market. So it's cool. You can cultivate it yourself and it's a very, very unique mushroom. I see lion's mane pretty often at this farmer's market that I go to in Mar Vista. There's a stand where they have more of the like non-traditional mushrooms that you would just see at like the grocery storage. I think it's so cool. And also I'm always so blown away. They always, they look so pretty on the table. Yeah. For anyone that hasn't seen it, it doesn't look like a mushroom, a stem and a cap. It's like

this little furry ball with white, long icicle-like hairs. Very, very unique looking. Yeah, it really is. So you brought up the thing about depression and anxiety, and I'm curious because I've never talked about this before. So there's a lot of studies, obviously, that have been coming out about psilocybin and being really good for depression, anxiety, also just for like rewiring the brain and the neuroplasticity of the brain. For people listening that maybe don't want to go down the psilocybin route, which like I would do it anyways. But I am curious, are there other mushrooms that people can take that maybe have similar effects on the brain and the neuroplasticity of the brain that aren't psilocybin? Yeah. Obviously, Lyons being as a person that comes to mind, there is a good study from 2010 on that showing that it reduces anxiety and depression. It also helps with sleep quality too from that same study.

I believe that one was specifically on females and they're measuring actually its effects on menopause, depression too. So it was a bit of an older cohort. But the other one that comes to mind is Reishi. There's a couple of studies that came out on that specifically with people undergoing breast cancer treatment. And in it, they're getting the endocrine therapy for the breast cancer, which was obviously hard on their body. And then the group getting Reishi had a much lower levels of stress, fatigue, anxiety, and irritability from the endocrine therapy. So I would say between Reishi and Lion's Mane,

those would be the best bets for someone looking for more like you're trying to get out of a rut in terms of emotional health. I would definitely recommend starting with Lion's Mane and Reishi every day, like two to four grams of a good fruiting body extract and start there. And these things work, they compound over time, they kind of have a reverse tolerance effect, if you will. So you're more likely to feel the benefits after a week or two of use as opposed to immediately though. Some consumers report that immediately as well. I think often when people are looking for more natural remedies, natural alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs, it's important to note that most of the time you're not going to feel it immediately because this

isn't like you're taking like a Xanax or something, you know, like, right? Like it takes a little bit of time, but I do think that the wait is worth it overall because oftentimes people can go around having to take these really harsh pharmaceutical drugs. And look, I don't want to vilify anyone for being on them. I don't want to shame anyone. I also am not here to say like, don't take them. That's not at all what I'm saying. But for, you know, I can only speak from experience of being around friends who no longer wanted to be on these drugs or didn't want to be on them in the first place because of the side effects that they were feeling. A beautiful thing about having these mushrooms at our taking is that you can take something that doesn't have

a side effect and there's actual real scientific research to back up that it's helping people. Absolutely, Courtney. That's a super great point. And yeah, just echoing your caveat, like, yes, SSRIs can work for some people. I know people that they've made their lives better, but I know some people that they aren't the best tool for what they got going on and finding alternatives is the move. So yeah. And we are kind of programmed in our Western world to look for these quick points of gratification, these quick pills that just do the work immediately, but that's not really the reality of what good medicine is and how to positively change your brain and body. It takes consistency of awesome products. It's not always going to be in the pharmacy. And another cool thing, and I know Danielle

and I touched on this, but I think it's really important and it's worth reiterating. What's really cool about mushrooms, and I want you to speak more to this, is the fact that they're adaptogenic, meaning that when you take them, they're so smart that they know what your body needs better than what you need or like what a doctor maybe is like prescribing pills for needs because they adapt to your body's own needs. And our body's needs change over time too, depending on what's going on in our life, what stressors we have in our life. My needs are going to be very different now versus when I'm breastfeeding whenever I have a kid or versus like someone in their 80s, you know? And so can we talk about the adaptogenic thing, which I think is so cool about mushrooms? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you hit the nail on the head in the first part. They're adaptogenic. They can upregulate or downregulate according to the specific consumer's needs. And that's particularly true with the immunomodulatory compounds of them. So that's their beta-glucans, which Danielle talked a lot about too, is that's really where we see their modulation

shine. But yeah, it's cool because there's no also like lethal dose, right? So not only does it upregulate or downregulate according to your body's needs, but it also, there isn't a known lethal dose of these functional mushrooms. So it's not like you can overdose. Definitely, some people are more sensitive and they'll be uncomfortable if they go too high in their dosing. But other than that, they're relatively benign and safe to use. So I really love that about them. And I agree to your sentiment that they're smart. And I think it's no coincidence that mushrooms are more closely related to humans than they are to plants, agree to your sentiment that they're smart. And I think it's no coincidence that, you know, mushrooms are more closely related to humans than they are to plants, which is a fascinating fact.

