John Gallagher:
Tara, I've always been a little afraid of mushrooms.
Tara Ruth:
Totally.
John Gallagher:
It's like gathering the wild ones. What's safe? What's not safe? Am I going to... You hear the stories of people who eat the mushroom, and you know those old tales of experts going out and eating, then they end up dying in the hospital room or something?
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, that don't end well? Yeah.
John Gallagher:
That don't end well.
Tara Ruth:
For sure.
John Gallagher:
But then, things changed. As I've been hearing more about the power of medicinal mushrooms, I've been getting a little more interested. And are medicinal mushrooms a super food that everyone's saying?
Tara Ruth:
Such a good question. I'm also wondering what are the many health benefits of medicinal mushrooms?
John Gallagher:
And I'm also wondering how should you prepare them? What are the best ones to take for your immune system? There's a lot of questions.
Tara Ruth:
So many questions. And we're so lucky because we have herbal and mushroom expert and author, Christopher Hobbs, with us today to answer these questions and more.
John Gallagher:
He has written more than 20 books, and he is amazing, one of the experts in herbalism and medicinal mushrooms on the planet. So, let's just get to the interview.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, let's let the experts handle this.
John Gallagher:
Yeah, exactly. You're listening to Herb Mentor Radio by learningherbs.com. I'm John Gallagher.
Tara Ruth:
And I'm Tara Ruth. Today, we're chatting with Christopher Hobbs. Christopher is a fourth generation, internationally-renowned herbalist, licensed acupuncturist, herbal clinician, botanist, mycologist and research scientist. He's also a prolific author, and his most recent book is Christopher Hobbs Medicinal Mushrooms, the Essential Guide. You can learn more about his work at christopherhobbs.com.
John Gallagher:
Welcome back, Christopher. It's great to have you back on with us.
Christopher Hobbs:
Oh, thanks John. Yeah, glad to be. It's a beautiful day here in California, and I hope wherever your listeners are, it's really a wonderful day, and we're really excited about the coming spring and the flowers. That's always a wonderful time.
John Gallagher:
So, we're really excited to talk about mushrooms today. It's a topic we haven't gone into much here on Learning Herbs, and we're really excited to have you on. I was reading your book, and you say there are 2.2 to 3.8 million species of fungi on earth, and only 4% have been documented?
Tara Ruth:
Whoa.
Christopher Hobbs:
Yeah.
John Gallagher:
There's a lot to learn.
Christopher Hobbs:
That's right. Well, many of those don't produce macro sized fruiting bodies. The ones that do produce significant and observable fruiting bodies are of course going to be looked at more likely than mushrooms that are just living in the soil, and living in trees, and in the turf, and in leaves. I don't know if you knew it or not, but there are endophytes that live in all green plants inside the leaves. So, it's like their microbiome that is in their leaves. And of course, in the soil, there are so many species that don't produce observable fruiting bodies. So, there are so many, and even in our GI tract, there are species of fungus, fungi that we don't know about or hear about.
So, yes, everywhere there are fungi, and they're the great recyclers, and they're really chemical factories too. They produce a lot of active compounds for the trees, in the leaves to protect the leaves against bacterial infections. So, they have a lot of jobs to do in the world, and many of them are hidden, and also, in water. There are waterborne fungi that live in the ocean, that live in ponds and lakes that we never see and would never produce a fruiting body.
Tara Ruth:
Whoa, you're already rocking my world. This so cool. Oh my gosh. This makes me think about, Christopher, how in recent years medicinal mushrooms have totally exploded in popularity, and there's just been so much more about them in pop culture, et cetera, but you've been fascinated by and studying mushrooms for decades now, and I'm curious what sparked your initial interest in mushrooms and your continued passion for learning more about them?
Christopher Hobbs:
Well, I don't really know. I think it was just serendipity or maybe my lineage. Maybe they were mushroom hunters. I have no idea. My dad was a professor of botany and dealt with plants, and his dad was a professor of botany. And on my mom's side, my grandmother was an herbalist and great-grandmother were community herbalists. So, I had a lot of plants and herbalism, and I learned plants from my dad early on when I was very young. So, I was into nature and systematics, and I was attracted to forests. And oh, I think really one of the main stepping stones of my interest in mushrooms was that in the summer, my dad was a professor, so in the summer months, in the old days, old days, like three decades ago, four decades ago, in the old days in the '60s and '70s, professors usually had the summer off.
