The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Medicinal Mushrooms

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

This is an over view of the medicinal uses of mushrooms, I also discuss foraging and cultivation.  Y'all stay safe in this bad winter weather!Also, I am back on Youtube Please subscribe to my channel...: @judsoncarroll5902   Judson Carroll - YouTubeEmail: judson@judsoncarroll.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/southern-appalachian-herbs--4697544/supportRead about The Spring Foraging Cookbook: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-spring-foraging-cookbook.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRP63R54Medicinal Weeds and Grasses of the American Southeast, an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/medicinal-weeds-and-grasses-of-american.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47LHTTHandConfirmation, an Autobiography of Faithhttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/confirmation-autobiography-of-faith.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47Q1JNKVisit my Substack and sign up for my free newsletter:https://judsoncarroll.substack.com/Read about my new other books:Medicinal Ferns and Fern Allies, an Herbalist's Guide https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/11/medicinal-ferns-and-fern-allies.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMSZSJPSThe Omnivore’s Guide to Home Cooking for Preppers, Homesteaders, Permaculture People and Everyone Else: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-omnivores-guide-to-home-cooking-for.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGKX37Q2Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/06/medicinal-shrubs-and-woody-vines-of.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2T4Y5L6andGrowing Your Survival Herb Garden for Preppers, Homesteaders and Everyone Elsehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/04/growing-your-survival-herb-garden-for.htmlhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X4LYV9RThe Encyclopedia of Medicinal Bitter Herbs: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-encyclopedia-of-bitter-medicina.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B5MYJ35RandChristian Medicine, History and Practice: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/01/christian-herbal-medicine-history-and.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09P7RNCTBHerbal Medicine for Preppers, Homesteaders and Permaculture People: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/10/herbal-medicine-for-preppers.htmlAlso available on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09HMWXL25Podcast:  https://www.spreaker.com/show/southern-appalachian-herbsBlog: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/Free Video Lessons: Herbal Medicine 101 - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7QS6b0lQqEclaO9AB-kOkkvlHr4tqAbsBECOME A SUPPORTER FOR AD FREE PODCASTS, EARLY ACCESS & TONS OF MEMBERS ONLY CONTENT!Get Prepared with Our Incredible Sponsors! Survival Bags, kits, gear www.limatangosurvival.comThe Prepper's Medical Handbook Build Your Medical Cache – Welcome PBN FamilyThe All In One Disaster Relief Device! www.hydronamis.comJoin the Prepper Broadcasting Network for expert insights on #Survival, #Prepping, #SelfReliance, #OffGridLiving, #Homesteading, #Homestead building, #SelfSufficiency, #Permaculture, #OffGrid solutions, and #SHTF preparedness. With diverse hosts and shows, get practical tips to thrive independently – subscribe now!

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey y'all, welcome to this week's show. As we have come to the letter M in my encyclopedia, bitter medicinal herbs, I'm going to give you a quick rundown, very brief rundown, of some of the more common medicinal mushrooms. Now, there are really three or four really good books on the medicinal use of mushrooms. The fungal pharmacy is one of my favorites. Paul Stamets did a pretty good one, but it's not, well, it's not written by an herbalist.
Starting point is 00:00:34 I would just put it that way. It's written by a mushroom lover, a mushroom fanatic, who also has a strong interest in hallucinogenic mushrooms. So we'll give that one to take it with a grain of salt. It's a good book, a very good book, but fungal pharmacy is probably my favorite. I've got two or three others on my shelf. You know, all of them kind of come together
Starting point is 00:00:55 to give you a pretty good overview of mushrooms. It's also important to note that the investigation into the medicinal properties of mushrooms is, for the most part, very new. I mean, yeah, they've been used as herbal medicine for centuries, but no one really in the medicinal field, the pharmaceutical field, or whatever you want to call it, apothecary, whatever, really took an interest in the medicinal use of mushrooms and other fungi until very recently. And since they have, there have been some really amazing discoveries.