They fungi and mushrooms, they breathe oxygen just like us. They rely on consuming organic matter, like food to live similar to us, as opposed to plants that, you know, creates sugar from the sun. So very fascinating organisms that we're barely scratching the surface of really knowing about. I mean, I could go on a tangent, but yeah, we only know about 7% of the entire world's fungi. So there's just so much more to learn within this amazing kingdom. Yeah, it's exciting. They also have, you're probably gonna have to correct me on this. Is it called the mycelium, the root where they all speak to each other? I mean, they talk to each other.

How cool is that? Exactly. They communicate through the mycelial web and not just to each other, but through all the plants in the ecosystem too. A certain tree is low in nitrogen, they'll actually send nitrogen and other nutrients down through the mycelial web, which, again, Daniel talked about, but just to reiterate, it's like a web-like communication network underground. Mycelium is one cell wall thick, the individual height they are. So very fascinating and an essential part of the ecosystem and necessary for... Imagine if things didn't decompose, you just have all this organic matter building up over time. Fungi and other microbes break that down and recycle it into the soil, create healthy soil, which is important for food development and so on and so forth. It's an incredible world, but yes, you nailed it with

mycelium. Good job. Yay. Okay, cool. Yeah. And well, and what you mentioned earlier is a fact that I have read before, but I forgot that they can break down pesticides, microplastics. I mean, mushrooms are really cool. I saw a video on Instagram a couple months ago where a guy put these, I don't know what they're called, but he put little, some sort of musical like nodes or something on a mushroom. And it was like singing a song or something. It was making like a music essentially that he recorded. Yeah, that, I've seen that too. I don't know exactly what technique that is. Yes, it looks like little nodes, little electrode things they hook onto mushrooms and other

biological organisms. And it measures the frequencies and converts it into sound waves, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. It's really cool. It's really cool. Yeah, everything has a frequency. Yeah, yeah, it's so true. So I want to talk a little bit about some other mushrooms that I personally know a little bit about and also that I want my listeners to hear about. So you mentioned reishi and helping people with cancer. What I know reishi to be good for is for calming you down, helping you get ready for bed. And isn't it also for immune function or is that turkey tail that's more immune function? Both. Yeah. They've both shown evidence of immune function. But to your point, reishi also can help kind of like cool down or calm down at

any part of the day. But a lot of people use it before bed. There's a good study showing it actually increases delta brain wave activity. So it's good for getting into a deep sleep. I think even hypnotic states, they've used reishi to help induce. So it's very cool and very awesome for cooling down and getting a good night's sleep and just kind of calming your nervous system down. For example, right now, I had way too much coffee. If I had a big scoop of reishi here,

it would kind of help mellow me out a little bit and just calm the nervous system. If you need some, by all means, you can grab some. We can show people in real time. I wish I had a bioavailable version. I just have this reishi conch in front of me. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And then to your point, yeah. But a lot of them have been shown to help with immunity, reishi definitely being one of them.

And reishi is kind of great for everything. name Lingzhi translates to the mushroom of immortality because they use it for so many different functions from the liver to the heart to lungs to mood to you know immunity you name it there's probably use of it and a scientific paper to back it up so very well studied and much revered mushroom in the herbal world. But Turkey Tail also, super awesome for immunity. There's a clinical trial on that on women with breast cancer as well, showing that it increases natural killer cell activity. So yeah, it's... For Reishi? That one was for Turkey Tail, but...

Okay, that's what I thought. But there is a pilot clinical trial on Reishi as well where they actually use the spore powder. And that was the one I was mentioning before with the endocrine therapy. So that, but yeah, specifically the breast cancer one was with the Turkey Tail. Do you drink filtered water? Hopefully you do. And hopefully by now, you know that tap water is loaded with all sorts of pharmaceutical drugs, pesticides, heavy metals, fluoride, chlorine, et cetera. But what I'm here to talk to you about today is if you are filtering

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actually get to your gut and help populate your gut. Some of the side effects that you might see when you start taking a good probiotic like seed include gastrointestinal or GI function, skin health, so improvement in your skin, whether you're dealing with acne or maybe psoriasis or eczema. It also helps with heart health, gut immune function, gut barrier integrity, and micronutrient synthesis of vitamins B9 and B12. So you may even see an improvement in energy as well. It's also known to really help with improving digestion as well. So that could look like better, healthier poops too. And who doesn't want that, right? Finally, last but not least, their compostable packaging is one of my favorite things about this product. So when you first get your first seed package, it comes with a glass jar. It's a really beautiful green glass jar that looks beautiful on your counter, which is also something that