So, they teach through the school year, and then, they'd have the summer off, and my dad had the summer off, but he wanted to still keep working. In those days, professors didn't make as much money, so he turned out that he wanted to be a border agricultural inspector on the California borders. And they had to take tests every summer, a placement test, and he was always in the top number of people because he had a PhD. So, he got to be a border inspector in the High Sierra and the Nevada border around Tahoe. So, in the summer, long story short, my brother and I spent the whole summer running around in the forest, and in the streams, and meadows, and fishing, and looking at insects, and different organisms in ponds, and looking at the flowers. So, I had that experience of maybe four or five years when I was young and around eight, nine, 10, 11, along in there.
And that really just set me on a feeling of just a great love for the forest. So, I've always considered myself really connected. Those are my allies, the trees in the forest. So, if you go in the forest and spend a lot of time in the forest, then you're going to see mushrooms. You're going to see bright-colored mushrooms of all kinds. So, I started seeing these mushrooms. I didn't know much about them, but I knew a lot about plants and herbs. But then, I started seeing all these mushrooms, and I got interested in them. And then, coincidentally in the '70s, '77 I think it was, I was living in Portland, and a friend of mine said, "Hey, there's a mushroom conference happening on Orcas Island, and do you want to go?" And it turned out it was Paul Stamets and one of his first mushroom conferences that he organized up in Orcas Island, and there were all these mushroom luminaries.
There was Dr. Guzman, the world's leading authority on psychedelic mushrooms. And Dr. Smith from Michigan who wrote all the guides at the time, the collection guides. And Trappy, the truffle guy, and all these mushroom luminaries were all there. And I just got so excited about mushrooms and eating them and collecting them, that I just got into it. And even though we didn't have medical background in my family, maybe it was there somewhere. My grandmother and great-grandmother were herbalists, so they were kind of medical people. And I just combined the medical interest with the passion for mushrooms and plants, and that's how I got into herbalism. And then, well, my grandmother and great-grandmother.
And then, I started thinking, well, maybe the mushrooms have healing properties. So, I wrote my first book, my little booklet that I self-published in 1988, was called Medicinal Mushrooms because I started reading the Chinese literature and the European literature, and they started talking about them as immunomodulators. And this is in the '80s, probably mid '80s. And then, I wrote my first little book on medicinal mushrooms in 1988 and self-published it. And we started selling it and along with a number of other little herb books. And then, the second edition was '95 with a lot more references, much expanded. And then, my third edition was Medicinal Mushroom, the Essential Guide came out a couple years ago.
John Gallagher:
Which is a great book. I was in reading it, and I really like when you're reading those opening chapters, how you center it and are so connected, encouraging nature connection. This is really, part of the medicine is getting outside and getting out there in the elements, and taking walks, and connecting with the natural world, and not just about, "Hey, take this powder for this miracle cure." How is that for you being somebody, you've written over 20 books, you co-wrote the Field Guide to Western Medicinal Herbs for Peterson's, you're well-known teacher, so how is it, and especially now when you see something turn into a superfood or a trend, how do you strike that balance when you're teaching, and what message are you teaching to people when you're teaching about medicinal mushrooms? So it's not just another, "Yeah, we should all take lion's mane for our brain," whatever, like that.
Christopher Hobbs:
Well, you're certainly right about that. The first thing I really talk about when it comes to the health-giving properties of mushrooms, and I always preface my classes, "I don't get into products, and powders, and capsules, and tinctures," even though I've been part of the natural products industry for so long, I really don't have that orientation. I start talking about the health benefits of mushrooms. First of all, their nutritional content, which is incredible. They're the highest source of prebiotic fiber. They're amazing in micronutrients like copper, and zinc, and iron, incredible source. They have all the essential fatty acids. They're high levels of protein, almost the same as some meat products. They have up to 25 to 30% high quality protein, highly digestible protein, and then, all the beta glucans and phenolic compounds, and terpenes that are anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and immuno boosting.
So, they have all that in them, but the end of the day, it's all about health. It's not about curing disease. Herbalism is about promoting health, and building health, and making really strong excellent foods, nutritious foods, add them to your diet if you're not eating them, getting rid of processed food, and big food products entirely if possible, but at least cutting them way back. And nowadays, it's very important that we remember that growing beef, and growing eggs, and getting milk is all very inefficient in environment. It takes up so much land, so much water. It's really, really inefficient. And then, there are the waste products of the cows, which is a lot of greenhouse gases and manure, and it just takes up so much land. Whereas if we transition to a more plant-based diet, which there's so much literature on that if you want to live longer, if you want to have a healthier life, if you want to have less diabetes, heart disease and cancer, then one of the first things you're going to do is increase your fiber intake and move more to a plant-based diet.