Starting point is 00:01:35 I mean, like Lions Main Mushroom that could help against ALS or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, the anti-cancer properties of Turkey Tail. I mean, you know, these are very serious conditions. And as I always say, I never say this herbal cure of this disease. No, I never do that. look into it and make your own decisions. But this is really very interesting stuff. Chaga is another one that outside of Russia was in Sweden, I guess, was basically unknown until recently. I mean, it was just used basically to start fires in the mountains where I live. I mean, it, along with, you
Starting point is 00:02:19 know, conk mushrooms and certain other really thick, heavy polypores. You could take one dry it out and take a coal from your fire and put a little hole in there, stick it in there, and it would burn for hours. So you could literally carry your fire with you from day to day if you were hiking. That was really seen to be about the only benefit of these mushrooms until very recently.
Starting point is 00:02:42 Now we're coming to the conclusion that probably all mushrooms have some medicinal value. We just haven't discovered them all yet. So it's wintered right now. leaves are off the tree snow absolutely covered in turkey tracks
Starting point is 00:03:03 around my home cold wind you know but there are still medicinal herbs we found in the woods and especially those that are medicinal mushrooms that grow on trees you know I am absolutely spoiled
Starting point is 00:03:19 when it comes to mushrooms you know we get 270 days of precipitation here a year we have I mean I can go out just about any day and pick a basket full of oyster mushrooms, morels, chicken of the woods, mitaki, Matsataki, Inoki, gosh, so many polypores. I mean, yeah, boletes and polypores that, you know, can sometimes be kind of hard to identify.
Starting point is 00:03:50 Chanterelles like crazy. Yeah, I'm just like in mushroom paradise. certainly puff balls what else what I'm trying to remember honey mushrooms chestnut mushrooms just like what would be on my list just like look around for if I walked out in the woods on any given day there are a lot they're actually a whole lot wine caps inkie caps shaggy manes we're just covered in mushrooms we're covered in mushrooms all the time but if I had to say the most abundant mushroom in the mountains of North Carolina and probably just about everywhere it's going to be turkey tail turkey tail is
Starting point is 00:04:38 tough it's woody I mean you can't really eat it it's slightly bitter in China they make soup out of it and that's a really good way to use it additionally it's usually turned into a tea turkey tail is Trimedes versicolor Now, there's a false turkey tail that looks similar. If you see the two side by side, you can tell the difference. The false turkey tail, we usually have more white and green in it. It's different. Maybe, you know, sometimes very gray, but they're very closely related.
Starting point is 00:05:14 Some studies have shown that the false turkey tail may have some antifungal and antibiotic properties. But unlike the turkey tail, which is technically edible, even though it's very tough, The false turkey tail is not considered to be edible because it can cause stomach upset. True turkey tail has been widely researched for its medicinal value. And like I said, it properly prepared, it can be eaten. The primary difference, the false turkey tail is smooth on the underside, whereas the true turkey tail is covered with tiny little pores on the underside. Traditionally, like I said, used in soups and teas, but often you'll see it dried and ground very,
Starting point is 00:05:56 very finely and used in like a coffee substitute or put in a capsule medicinal mushrooms by Christopher Hobbs is another good book a really good one and he listed turkey tail as uses and medicinal uses improvement in the functioning of blood vessels improved liver function supportive spleen function enhanced immune function antiviral properties anti-tumor properties lowered serum cholesterol levels and potentially useful for cancer, diabetes, rheumatism, and hypertension. A lot of research has been going to Turkey Tail, and it does seem to have a lot of promise for increasing survivability odds in cancer. Now, as I said, I never talk about cures for cancer
Starting point is 00:06:46 or any other chronic condition. But certainly, if I had a need for it, I would be using turkey tail and chaga and several of these mushrooms. Of course, you know, all these diseases are highly specialized. I can't say this works. You know, it may work for you. It may not. So the flavor is actually pretty good. Like I said, slice, cooked in soup.
Starting point is 00:07:12 I want to compare it to. I don't know. It's just got sort of a slightly bitter, slightly woodsy mushroom flavor. If you like wood ear mushrooms, cloud ears, as they call them in China, definitely give it a try. It's so abundant. I mean, it's like, like I said, you need to be a hotel difference between true turkey tail and fault turkey tail.