I just, it's a little added bonus. And it also comes with a little travel case. So you hold onto that jar and every month you get a biocompostable bag that holds your new monthly supplements in there. And then you just dump the supplements in the jar. So it's also environmental friendly, and we're not putting more plastic than landfills, which is also a huge, huge issue right now. So if you guys want to start and try Seed today, go to seed.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology to redeem 30% off your first month of Seed's DS01 daily symbiotic. Again, that is seed.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology. So that was one I wanted to talk about because I've been focusing a lot about cancer recently on my podcast because there have been a lot of reports coming out recently that we are seeing a rise in cancer numbers overall in our population, but we're also simultaneously seeing a rise in younger populations getting cancer more than ever before.

And so I've really been trying to focus on things that we can take out and how to prevent, and then also things we can bring in to also prevent as well. And so I've really been, I've been looking at a turkey tail specifically, because I've been hearing that that has been studied pretty closely for breast cancer. And I know there's been a rise in breast cancer cases. So can we talk a little bit about that? Totally. I mean, first and foremost, turkey tail is awesome. Trimedes versicolor is the Latin name. And what's really cool about it is it's found pretty widespread throughout the world. I believe I've found it near Topanga Canyon. You can find it in almost every state. And it's a polypore. So it's like one of those hard conch ones that grows like a shelf on logs and it'll

grow in these big, beautiful clusters. And it's named turkey tail because the top of it has these striations that look like a turkey tail. Go figure. But what's really cool about it specific to cancer development is In 1977, it was first approved as a prescription medication in Japan for fighting cancer. So it was a specific compound from it. They isolated polysaccharide from it. Polysaccharide is just a complex sugar chain that's in all mushrooms. But this particular one was called PSK, polysaccharide. The K stands for the company that created it.

But all this says in 77, they approved it for medication in Japan. So there's this long history of it, at least in Japan and other parts of Asia. And I think in 87, it accounted for more than 25% of the national anti-cancer agents in Japan. So a lot of Eastern clinical validation there. Obviously, the West is always a little bit behind in terms of these natural remedies that they, yeah. So that's really going in the clinical trial just that came out in, I think, the early 2000s here in the States showing that six grams, I think, daily for four weeks was enough to increase natural killer cells. actually targeting the tumor itself or is it more having an effect on our white blood cells as natural killer cells, which are then attacking the tumor? Does that make sense? Great question. I know what you're saying. Yeah. I remember specifically the increase in MK cells

and natural killer cells. So I'm not exactly sure if it was doing anything specific to the tumor, but it certainly could be. Well, and I love that you brought up that thing with that. You said it was the Japanese that created that medication. So I've talked about this before on podcasts, and I was really shocked to find this fact out when I did. And so I think it's so important for people to hear this. A lot of the medications that we're creating, like pharmaceutical prescription drugs, are based off of compounds that we find already in nature, which I think is so fascinating. And so when you look at some of these pills that are created from these compounds, and they're

essentially trying to mimic these natural compounds, and then you look at oftentimes all the side effects that we have from these pharmaceutical drugs, well, why are we not just going to the natural remedy in the first place? It's so frustrating. Because you can't patent it and make billions of dollars off of Coronet. Come on. Right? I know.

God forbid. Yeah. God forbid we can't make money off of people suffering, right? It's just so frustrating. It is. And yeah, it's just so frustrating it is and yeah the it's interesting i obviously always have kind of a fungal lens on it but there's obviously this is the case for a lot of plants too like i believe white willow bark is the what like aspirin is

isolated from um or like synthesized from that compound originally but yeah i mean fungi i always talk about and this is kind of beat the death in the mycology sphere but you know the first antibiotic penicillin was is from the penicillium mold which like grow you'll see i've grown on your citrus it's like that weird green thing and that was accidentally discovered in the early 1900s in a scientist's lab. And they noticed it was out-competing the surrounding bacteria around it. And eventually that was deployed during World War II. Troops were more likely to die of infections than the actual wounds themselves. And since then, it's just revolutionized our world.

Like antibiotics, we kind of take it for granted, but it's crazy to imagine life without it. Yeah, for sure. We definitely over-prescribe them now, which I'm sure you probably feel the same way. Totally. But they're life-saving. We just need to be not prescribing them for viral infections when they're meant to take out bacteria. Absolutely. And people need to find other ways to just boost their immune systems and stay healthy instead of relying on pills.