It's wonderful for the earth. It's connecting us to the earth directly. Our produce is coming and our fruits are coming right from the earth, right from Mother Earth. So, there's that energetic connection, which is so important as you mentioned. And mushrooms are also, they're amazing. You can grow so much protein and so much nutrition in a fraction of the space. And the mushrooms can convert waste products like if you're cutting brush, or grass, or whatever, you can actually make straw. You can grow the mushrooms on that and convert it into incredible food. And it's just so much more efficient, and so less wasteful, and so much less polluting to get the nutrition.
And at the same time, you're getting rid of having to grow so much animal foods, which is polluting. But it also nowadays, we know that we need more fiber in our diet, that the average person gets 15 grams of fiber a day in the United States and in Europe. 15 grams a day, and the government recommends 25. And if you eat a traditional diet, you're going to be getting literally 40 to 60 grams of high-quality prebiotic fiber a day.
John Gallagher:
Wow.
Christopher Hobbs:
And that's what we had throughout our history, our evolutionary history, and we never ate this much meat. It's hard to get meat in the wild, and when you're have a more basic culture living close to the land, we just don't eat a whole lot of meat and dairy products. It's a small part of the diet, whereas the major part is vegetable foods, nuts, seeds, and mushrooms even. And in which case, if you go to a more plant-based diet, and by plant-based, I mean also mushrooms, I include that in there, mushrooms and plants, then you're going to up your fiber content up to 30, 40 grams a day if you cut back on the meat.
And remember that animal products have zero fiber, so I want that to sink in. Animal products, meat, fish, dairy, eggs have zero fiber, and we all need more fiber in our diet to feed our microbiome. And there's a tremendously-spreading amount of information and research on the importance of our microbiome for cognition, for mood, for immunity, for good digestion, so many things. And we're finding out how important our microbiome is. And mushroom fiber is the best kind of prebiotic fiber that can diversify our microbiome and encourage the growth of the most beneficial species. And the research is really coming out now, so it's so exciting to think about. Circling back to what your question was, what I talk about is add more mushrooms to your diet. Eat mushrooms every day. And when I was in China, after getting my acupuncture license, I worked in a hospital in China, and I noticed that there in the cafeteria that I went to every day, people all had mushrooms in their soups and their stir fries.
And so, people are eating mushrooms every day, Eastern Europe, Russia, throughout Asia. Edible fungi are everywhere, and people eat them every day, and not just for their flavor and texture, which is good, but because they know that it's going to increase their health and it's going to increase their immunity and resistance to disease, and that it's going to lead to much greater health. Yeah, that's what I talk about. And then, you're right, the whole forest bathing concept of going out looking for mushrooms, you're going to be in the forest, and the trees are emitting all of these beautiful terpenes, which really modulates our immunity and our mood, and it has a direct effect. It's like aromatherapy from the forest, from the trees. There's so much benefit to the mushrooms that I always talk about that first, and not the pills, and the capsules, and the tinctures. That's the secondary.
John Gallagher:
Tara, it is amazing to have the Christopher Hobbs, Dr. Christopher Hobbs back on with us here. He even wrote Herbal Remedies for Dummies. Where is the book where I learned. No, I'm just kidding. But it is a great book and-
Tara Ruth:
You got me there. I didn't know.
John Gallagher:
He did. I have it somewhere. My first interview with Christopher, I think I was like, "I'll pick this up." He also was co-author of Peterson's Field Guide to Medicinal Plants of the Western US. So, I knew him early on in my interest in plants 30 years ago or whatever. And it gets me thinking about all the legendary herbalists that Herb Mentor Radio has had on since 2008. Yes, we've been around that long. My favorite was James Duke, and we sat around, and listened to his bluegrass tracks as much as we did the plants. And yeah, so go back and listen to those episodes. My first one with Christopher or James are just so great. And then, James Duke wrote The Peterson's Field Guide to Medicinal Plans for the East.
Tara Ruth:
Oh, wow.
John Gallagher:
Yeah, and both of those were actually co-written, just to mention, by Steven Foster who passed away a couple years ago, just all legends. Not many people know this, but this podcast, Herb Mentor Radio, was originally created for Herb Mentor, which has been around since 2008. And the whole concept was to bring these teachers, amazing teachers that are out there to make them accessible to everyone, which is why I called it Herb Mentor. The teachers, the plants, the community are all mentors. And we don't just have this podcast. Of course, we have courses and videos with Thomas Easley, Rosemary Gladstar, Jim McDonald, KP Cossa, Rosalee de la Foret, video classes, Matthew Wood, Brigitte Mars, David Hoffman, Phyllis Light, so many amazing herbalists that you can still see. If you go to a international herb symposium. You were there last year, right?