Starting point is 00:07:37 You could go out and just harvest turkey tails by the bucket full, just about anywhere in the southeast at least. And absolutely makes an excellent stock with garlic onions, ginger, like a bone broth, strain it out, and you can get all the medicinal benefits. and it's really delicious actually. Now another one is Rishi, Organiderma lucidum. And this is one I always look for in the winter because really easy to see on the trees when the leaves are off. It can often be kind of high up on a tree.
Starting point is 00:08:12 Bright reddish-brown top that has sort of a lacquered shiny look to it. And when the leaves are on the trees, you may not see them. But when they're all gray, it just really stands out. very, very much used in traditional Chinese medicine. You know, when I was studying TCM, this was decades ago, I couldn't have been more than about 20, 25 years old. I had a really good teacher, herbalist, chie-gung guy, acupuncturists and all that.
Starting point is 00:08:41 And he was talking about different formulas using Rishi mushroom, and I'm like, you know this girl all around here, don't you? And he's like, what? I mean, imported from China, they were so ridiculously expensive. I took him outside, pointed up, and he was like blown away. I mean, and then when he found out ginseng grows in the mountains too, he was just like, wow, you know. Rishi was known as the herb of immortality, believe it or not, also called the herb of spiritual potency, valued in Chinese herbalism.
Starting point is 00:09:17 Legends say it was given to the Dallas, Taoist, Taoist, Taoist, T-A-O-O-I-O-I-O-I. I-S-T by a mythical turtle. So a mythical turtle gave the Dallas the herb of spiritual potency or immortality. Yes, I can make you live forever. It may increase the vital force, the chi, as they call it. I don't know. It does have some really interesting properties. Anti-tumor, anti-cancer, immunostimulation.
Starting point is 00:09:51 It inhibits platelet aggregation. It can contribute to DNA synthesis, in the spleen especially. It's a hormone precursor, and that may be that spiritual potency kind of thing. It's adaptogenic. Another reason it could be spiritual potency. Adaptogenic herbs help the body deal with stress. It's liver-supportive and detoxifying. Anti-allergenic, anti-hypertensive, antihistamine.
Starting point is 00:10:18 Really good. Analgesic means it helps with pain. Lung-supportive, anti-bacterial, antiheterial, antihal. antioxidant antiviral. There's more. But wait, there's more. Enhances bone marrow nucleated cell proliferation. It's cardiotonic.
Starting point is 00:10:34 It relaxes the automatic nerve system, the autonomic, I should have said, nerve system. It's expectorant and antitussive, which means it can help with coughs and congestion. Enhances NK cells. Those are called natural killer cells, which are part of your immune response. Improves adrenocortical function. increases production of interleukin 2, protects against damage from radiation even, and increases white cells and hemoglobin. So, yeah, I mean, the Rishi mushroom, which is super common in the mountains of North Carolina,
Starting point is 00:11:09 super expensive in Asia, really extremely useful. It's another very tough polypore or tough leathery mushroom that grows on a tree. Usually in Chinese medicine, it will either be put in soups, into a tincture or actually candied you can actually cut it thin and cook it down with sugar like sort of like candy ginger that's kind of a common way to use it really really cool mushroom actually and by no means rare not in north carolina so chaga that's become very popular in the last couple years let me get a sip of water here chaga as i said was is that big like polypore that you could carry a colian and that's basically what it was used for in my area, you know, by natives and
Starting point is 00:12:02 everybody. But actually, very, very adaptogenic herb. It grows on birch trees, most often, may grow in some other trees. It stands out like a mass of a black fungal growth on like the silver or white mark of birch. So it's really easy to spot in the winter. Chaga finally ground can be used as a coffee substitute. It's actually pretty good. It's one of the few coffee substitutes I actually like, especially like a little pinch of cinnamon in it pretty good, actually. It's somewhat controversial among mushroom hunters and herbless because it's really kind of fairly new to Western herbalism. I mean, it grows here. People have used it, but like I said, most of the research in Tchaga comes from Russia and Poland, where it's been used as a, a
Starting point is 00:12:55 Dissan herb for centuries, really. Again, Christopher Hobbs says it's anti-cancer and has tumor-inhibiting ability. I don't know, maybe. Other traditional uses for this herb. Tuberculosis. Yeah, proves lung function. It's pretty cool. Good for stomach aches, stomach diseases, liver diseases, heartworms, worms, I'm sorry, heart disease and worms. If you got heartworms, you got a big problem. That's not going to help with that. Heart disease and worms. It's considered to be a purifying, an eternally cleansing herb. You know, maybe it is, maybe it's not. I don't know. Now externally, it actually good for some genital infections, so it has helped with that, improves appetite and reduces pain in cancer
Starting point is 00:13:44 patients. So that's according to several Russian studies, you know, I don't know. Chaga strongly antioxidant antiviral. and immune enhancing. Now with a very hard mushroom like Chaga, like I said, you can grind it up and drink it as a tea or a coffee substitute. With a lot of these mushrooms, Lions Main especially, is very good, Chitaki and Rishi that would fall in that category.