Yeah. Well, and what's scary about the antibiotic thing, and we don't have to talk about this for long, but if we over-prescribe them, we overtake them eventually, they're very smart. These microorganisms are so smart. We're learning about this, about the mushrooms, also about bacteria. They eventually, they're learning how to get around this now. And so it's incredibly concerning because we don't

want to over-prescribe them because these antibiotics are not going to work anymore. Totally. No, yeah. It could create a super strain that, yeah, they don't work for anymore. And I think that's also why they say like, well, one, finish your course of antibiotics because you think you're fine, but you're just weakening it enough and now it's able to replicate to self-select, naturally select to become a super strain. And then, yeah, it's kind of scary to think about. Yeah, it is frightening. I wonder if there's going to be a time that we're going to be worried about this with mushrooms. We're like, okay, we over-prescribed them. They have a mind of their own. They were like overtaking the world. Like I wouldn't be surprised. You could ask Pedro Pascal that from The Last of Us. I don't know if you saw that. No. It was like this HBO show that came out with the, it was this phenomenon because the cordyceps mushrooms like infected society. Oh, I heard about this.

I mean, they're very smart, you know, it'll be interesting to see. I'm very curious. What do you think is the forefront? Like, what do you think is coming next for mushrooms and everything that we're discovering at the moment? Like what is some new stuff that you're seeing come out? Yeah, great question.

I've been really hyped on the community science aspect of things. So what I mean by that is, people assume there's a lot of like academic research happening on the discovery of new mushrooms and new species right now. As I mentioned before, we only know about 7% of the entire world's fun drive.

So, but I'm really inspired by all these community scientists that are making these discoveries, doing the work, like the microscopic work and the DNA and molecular work to describe new species. And it's just very inspiring.

And we're working on doing stuff like that here in Hawaii, based on these community scientists model around the world. And what's even more inspiring about that is, as we dwindled down this 93% of the entire world's fungi left to be found, each of those new species has a potential treasure trove of unique biochemical properties that could have novel compounds to help with medicine, to help with alternative materials, to help with agriculture amendments, to help regenerate healthy soil. And it's really just, we're barely scratching the surface of what's out there. And it all begins with giving these species a name and studying them. So I'm most excited about that. But yeah.

Cool. Yeah, I'm excited about that. And you mentioned Hawaii, and we haven't talked about this yet. So did you move from Wisconsin to Hawaii to grow your mushrooms? Pretty much. And why Hawaii? So I went to university at Upstate New York after Wisconsin, but was, again, trying to be an environmental scientist and agriculturalist. And Hawaii was just the most relevant place to apply that because it's just such a unique ecosystem. It has a year-round growing season, so you can grow virtually any crop throughout the year. It also has 10 of the world's 12 climate zones on this

one island. So a very unique terroir to grow anything and had some family friends here. So just kind of went for it after I graduated. I had Lyme disease at the end of college and was kind of just needing to heal and eat straight from the land for a while. So moved out here and just started farming and helping with environmental programs here full time. And again, just kind of running the cycle of crops, like small little farms doing just like homesteady stuff and then a big aquaponic farm, and then a huge 90 acre algae algae farm that grew spirulina and bioacidins or astaxanthin and stuff that you'll see at health food stores. But yeah, mushrooms are just really the thing I wanted to get into, I was most interested

in. And this was just, it just started, it made sense. I was here and started making it happen. And there's a niche here. There are not a lot of people doing mushroom cultivation or products here. And then as I got into the science, it's pretty fascinating. There's 160 endemic mushrooms that occur here, meaning native here and only found here. And only about 60 of them are known. So it just feels like a real life treasure hunt where it's like there's

these really unique and rare mushrooms that occur here that no one's really working on and no one has given a name or found and just a very interesting place to live. That's cool. That's really cool. And what you said about the species that we're still discovering and learning about, I'm excited to see everything that comes out of that. That's really cool. Are you involved in that in any way? Are you trying to find new species and studying them at all? Totally. Yeah. We co-founded a project called the Hawaii Fun Drive Project, which is pretty much dedicated to that. We received two grants in 2020 and 2021 where we were given essentially they just covered our cost for testing the dna of these mushrooms so just essentially um confirming the molecular identification of it

and we found about like a hundred we submitted about a hundred species and during those two years and only 50 had a genetic match which was really interesting. So now, yeah, not to go down a nerdy rabbit hole, but the genetic technology is so new. Yeah. Let's go. I appreciate it. Long story short, the genetic technology is so new that just because something doesn't have a genetic match doesn't mean it hasn't been found before. It could just mean if it was found somewhere else, no one uploaded it to or tested it for genetics yet.