Tara Ruth:
I was indeed.
John Gallagher:
And you met Christopher there.
Tara Ruth:
Yes, I did. And I fan-girled.
John Gallagher:
You all can go to these conferences and meet these amazing... I so suggest that American Herbalist... Your local herb conference. There's a lot of good regional ones. A lot of these herbalist are there, and please go up and meet them and talk to them. And we all love when people come up and talk to us, right?
Tara Ruth:
I love it.
John Gallagher:
It's such an honor because I never thought that Christopher or any of these wonderful people would ever return my calls, but they did. So, I just want to express my gratitude, our gratitude to the herbal community for trusting us and working with us for nearly 20 years now.
Tara Ruth:
Whoa. Yeah.
John Gallagher:
I know. Back when you were seven or eight. No.
Tara Ruth:
Yes, actually. I thought it was a joke. No, I did the math.
John Gallagher:
This is true. So, Tara, if folks wanted to check out a little more about Herb Mentor, maybe get a little listener discount, actually you will for sure, where could they go?
Tara Ruth:
For sure. Yeah, they can go to herbmentorradio.com.
John Gallagher:
Herb Mentor, you learn from the best anytime you feel like it. That should be the new slogan. No, it needs some work. I don't know.
Tara Ruth:
Learn from the best anytime you feel like it. Rolls off the tongue.
John Gallagher:
All right, let's get back to the show.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, let's do it. I love hearing about that really complex nutrient profile of so many mushrooms. And I'm curious, how do you like to prepare mushrooms to eat? You mentioned folks putting them in soups and stir fries. What are some of your favorite ways? And can you also talk about why it's so important to heat up mushrooms when preparing them?
Christopher Hobbs:
Well, all mushrooms have tough cell walls because they have to penetrate the environment. They have to penetrate into wood and trees and to help digest it and recycle it and release the carbon for all the other organisms, break it down. They have to penetrate the soil and rocks even and gravel. So, their cell walls have to be really tough. And the cell wall has predominantly, these polymers that are called beta glucans, and they're tightly bound to other amino glucans, which glucans are just long strings of sugar molecules. So, they're tightly bound, and so, they're very, very tough. As you can imagine, chitin is actually the main polymer in crab shells and arthropod shells, insect shells.
Tara Ruth:
Wow.
Christopher Hobbs:
So, they are tough, and we cannot digest those unless those are well-cooked. And some of them are rather tender, like obviously, shiitake is quite tender and only require maybe 10 minutes of stir-fry or soup, simmering in a soup or something to break that down. But some other mushrooms are very tough. Even maitake is tougher. And then, when you get into making reishi or turkey tail, which are very tough and very hard making those into food, then you really have to cook them with a pressure cooker. And that's what I talk about in my book. They all need to be cooked. All fungis should be cooked.
John Gallagher:
In the book, you talk about a lot of areas of mushroom for supporting wellbeing, and I'd like to get a little into immune health and how exactly mushrooms support immune health.
Christopher Hobbs:
Yeah, that's probably the best known medicinal benefit of mushrooms is immune health and anti-cancer effects, or for people for cancer care with a natural program. Or even with chemotherapy, there's a number of human studies showing that mushroom supplements like turkey tail PSK can really enhance our immune strength in the face of taking chemotherapy, which has a very damaging effect on our immune system. Ironically, you're trying to kill the cancer cells, but at the same time, we're suppressing our immunity and damaging our immune system. So, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense actually, when you look at it in that light. But there are many clinical studies out of Japan and China that show that a turkey tail extract, PSK, it's a concentrated extract of turkey tail mycelium, can really help us maintain a strong immunity in the face of taking such a damaging compound, chemo, the regular chemotherapy.
It's well-known for that, but one way that it can really help increase and modulate our immunity against pathogens like viruses and bacteria and against cancer cells is the beta glucans when they're cooked and finely powdered, like for instance, you took a turkey tail, put it in a pressure cooker, cook it. That's really a good way to do it, for a half hour, let it cool down, and then, take that water and the cooked fruiting bodies, blend it up to a slurry, like a smoothie consistency. And then, once that's blended up, you pour it into a food leather tray in a food dehydrator, and then, dehydrate that and make wafers. It's like mushroom leather almost, and then, grind it up in a coffee grinder to a powder, and you have your own mushroom powder that you can then add to smoothies and so forth.