Starting point is 00:14:14 All of your more slightly tough mushrooms or very tough mushrooms, a double or triple extract is really the best way to do it. With a double extract, you're essentially going to make a tincture, then take all the mushrooms out of the tincture, and boil them down to a decoction, a really strong decoction, and then combine them together. It's really that simple.
Starting point is 00:14:39 Some of the components are alcohol-soluble, and some are water-soluble. Now, there's another process that Peter McCoy, who is like the world's leading expert on mushrooms, he and Trad Cotter in South Carolina. I mean, those dudes know fungi. I'm just telling you, and their books are phenomenal. Really, Peter McCoy's book and Trad's books are just, I mean, you talk about fungal. I mean, I call myself a plant geek.
Starting point is 00:15:12 I cannot touch these guys when it comes to fungus, okay? Fungi, I guess I should say. So Peter McCoy will. do what he calls a triple extract. First of all, you brew the mushroom in water kefir or kefir or kombucha. You actually use the fermentation process to break down the tissue of the mushroom to extract those nutrients. And it's really just as simple as making a batch of kefir or kombucha and putting the mushroom in there. You know, you usually dry at first, but some you can use fresh.
Starting point is 00:15:49 It depends on how woody they are, basically how tough. The fungi and bacteria in the probiotic beverage essentially predigests the mushroom tissue, then you make your tincture and your decoction and you combine the three. And that seems to be a really good way to do it. Like, you know, my buddy Matt Powers, a permaculture teacher. When he talks about Peter McCoy, he's like, this is Jedi level. You know what I mean? it really wow I can't say enough good about Peter McCoy and Trad Cotter I may not agree with them on
Starting point is 00:16:30 anything politically or socially or any I mean I don't know I have no idea I'm just saying even if I didn't I'm going to say that the stamets would come in three and he's really better known than the other two those three guys are like the mushroom experts but anyway um you know There are a lot of medicinal mushrooms, and I don't by any means want to make you think that I have covered everything. No way. I probably need to do a whole show, and I have on my Southern Appalachian herbs podcast, on Lionsmane, on Chitaki and all that. But I wanted to give you a brief overview. I mean, Lionsmane, for its neuroprotective and immune-supporting properties, absolutely is, I mean, I mean, it's just revolutionizing. I hesitate to say plant-based medicine because a fungus is not necessarily a plant, but herbal medicine is a fungus and herb, I don't know. We'll call it herbal medicine in this case.
Starting point is 00:17:36 Lionsmane has so many good, neuroprotective, immune supportive, antioxidant, cancer-reducing, et cetera properties. It's just phenomenal. And it's another one I can find in the woods. I can go out there. I look for something looks like a big white fuzzy ball in a tree. That's a lion's man or a pom-pom mushroom. It goes by many different names.