So very fascinating there. And we're doing a large community science effort here in Kauai in November. We're just going out and collecting as much as we can find. We're making high quality observations and submitting them for DNA sequencing and doing microscopy on them. And yeah, so very involved with that out here. That's cool. and submitting them for DNA sequencing and doing microscopy on them. Yeah, so very involved with that out here. Fun. That's cool.

So do you, I mean, you literally just go out mushroom foraging and try to find new species? Is that how it works? Pretty much, yeah. I mean, I'm open to find any species, anything, even old species. Like a lot of what we think we know just ain't so. And for example, most mushrooms, people identify them based on their morphological features, meaning what you can see with your eye or microscope, but it turns out their DNA is something totally different. So with this new technology, it's really important that anything you find to test for DNA to really

confirm what it is. So long story short though, yeah, just pretty much finding stuff and then, you know, drying them and making high quality observations. Cool. Okay. So I want to go a different direction right now because this, I've been very excited to talk to you about. So, you know, one of my favorite things to do with Real Foodology is to call out when companies are not being transparent in any realm, especially in the food industry. And you were explaining to me that there's some controversy around the way that people are growing their mushrooms. And I'll let you speak more to this because I can't really speak to this

too much, but it's like people are growing their mushrooms on grains, right? Versus in the soil. Is that what it is? Not necessarily that. That's not totally an issue. Yeah, I guess in a cultivation setting, you have to grow your mushrooms on some sort of substrate. Grain is an abundant and relatively cheap one. For wood growing mushrooms, obviously sawdust and wood chips or logs are always better. That's more akin to the profile that they grow on in nature, but not necessarily a deal breaker if you can't grow them on wood. The issue is that companies are just growing the mycelium out on a block and then powderizing that and selling it as mushrooms. And the analogy that I like to use, I know Danielle uses, is the mushroom is like the

apple of the apple tree, right? It's just the reproductive organ. It's just the fruit. There's the entire other part of the organism, the tree and the roots that is the mycelium. And we know that in the nature, it's in the soil. In a cultivation setting, it's in your substrate bag. Yeah. So what's interesting is mycelium is not necessarily bad to consume. And in some cases, it creates medicinal compounds. So the issue isn't mycelium versus fruiting body necessarily. The issue is that the compound, the issue that's not the majority of the product is mycelium versus fruit and body necessarily. The issue is that the compound, the issue that's not the majority of the product is mycelium.

The majority of the product is still the grain they grow it on. So inherently, the consumer is getting powderized grain, which is like oats or brown rice or something like that. So yeah, even one of the patents on this, like the specific technology that these companies do says the end product's 30% to 40% mycelium, 60% to 70% grain. So it's not just a matter of a little bit of grain. It's like majority of it is grain. Yeah. So yeah, there's a company doing like trying to, I guess, petition the FDA to get more transparency in the labeling of this.

I don't know how successful that's going, but we just talk to people about that because we pride ourselves in 100% fruiting body. I know Four Sigmatic does as well and some other companies. And just, yeah, I want to be transparent about selling mushrooms because that's what we want to do. And some people say they are, but they aren't. I want to take a second to talk about some of my favorite Organifi products and why I love them. When I first started getting into health, I was an avid juicer. I was buying fresh veggies every couple of days and wearing out my juicer and also wearing out myself by trying to constantly juice vegetable juices because I wanted to flood my body with all of the nutrients, the phytonutrients that you get from green juices.

But after a while, I was like, I cannot keep doing this every day and also maintain my job, maintain my social life and everything else. But I really wanted to make sure that I had a good, high quality green juice that was organic. And I knew that I could trust came from a good source. So when I discovered Organifi, I was so happy. They not only have a green juice, but they also have a red juice. And I really like to mix them together because it really helps with the flavor profile. And you're not only getting all of the green phytonutrients from the green juice, but you're also getting all the antioxidants from the red juice. So it's like a win-win situation. I also really love their chocolate gold. It's their low sugar, hot chocolate mix. And it's loaded with ingredients like lemon balm, turkey tail,

magnesium chloride, and reishi. Oh, there's also turmeric in there as well. So it really helps to calm down your nervous system before bed. And it really makes me sleepy. It also helps the digestion because you have the turmeric in there, you have cinnamon, you have ginger, black pepper. So it's helping with digestion and inflammation. I'm a really big fan of this. You can also put it in your coffee in the morning and it kind of helps to balance out the jitters that you might get from your morning coffee. And then another product that I'm really loving and taking every single day is their liver reset. Modern living is incredibly taxing on our liver. Like just existing is hard on our liver because we are constantly being