So, my point being is that when you go through that process, you cook it, make a slurry out of it with the cooking water and you dry it. This is all in my book, it has pictures step-by-step to do it. And that's what they offer in the medicinal mushroom marketplace too, is they offer these powders, but you can make better powders at home for a fraction of the cost. When you get these powders, you can see that the polymers are going to be broken up into much smaller pieces and that they're still highly activating to our immune system. Why? Because throughout evolutionary history, we've had to learn to recognize the fungi because fungi, besides being edible and delicious and nutritious, they also, some species are highly pathogenic. So, our body's immune system had to be able to recognize that, "Okay, this is a fungi, a piece of the cell wall. There's fungi around, so they mount an immune response."
70% of our immune tissue, our entire body's immune tissue is in our gut. It is in our upper part of our intestine. And when we eat these mushroom powders, there's a lot of interaction that goes along on, a lot of binding to special cells in our called Peyer's areas, in our immune system and upper gut, called Peyer's patches. And in the Peyer's patches, these special lymphatic areas, there are M cells. And in the M cells, there are a lot of macrophages, the big eaters. And they recognize these as foreign particles as mushrooms. They digest them and activate these particles, and then, send them on dendritic cells, which are other big immune cells on the surface of all of our tissues, including our digestive tract. And this, the dendritic cells orchestrate this beautiful immune response of T cells to remember the pathogens, T memory cells, B cells, which can produce antibodies to go against viruses and virus-infected cells, cancer cells.
So, it really upregulates and activates our B cell production, our antibody production, and our memory cell production, and also, all these immune effector cells like natural killer cells, which goes out there and kills viruses and kills our cells that are infected by viruses to recycle them. It upregulates all these beautiful immune responses. And this is very, very ancient, and we've got it all worked out how it works. Then, if that wasn't enough, this indigestible fiber, remember that the mushroom fiber is so branched and so tough that we cannot digest it in our upper gut. So, you get all of this immune activity in the upper gut, but a lot of the fiber gets down into the lower gut where our microbiome is. And once they get ahold of it, they ferment that. They're able to ferment those polymers to break them down. And when that happens, then we get all kinds of changes in our microbiome.
And it's like, for instance, if you were to eat shiitake every day or every other day, you're going to get two, three, four fruiting bodies, you're going to get a lot of that fiber is going to get down into your lower gut. The microbiome starts feeding on that and fermenting that, and then, you're going to get an uptick of all these beneficial species. Unlike if you're eating a lot of meat and animal products, it's been shown that now, they can really, with modern techniques, they can really scan our microbiome and see exactly what species are in there.
John Gallagher:
Wow.
Christopher Hobbs:
And if you're having a really high meat and animal product diet, you're going to get all these species that are associated with diabetes, with cancer, with heart disease, with inflammation. And if you eat a plant-based diet, mushroom-based diet, they're going to ferment those fibers, and that is going to lead to an increase of all these lactobacilli and all these beneficial species which can beneficially modulate our cognition. Remember that this is a mindblower here. Our microbiome produces like 80% of our body's serotonin. It produces 50% of our dopamine. So, our microbiome is responsible for many of our neurotransmitters that affect our mood, that modulate our mood and cognition, maintain a healthy cognition. These are neurotransmitters. They're not produced in our nervous system. Our microbiome produces them.
When you've got all these beneficial species upregulated and fermenting these fibers, then it's going to improve your cognition, your memory, your mood. And research is just coming out like crazy right now about this. And also, immunity. So, you're getting a second whole round of immune boosting in your lower gut after your microbiome ferments all of this mushroom fiber. So, there's so much going on after... And that's why I say add more mushrooms to your diet because the benefits are incredible.
Tara Ruth:
Oh, this is so cool. Oh my gosh. I'm thinking about what you said around immunity, and I'm curious what specific mushrooms you like to work with for immune health. You said something about turkey tail, and you mentioned reishi earlier. Could you talk a little bit about them and any other mushrooms that you specifically like to work with in the immune realm?
Christopher Hobbs:
Well, I always say that always start with people ask me, "Well, what mushroom should I start with?" Always start with turkey tail and reishi, because those are the mushrooms that are highest in these beta glucans by far, and chitin. So, like turkey tail can be up to 60% pure prebiotic, indigestible prebiotic fiber, which are made up from beta glucans, which are highly immunogenic, and chitin, which is also immunogenic. So, by starting with turkey tail products or making your own fiber, your own powder by picking turkey tail in the forest, for instance, always make sure to leave some fruiting bodies because they produce spores, and that's an important part of the health of the forest, but you can harvest some turkey tail and put them in the pressure cooker and make your own powders. So, turkey tail is number one for me because it's so versatile, has so many benefits, anti-inflammatory, and again, it's the strongest immunomodulating mushroom. And it also has the most clinical trials for boosting immunity and helping in cancer care programs to help us maintain a strong immune system during the whole process that there are more clinical trials.