Starting point is 00:18:00 But so many mushrooms do. Yushitaki mushrooms, you can buy in the grocery store, have been studied in China for centuries as immune-supportive and anti-cancer properties. Like I said, my tachis, oyster mushrooms. Yeah, I've done. a whole show on those. I mean, it is very likely that every single mushroom that isn't poisonous enough to kill you, at least, has medicinal properties, and we are just like barely scratching the
Starting point is 00:18:34 surface. I guess it's in my book, herbal medicine for preppers. Yeah, I think it is. I have a longer section on mushrooms, but like I said, you know, podcasts from probably three years ago, I went through a lot of them in detail. The main thing I want you know is, you know, this is herbal medicine for preppers. The book's name was herbal medicine for homesteaders, permaculture people, and preppers. I don't know. I never can keep straight my titles, but, you know, this podcast right here is herbal medicine for preppers. It is very, very important to, you know, it is very important to, you recognize both the food the nutritive value of mushrooms and the medicinal value of mushrooms these are not like you know take it once and it's going to cure something
Starting point is 00:19:26 no way these are to have to be incorporated into the diet and used over long term like if you had a sore throat I might say you know get some sage some mint or something like that you're going to feel immediate relief if you've got more like a chronic disease or a long-term health problem Mushrooms may actually help a lot, but they're not going to be a one and done kind of thing. It's not going to be like take it for a week, take it for a month. You're going to have to use these mushrooms in your diet or, you know, as a tea or a tincture or double or triple extract, whatever, for years. And, you know, that does actually, that's a barrier for some people.
Starting point is 00:20:08 A lot of people, they want that quick fix. mushrooms are not a quick fix. Only one I can really think of would be corticeps. Corticeps is a really weird mushroom. It grows out of insects' bodies. First of all, so corticeps are a little odd in the first place, but they're very strongly immune stimulating, and they actually increase the body temperature.
Starting point is 00:20:33 They work great if you're trying to fight off a virus. They can break the fever. They can increase that immune response. really surprising. They increased athletic performance, just a really remarkable. They look like coral. You can buy them now. They were almost impossible to find when I was just starting to learn about this stuff, you know, 10, 20 years ago. But mushrooms, you, of course, have to be careful with. The first thing I learned to forage was mushrooms. I mean, I've always, loved mushrooms. And when we moved back up in the mountains, North Carolina, when I was like 14, 15, and I was just surrounded by mushrooms. The first thing I did was I went down to the county library,
Starting point is 00:21:19 and I got the Audubon Guide to Mushrooms of North America. I had no one to tell me about mushrooms. I mean, the local mountain folks around there that were experts on herbal medicine, on ginseng and golden seal and all that knew nothing about mushrooms. Very little anyway. I mean, a puff ball is a puff ball. and you know that's edible and everybody knew that but most people of western european descent were brought up with a fear of poisonous mushrooms so most people of central and eastern european
Starting point is 00:21:53 descent or asian descent were brought up being taught how to forage for mushrooms i had to learn on my own and i'm not dead so i don't want to scare you too bad my advice is learn the poisonous mushrooms first get a good field guide for your area Audubon field guide is absolutely not the best in fact it's it has a lot of flaws there are much better ones and really check with your major like land grant university or your extension agent like the botany program or the horticulture program or something like that ask for some recommendations on regional field guides Apps are sometimes good, sometimes really, really bad. Like sometimes I will use a phone app.
Starting point is 00:22:45 I'll take a picture and let it give me a few suggestions. Then I'll look up and up in the books to see, or even there's a really good website. It's mushroomfinder.com, if I remember correctly. Is that right? Mushroom finder, mushroom expert? I can't remember. It's been around for years. It won't take long.