inundated with pesticides, heavy metals, environmental toxins, not to mention if we drink alcohol, that's also going to put a strain on our liver. So I think it's incredibly important that we take something every single day to support our liver health. This product has triphala in it. It also has dandelion, milk thistle, and artichoke extract, which all have been scientifically backed and proven to provide protection for the liver. And then of course, the most important part about Organifi products is that they are all organic and they go a step further by guaranteeing

that they are glyphosate residue free. Glyphosate is a known herbicide that is sprayed on a lot of our crops these days. It's also sneaking into organic foods and it is a known carcinogen. So it's incredibly important to make sure that we limit our exposure as much as possible to glyphosate. If you guys want to try any of the Organifi products and get 20% off, go to Organifi.com slash RealFoodology. You're going to see all of my favorite products in that store and you're also going to get 20% off. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash realfoodology. Well, and it's interesting because you see this a lot

in a lot of different areas of the food industry where someone will, you know, people will talk about like, let's say, for example, someone is talking about how lion's mane has really helped with their cognitive function and they really feel a difference. And then someone buys maybe a cheaper version that they don't realize is 70% grains. And they're like, I don't feel a difference. It's like, well, because you're probably not getting a high quality or enough of the lion's mane because they're not being fully transparent with you. And another thing I see that's also an issue with that is if someone struggles with digesting grains, me being one of them, I don't do super well with oats. Like I can eat them a little bit, but my body doesn't do super well with them.

So if I'm getting a load of oats with my mushrooms and I don't even know it, and then I'm like, I don't feel great, but I can't pinpoint it to something, that sucks, you know? Yeah, I 100% agree to both those testaments. Like people consuming it and not getting the effects, now it's kind of giving a bad rap to mushrooms. And then, yeah, also, some people just can't or don't want to, but some people just cannot have grain. It's not great for their digestion or their diet, their specific diet. And they might not know that there's actually a lot of grain in each product. So yeah, I guess transparency and labeling, but consumers can always look at the packaging on the nutrition or supplement facts.

If you see anything of mycelial biomass or brown rice or oats, just keep a weary eye. I always do a sniff and taste test. I'll compare our powder side by side and you'll see a grain product. You know, these mushrooms are, a lot of them are like dark and like super earthy tones. But if you compare it to the mycelium version, it's white, you know, it's like, whereas, you know, there's a bit of just like, you know, observation you can do before you commit and, uh, you know, make the best judgment yourself. And also, some people, the placebo effect is real. So if something works for you, I'm not trying to poo-poo it. And at the end of

the day, it's better than cigarettes. So go for it. I mean, you're not wrong. What are some other things that people should look for when they're buying mushrooms? Like maybe things to look for on the label or what are some maybe marketing claims to look out for? Just kind of things like that. Yeah. Great question. I mean, one big thing is polysaccharides versus specific beta-glucans. Beta-glucans are the immunomodulatory part of mushrooms, and they are a polysaccharide. So unfortunately, polysaccharides are also in rice and oats. So if someone's claiming they have a lot of polysaccharides in their product, that doesn't mean it's mushroom-related. And some people are doing that. So you just want to be specific about what you're getting, and hopefully the company can provide test results.

Like we do a third-party test result showing the beta-glucans. Additionally, something to know is mushrooms, as we're talking about breakdown all these toxic compounds in the ecosystem, the one they cannot is heavy metals. They bioaccumulate heavy metals. So, again, it's important to get lab results showing the heavy metal results. We also do that third-party test results on heavy metals. Extracts or raw mushrooms. This is a big one. Mushrooms are made out of chitin.

It's the same thing that exoskeletons and insects and shellfish are made of. It's the strongest natural polymer in the world. And most humans can't break that down. So if you're buying just raw mushroom powder, your body's probably not going to be able to digest it. It might even cause upset stomachs. So it's important that your mushrooms have gone through an extract process, whether it be hot water, alcohol, or both, which is a dual extract. So yeah, very important that your mushrooms are processed or steamed or extracted in some way to help break down that chitin wall for you to absorb. Those are probably the biggest things I would say. Yeah.