So, that's really the one to start with. And they are available in forest oftentimes, or you can buy the powders, but I would say second is reishi. And reishi has so many benefits too, besides having about 50% of this prebiotic fiber and immunomodulating fiber and beta glucans, it has a long, long history of use in Chinese medicine for calming the heart, for nervous system. Like if you're upset or you're anxious, you're having anxiety, reishi is a really good one to try and add to your daily regime in the morning. And again, it's very immune boosting, and there's some good clinical trials on it. And it's really of the most revered of all medicinal mushrooms is reishi, and it's certainly the best one to use during cold and flu season for bolstering your immune system against colds and flus, and just to maintain a strong immunity during the cold and flu season months.
And so, after that, there are other ones, of course, there's cordyceps, but I think the next one that's so popular now is lion's mane. Lion's mane, probably the most mushroom of interest right now because of cognition and mood. And there are new clinical trials that are being conducted right now. There aren't a whole lot of clinical trials on reishi, but it is widely used in China. It's a very popular mushroom in China. Millions of people use it every day. It's not only a good milder immune booster, but also a very good anti-inflammatory for your whole GI tract, for your stomach. So, if you have, there's inflammation in your stomach like gastritis or gastric ulcer, it's widely used in China all over the place, in products and liquids and powders, and also, for cognition. There isn't as many clinical trials, but it also is used that way throughout Asia for cognition.
There are some small trials for cognition and for mood, but I would say we're still in a preliminary stage with the clinical trials for lion's mane. Most of the studies on neurogenesis, on nerve growth factor, on cognition and mood, most of the studies are animal studies and laboratory studies, which there's a lot of studies that show some benefits on our nervous system and cognition and memory and so forth, but most of them are animal studies. Still, it's widely used. Again, it's very popular in China, one of the most popular medicinal mushrooms. So, of course lion's mane. And also, chaga is very popular. I would recommend using a chaga product where they prone it on a substrate like even brown rice, and it still has a guaranteed level of active compounds in it because harvesting wild chaga is a little bit iffy. I talk about it quite a bit in my book because if it becomes really, really even more and more popular, it's being taken off of birch trees in the northeastern United States and different parts of Europe, and so, we have to pay attention to its sustainable harvest.
And so, that's why I think if you can get a good product of chaga that does have active compounds and not too much starch, use the starch test, which is iodine, to check your product and make sure that it's not just full of starch because some of the products out there are heavy on the starch because they're grown on brown rice, and then, the whole substrate is harvested, the brown rice block is harvested. And maybe there isn't enough time for the mycelium to completely grow out. They're harvested early after a month or so. Then, the mycelium can't digest all of the rice starch. So, that's a very important part of choosing a product is using the iodine test. And again, I talk about that in my book, how to use the iodine test. There are even videos on YouTube on how to use it.
John Gallagher:
There's a local mushroom guy here at our farmer's market, and his business is he harvests and he also prepares. I'm up in the northwest corner, Port Townsend, you've probably been here way up near the Olympic National Park, not too far, so good mushroom spot. And there's a local farmer's market guy who sells fresh and prepared mushrooms, and he offers two kinds of powders. One is the brown rice, grown on the brown rice, and the other is a powdered extract. I guess he extracts it, and then, powders it. I'm not sure. Which do you recommend, and I'm talking about in this case, lion's mane, reishi? He sells just a lot of turkey tail, which you've been mentioning.
Christopher Hobbs:
Yeah, how to prepare it, the best way, and I think this is probably one of the most important things I could say today that I would ask your listeners to really pick up on, and that is if you make your own extracts, which is a good way to go, there's no doubt about that, especially if you can buy organically-grown mushrooms, even shiitake with broken pieces. It doesn't matter how it looks. You're going to just be cooking it down and making a powder. Or if you can harvest some from the woods, a few reishis or turkey tail or other species, then you want to use the whole fruiting body in your extract in making your powder. That is probably the single most important thing I can say if you want to make your own powders. Because making an extract, what you're doing, you're taking the reishi, say reishis are tough, but they're not as tough as some of the big heavy conks, but they are one of the more tough fruiting bodies out there.
So, you can maybe buy some reishi organic fruiting bodies. You can get them on the web, and you want to make a powder. Well, there are several ways you could prepare that or turkey tails. And one way would be just to blend them up with alcohol and water and make a tincture. So, you could blend them up and you could let them soak for a week or 10 days and shake them every day, and then, squeeze out the tincture. And then, filter it, and then, you could take a teaspoonful of the turkey tail tincture or the reishi tincture. Well, that is probably the least desirable way to make a mushroom extract because of the simple fact that the beta glucans and the chitin, which are the most important anti-inflammatory parts of the mushroom and the most immunomodulating components have zero solubility in alcohol.