Starting point is 00:23:07 Google will tell you how to find it pretty quickly. But anyway, a regional field guide really does help because mushrooms can vary greatly from country to country and region to region. Something can look very, very similar. That is very, very different. So I really do recommend learning the most common edible mushrooms and the most common poisonous mushrooms first. And always with the edibles, you know, look for. lookalikes. See, you know, this chanterelle, beautiful orange chanterell can look very much like a jackalander mushroom. Jackalander's poisonous, the chantorail is not. You know, you need to,
Starting point is 00:23:49 if you see them side by side, it's obviously very different mushrooms like morels, you know. Morels are great. They're like the first spring mushroom. They're fantastic. There's a brain fungus, they call it. That really doesn't look like a morel at all. if you see them side by side, but it looks enough to like it to be called a false morrel, and it is toxic. So what you want to look for is what are your edibles in your area?
Starting point is 00:24:15 The most common ones, not the far out ones, not the ones your experts need to look at. The ones you can identify really, really easily. And you'll find those. There's a book called 100 edible mushrooms. It's a great starting place, but it's just a
Starting point is 00:24:31 starting place. find those I would say learn learn two learn maybe 12 no more edible mushrooms for your area learn their lookalikes if they have a toxic look alike and not all mushrooms do and then learn your top like 12 poisonous mushrooms for the area and you know even then you're probably going to make mistakes sometimes if you're unsure about a remember just you can taste it a little bit you can chew it don't swallow it and you'll probably live I put that in quotes you'll probably live you do not want to be tasting a death cap destroying angel Amanita may not kill you but it probably could
Starting point is 00:25:24 let's just put it as could there is the reason I put it in like strong statements is there's one in my region called the gumpfus G-O-M-P-H-U-S, which is a bizarre mushroom. It's actually like brass-colored, like gold. It looks like metal. It looks like somebody left a brass Easter egg out on the lawn, right? It's actually toxic to the touch. I mean, that's one you do not want to be putting in your mouth for any reason.
Starting point is 00:25:53 There's others like the American Suelius. A couple years ago, I went out to harvest King Belitz, one of my favorites. They're called Porcini's in Europe. They're just, I love them. They're like amazing, right? They're like considered to be second only to truffles in terms of edibility and flavor and just wonderful. And they grow in my area. So I went out to harvest my kings and mixed in amongst them were American Suelius and it was raining and I could not, or I didn't take the time, I guess I should say, to tell the difference between the two of them. They do look.
Starting point is 00:26:32 almost identical. The Suellius has a sticky, slimy cap, and it has slightly, a slightly thinner, hairier stem, and it has a little reddish tone to those hairs. I did not notice the difference. They're actually very subtle, and when they're mushrooms are wet, you can't tell which one's sticky and not, right? Like it's one slimy, when it's dry, the other's not. Well, when they're both wet, there's another tip. Don't go collecting mushrooms in the rain. So I can collected a basketful and I had a mix. Fortunately, the Sweeneus is not really poisonous, but it causes contact dermatitis. So as I'm cleaning my mushrooms, my hands turned beat red. And I knew I had a problem. No other problem but that. Now, if you are cautious, and I don't blame you if you
Starting point is 00:27:26 want to take an abundance of caution, you can certainly grow. mushrooms. I have grown them in kits from Field and Forest from Mushroom Mountain. That's Trad's Cotter's company. You can buy tabletop kits that are like compressed sawdust that's inoculated with the fungi. Or you can buy the spores directly from them. And you know, you can use your wood shipper and make your own woodship bed for growing wine caps or something. You can drill holes in hardwood logs and grow Shatakis. There are so many mushrooms you can grow these days. Chicken of the woods.
Starting point is 00:28:07 Shataki, Mitaki, wine caps, which are one of my absolute favorites. And, of course, you can always grow the common white button mushrooms, a garicus species, and pasteurized manure in your basement. People have been doing that since the 20s. And, I mean, yeah, it works great. I love button mushrooms. Just because they're grown on poop does not matter. I mean, honestly, it's just vegetable matter that's passed through a cow or a horse that's
Starting point is 00:28:37 sterilized and becomes compost. Nothing to worry about whatsoever. But Trad especially, he's got, I don't even know how many dozen, really hard to find mushroom spore cultures on his site that you can buy and grow. And this was like impossible 10 or 20 years ago. If you get down to his place, it's maybe easily South Carolina. It's somewhere right outside of Greenville-Spartonburg area. He's got a beautiful property, and he has an educational trail with these mushrooms,
Starting point is 00:29:14 like hundreds of different species of mushrooms on that property with a trail and a little sign that tells you. It's great. It's really, I mean, amazing, actually. And he does workshops and everything. He teaches probably every week he's teaching people how to grow mushrooms. It's not hard. I've grown oysters. I've grown lions mane.