So for example, when I put this functional superfood powder in my hot coffee, are you saying that helps kind of break it down with the hot coffee or do you guys do it before you package it? Sorry. Yeah, we actually do it before. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. So all our powders have been processed already to be made bioavailable. They've been extracted through a hot water process. And then we have a line of tinctures that have been dual extracted. It's actually cool. We use Hawaii honey made into a mead and then distilled into a mead shine. So we use Hawaiian alcohol to extract the properties and then a hot water extract too. So it's a dual

extract. That's so cool. And I'm looking at this powder right now that I put in my coffee. And I love that you wrote on all these extract and then put in parentheses fruiting body. So that way people can look at the product and go, okay, this I know is like legit and it's not full of grains. And also you guys wrote on there, the third party testing, which is, or that you, the lab where you guys got the third party testing done. That's awesome. I also talk about this on the podcast that it's so incredibly important that we know, we know the validity of our products. And that's why I always encourage people, if there's a brand that you really like, email them. And if they're good and they're doing right by people, they're going

to be probably doing third-party testing. They're going to be able to give you the results. And because stuff with like protein powder is the same thing that you mentioned with the mushrooms that because of the soil, they have a really high propensity to be really high in heavy metals. And so you want to make sure that you're getting a good product that doesn't have that in there. 100%. Yeah. The third-party testing is big for me. I have a little story about that, but just a side note, we have that publicly available on our website too. Each product page has a link to the third-party test where we update each updated batch to it. But yeah, my first go at this when I found a Reishi supplier, they were in California and I was getting a full spectrum powder. So it was full spectrum in this

case means mycelium and fruit body. Because I was like, best of both worlds, fruit body and mycelium. And so I started selling it. And then eventually, I asked for a picture of what they harvest before they send it to me. And it was just a mycelial block with a tiny mushroom head on it. And so I realized like, oh, you're saying both. It's really 95, 99% mycelium. And that's when I just like, I felt so bad because I felt like I was trying to educate my customers and trying to get them to take healthy mushrooms. And I felt like, yeah, just like I was doing them a disservice. And that really just put the switch for me to be like, I'm going to be rigorous about third-party testing and validating our

raw materials. I'm curious. So why, we don't have to necessarily go into all of these because I want to be mindful of your time too. But for example, this, I keep bringing this up, the functional superfood that I put in my coffee every morning. Why these different mushrooms? Is there something about when you put them all together?

Is it because of the different properties you're hitting all different angles of immune modulation and brain cognitive function? What's the thinking behind all those? Totally. Well, I got all the time in the world, by the way. Okay, great. So yeah, the specific product you're talking about is our functional superfood mushroom powder mix.

It's eight different mushrooms in one. The thinking behind there was a lot of people when they're first getting into mushrooms, we're talking about the benefits of lion's mane for the brain, cordyceps for energy, reishi for immunity and fatigue. And they're just like, they're so new to it. And they're like, great, give me them all. And so it's kind of like the multivitamin approach that it's just a great, it's a great entry product for someone new to mushrooms that, you know, they only have $30 to spend on one thing here. This is what I recommend, you know, a little bit of everything. And what's also cool is these mushrooms work synergistically together so that they can, neither of them like, you know, cancel

out each other, contradict each other. They only work together in unison. So that's kind of the thinking of that broadly. But specifically, the eight mushrooms in there are the reishi, lion's mane, cordyceps, which we talked about. Chaga, which is an awesome one. We haven't touched on the turkey tail. We have shiitake, easy culinary one that people have access to, but also super good for the immune system and high in antioxidants.

And then maitake, another great immunomodulatory mushroom. And tremella, which is a great mushroom that actually has... People use it as a beautifying agent topically. It acts similar to hyaluronic acid. You can even find skincare products with it today, but it's great internally as well. And yeah, so we were just kind of like the eight most accessible and most potent mushrooms in one for the multivitamin approach. And that's what that product is. It's kind of a great one to lead with. It's in all our chocolate bars and all that too. Yeah, it's great. I like this one.

I've, you know, I've tried a lot of mushroom powders over the years in my coffee. That's usually the best way of delivery for me in the morning because it's every morning ritual, you know, and I'm, I really truly mean this. Yours is my favorite because it has this like kind of almost like a chocolatey undertone. So I almost just feel like I'm drinking a mocha. Like I don't feel like I'm tainting my coffee. I'm just feel like I'm drinking a mocha. I don't feel like I'm tainting my coffee. I just feel like I'm adding on to the delicious taste of it and it's really awesome. So you did a great job with it. Yeah. It's really good. Well, thank you. I appreciate that, Courtney. It means a lot coming from you. I'm sure you have no shortage of mushroom products in the industry you're in and living in LA.