So, you're not going to be getting those important immunomodulating compounds and anti-inflammatory compounds. What you can do if you want to make a liquid is do a double extraction. That means you're going to boil or put them in a pressure cooker, the reishi or the turkey tail or whatever species, and you're going to cook them in there briefly, like a half hour, and then, you're going to let it cool down. You're going to take the fruiting body and the liquid, and you're going to press out the liquid. You're going to squeeze out all the liquid, and you're going to store the liquid in the refrigerator for about three or four days, and that should be fine. You could add a little vitamin C, like a teaspoon per pint or vitamin C to make sure it doesn't ferment in the refrigerator. Then, you're going to take the marc, M-A-R-C, that's left over.
You're pressing out the liquid out of your cooked turkey tail or reishi or fruiting bodies, and then, you've got the dry fruiting bodies that have already been cooked, and then, you're going to grind that up into pure alcohol and tincture it. Now, with making the pressure cooking tea, you're going to get some of the beta glucans and chitin out of there, and then, you're going to tincture the marc, what's left over, and that's going to dissolve and extract the phenolics and the terpenes. And the phenolics are really important. It turns out mushrooms have higher levels of anti-inflammatory and antiox terpenes that phenolics than does pomegranate or POM Wonderful, or elderberry or pine bark. Any of those supplements that people take when they have flavonoids and phenolics in it. Mushrooms have higher levels, so you want get those out too. By making the tincture, you're going to pull out the phenolics, you're going to pull out the terpenes.
Then, after the tincture, you press out your tincture. Then, you're going to put those two liquids together, and you're going to have a liquid that has some of the beta glucans in it and some of the phenolics and terpenes. And then, you're going to get some precipitation. You're going to get some residue on the bottom, but just shake it up before you take it. And then, you have what's called a double extraction.
John Gallagher:
Oh, wow.
Christopher Hobbs:
A lot of people like to do a double extraction. It's easier to do, and then, you can make a pint at a time or a quarter at a time, and then, just take it a teaspoon at a time. Now, that's the second. That's okay to do it that way. But the best way is just to take that whole fruiting body that you cooked in the pressure cooker, turkey tail, reishi, half hour, 45 minutes, hour. Cook it in the pressure cooker, let it cool down. Open the pressure cooker. It's going to have the liquid in there and the softened fruiting bodies. And then, you're going to blend it up in your blender or Vitamix until it's a slurry. You're going to pour it into your fruit leather trays.
Now, at that point, you could add 25% ethanol to preserve that slurry in your refrigerator and still take it a spoon at a time. You could do it that way if you wanted to. Then, you wouldn't have to go through the drying process. But it's easier to dry it because then, the dried powder will last for up to three years. The next step is to take that slurry, put it in your fruit leather trays, dry it in your food dehydrator at about 100 degrees or 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Get like a stacking dryer like you can dry herbs in there, vegetables, whatever, and dry it at about 95, 98 degrees Fahrenheit until it's dry and crispy dry. You can snap it, and then, grind it up in your coffee grinder to a powder, and then, store that into canning jars. Then, you can take a spoon at a time.
And what you're gaining that way is you're capturing all of the fruiting body. Remember that if you make a tincture or a double extraction, ultimately, you're going to be throwing at least half of the medicine away that's still in the fruiting body, and that's what some companies do. But if you use the fruiting body as the marc and drying the whole thing, the fruiting body and the liquid, you're going to get it all. You're going to get all of the beta glucans, you're going to get all of the chitin, and you're going to get all of the terpenes and phenolics. That's probably the most important point to remember today if you want to buy a product or if you want to make a product is try to get a product that has the fruiting body in there.
And there are a few companies that do it that way, but many companies will make an extract where they just put it in a pressure cooker or boil it, and then, they get the liquid, they throw the marc away and they simmer the liquid down maybe on a little bit of the fruiting body or maybe on maltodextrin or a carrier. And then, once they simmer it down till it's really thick, then they dry it and powder it. And that's what you would call a water-based extract.
And some companies do it that way, so the local company that you're talking about may do it that way, or they use a little bit of the marc to make the extract. Or they might even use a carrier like maltodextrin, which leads to a powder that completely dissolves in hot water. So, it's like an instant tea extract or it could even be a liquid. There are different ways to do it, but at the end of the day, if you make it as I have it in my book and keep the whole fruiting body, you're going to get by far, the most out of it, and it lasts for up to three years.