Starting point is 00:29:37 Actually wild harvested chanterelles and propagated the spores myself. Did not order those. I grew chanterelles. So many mushrooms. Yeah. So anyway, you do not have to go through the barrier of learning to forage for mushrooms. Now, I recommend you do because you never know when you may not, when you may need that skill. And a lot of times when I've been out in the woods, you know, fishing or whatever,
Starting point is 00:30:09 and I didn't really catch much, or maybe I got a couple of small trout, when I found a nice patch of, you know, some type of mushrooms, usually oysters or maybe some slippery jacks. That's an interesting belete. They're really good. Another one that's easily mistaken for Kings and Suelius. It actually does have that slimy texture, which is why it's called Slippery Jack, but they have a wonderful flavor, and they don't cause contact dermatitis. Oh, there's been so many. But anyway, my meal has been maybe a little bit of protein and a lot of mushrooms, right? And mushrooms do actually have a protein. Never eat, well, you can. You can certainly eat raw mushrooms if they're like, like white button mushrooms.
Starting point is 00:30:54 A lot of edible mushrooms are not edible when raw. There's actually, as safe as I would generally say morels are, there have been one or two instances where people ate them undercooked and died. I mean, that's crazy to me because, you know, it's one of the most commonly eaten mushrooms I know of, but cook your mushrooms mainly because your body can't digest them when they're raw. If you eat a raw mushroom, you get like almost no nutritive value or medicinal value from it. You cook it and you can digest it.
Starting point is 00:31:27 So mushrooms do not belong in a raw diet, especially because it might kill you. But also, there's one other caveat and there are a couple of mushrooms that have a really weird interaction with alcohol. Coming from mostly French heritage, I always think of mushrooms sweated down with like shallots and cream and a little bit of brandy right I mean that's called duck sales it's like they used to say that they didn't use mortar in France they use duck sales I mean literally that mushroom paste goes into just about everything and it's delicious it's just so good you wouldn't believe it you take a nice fresh hot croissant and you put some duccel in there and maybe a little slice of ham and oh man but anyway the wine caps and
Starting point is 00:32:18 shaggy mains and there are several others actually inhibit certain liver enzymes that are necessary for your liver to process alcohol so if you had you know you pick some nice fresh wine caps or shaggy mains or something and cooked them down like I said with duck sales and you just put in like a little sip of brandy with it or you had one glass of wine with your meal you were going to get sick and you may even die I mean it would be like your liver cannot process the alcohol at that point. So you want to be really careful with certain mushrooms in that regard. Overall, mushrooms are an excellent food source, wonderfully medicinal, at least those that are not poisonous. And of course, some are very, very poisonous. Be careful. And if you don't want to
Starting point is 00:33:09 forage, definitely look into growing them. Field and forest or mushroom mountain are great places to start. Love those guys. Great success with everything I bought from both companies. And these days, there are a whole lot of sellers online. And you may find that it becomes a really nice cottage industry. There's actually a lot of money in growing mushrooms. So y'all have a great week. Stay warm. We got more bad weather coming in. And I'll talk to you next time. The information this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not a doctor.
Starting point is 00:33:52 The U.S. government does not recognize the practice of verbal medicine, and there is no governing body regulating herbless. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who studies herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say is accurate or true. I can tell you what herbs have been traditionally used for. I can tell you my own experience, and if I believe an herb has helped me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same.
Starting point is 00:34:15 If you use an herb, anyone recommends, you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, a sensitivity, an underlying condition that no one else even shares and you don't even know about it. Be careful with your health. By continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog, you agree to be responsible for yourself
Starting point is 00:34:40 to your own research, make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever. Thank you.

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