Yes, yes. They're everywhere. They're everywhere, but for good reason, I think. Yeah. So is there anything that people can do to optimize the benefits of mushrooms? Is there certain things, like for example, I think drinking coffee with lion's mane actually really helps the cognitive function. Is there other things that really help to maybe absorbability or... Yeah, I mean, you nail it. Coffee is great. Cacao, chocolate, obviously are great too. They're vasodilators, so they open up your blood vessels and in general help with drug

delivery or medicine delivery. So those are the top ones that I think of and that's how I use it, you know, with cacao and our chocolate bar and coffee as well. So yeah. Cool. Well, no, that was good. So I've pretty much gone over everything that I really wanted to cover, but is there anything about mushrooms or really just anything we talked about that you feel like people need

to hear? I think the biggest thing for me is, you know, everybody can make contributions to finding new mushrooms and everybody should like be a citizen scientist. I highly recommend downloading the app iNaturalist. I have no association with it besides I'm a fan and it can help you identify mushrooms, but also it contributes to a global community science platform. That's a big thing. I think I'd be remiss not to mention a project we're connected with out here in response to the fires in Maui. who work on all the ash full of plastics and paint and all these toxic gnarly stuff are still just on the ground and at risk of a rainfall washing them into our ocean. So I just wanna plug my friends at mauibiorem.org,

mauibiorem.org. So they're doing awesome work over there and hopefully securing some government funding soon, but could use some other, you know, support. So yeah, everybody, you know, look out for mushrooms, take a picture and try to identify. That's my homework for everybody. I love that. I'm going to download this app. I hike all the time and I'm always seeing, you know, different species. My mom, actually, my mom lives in Colorado for a lot of the year in Telluride and she goes mushroom foraging a lot with her friends.

And so I started every time I was on a hike and I found like a new mushroom I didn't know. I started sending my mom photos being like, mom, what is this? What is this? So it's been fun. So it's cool to have an app that I can do that with too. Totally. Yeah. Just don't post your Chanterelle spot if you find it.

But yeah, I forgot. My mom has told me that. Yeah. I think we were like almost missed each other in Telluride this summer. I know we'll have to figure out a time that we can link up and maybe we can go mushroom foraging because I would love to go mushroom foraging with you. That'd be so fun. I'm down. Yeah. California gets those winter rains. So yeah, winter and spring are the best time. So yeah, we'll get something going. That'll be super fun. Yeah, I would love that.

Okay, so before we go, I'm gonna ask you what I ask all my guests, which is what are your personal health non-negotiables? So things that you do to prioritize your own health. Great question. I was prepared for this one because I'm a fan of the pod. But honestly, sunlight,

like I think yours was walking. Mine is like, yeah yeah walking in the sun first thing in the morning like my day is visibly uh i'm more sluggish if i don't do that and see the sun early in the morning i'm i'm also a huberman fanboy so he partly is responsible for that um so yeah that's my biggest one. Yeah, physical movement, but even just walking in the sun, that is just the baseline of everything else, I feel. Yes, I love that. Okay, so please tell everyone where they can find Malama Mushrooms,

maybe where they can find you, anything you want to plug. Totally. So Malama Mushrooms, Malama spelled M-A-L-A-M-A, mushrooms.com. We have an awesome Instagram that my sister runs. I didn't mention we're like a family run business. So my sister does a social media. My mom and dad are involved. So there's that.

And then so the Instagram at Malama Mushrooms. And I don't have much of an Instagram presence. So just follow Malama Mushrooms. And then, oh, our products are found throughout the nation at a lot of independent health food stores. And if you're in California, the Bristol Farms chain and Lazy Acres, as well as many other independent chains. We have a store locator on our website you can use or you can order off our website. We'll send it to you from Kona. Awesome.

Thank you so much. This was awesome. Yeah. Thank you, Courtney. I'm so honored to be here. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked the episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resonant media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie. Georgie is spelled with a J. For more amazing podcasts produced by my team, go to resonantmediagroup.com.

I love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. Looking to build a more robust foundation in your health and well-being?

From the producer of the Real Foodology podcast comes one of the most popular alternative health shows on Apple Podcasts, The Dr. Tina Show. Dr. Tina Moore is a naturopathic physician and chiropractor, traditionally and alternatively trained in science and medicine. The show features exclusive interviews with experts such as Shawn Stevenson, Mike Mutzel, Mark Groves, and even solo episodes covering metabolic health,

pharmaceuticals, chronic diseases, long hauler syndrome, and pain management. Dr. Tina delivers the information in a no-nonsense, real-world style, and she has the science to back it up. The Dr. Tina Show is edgy, entertaining, and informative. Every episode will leave you with a new pearl of health wisdom to expand your knowledge base. When you're empowered, you can do better for yourself,

your family, and your community. Resilience is the name of the game, and Dr. Tina is here to guide you on your way. We'll see you next time.