Tara Ruth:
Thank you so much for-
John Gallagher:
Thank you.
Tara Ruth:
... going into why the fruiting body is so important. That's so helpful for me at least. I've taken tincture, I've made strong reishi decoctions, but I haven't really considered why it's so important to also get that fruiting body in your medicine. It's really, really helpful. I'm also curious for folks who are excited about foraging and working with mushrooms but might feel a little intimidated, how do you recommend they get started and how can they make sure they're foraging safely and responsibly?
Christopher Hobbs:
Well, first of all, I'd get my book, Medicinal Mushrooms, the Essential Guide, because I talk about the eight lethal groups of mushrooms to pay attention to. First learn the lethal ones. So, I really recommend getting a book. Depends on where you are in the country or in the world. Get a local fungal flora if you can, a local floral fungus guide, ID guide. Like if you're in California, you would be getting All That the Rain Promises and More from David Arora. There's also The Mushrooms of California. There's also The Mushrooms of the Pacific Coast up in the North Coast, which also goes up into Southern Oregon. Those are the books that we have. And there's also David Arora's famous book, Mushrooms Demystified. I would use copy of that one at any rate because it's so much humor in there and so much information if you really want a deep dive into mushrooms.
But anyway, the local floras that you can get, fungal floras that you can get. Also, join a mushroom club, a local mushroom club and go out on forays so that you can learn from the experts, people that have experience. And remember that there are a few lethal ones out there. They're not very common. Well, I would say they're common, but in the environment, but they're not nearly as abundant as the non-lethal ones. You should learn them though, the amanitas. Just learn the groups that really are good to stay away from.
And then, stick to the really famous ones that are edible, like chanterelle, like porcini, like oyster mushrooms. Those are probably the three most well-known ones that you can eat that are easy to recognize. Learn if there are any lookalikes. Again, David Arora's book is wonderful, All That Rain Promises and More, and just have that good feel guide on hand. And the rule, it always is the first time you eat a new mushroom, always eat just a little bit. The first night, maybe cook a half a fruiting body and eat a little bit. So, if you don't get nauseous... I've been nauseous a few times. I got tricked a few times early on, and it's not fun. It's not fun. So, just go low and go slow. That's my motto.
John Gallagher:
Yes, positive identification is good. Good idea. Christopher, your website, christopherhobbs.com is amazing. You have a lot of great stuff on there. Is there anything that you'd like to point out for folks when they're visiting your website that you're working on now or recent things that you're doing?
Christopher Hobbs:
Well, you can follow me on Facebook, or Instagram, or YouTube, but I do have my latest Instagram Reels, I do Reels on herbs and mushrooms, so just check out my Reels. I've got about 170 Reels on there, I think, so you can go-
Tara Ruth:
They're so good. I love them, by the way.
Christopher Hobbs:
Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And when mushroom season comes, I put up mushroom Reels or herbal Reels and just talk about the plan or the herb or the mushroom a little bit and show people what it looks like in the environment. Those are on my website, and I have a lot of handouts for free. If you go under education or classes, I'm going to be doing webinars, and also, webinars with my partner, Rania. We're going to be doing a lot of webinars online on my website. You can look at events and pick out, I only have one webinar so far on there that's been prerecorded, but we're going to be doing more, and they'll be up there on my website under events. And then, I have also, the educational menu up on top. I've got tons and tons of great handouts for herbalists, for all the different organ systems, for different aspects of herbalism.
So, check out my handouts, which I've been using in my classes for really, a long time, and they're all up there for free just to download or read. One more thing, and that is, we got our herbal database up there again, so you can go on there. And now, on the homepage, it has the herbal, used to be called the herbal prescriber, but we thought that was a little bit risky to call it prescriber, so now, we call it the herbal therapeutics, therapeutic database. So, you can look up any symptom or ailment or you can look up any herb and-
John Gallagher:
Wow.
Christopher Hobbs:
... use the herbal database to pick out what I'm recommending for different ailments and symptoms.
John Gallagher:
An amazing amount of free information, podcasts.
Tara Ruth:
That's incredible.
John Gallagher:
Lots of stuff, classes, you do online lectures, audios, slide presentations, so check out christopherhobbs.com for sure, everybody.
Tara Ruth:
Yes. And Christopher Hobbs, thank you so much for joining us on Herb Mentor Radio. It was a pleasure chatting with you.
John Gallagher:
So great.
Christopher Hobbs:
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. And it was a lot of fun. Talking about mushrooms and herbs is always so great, and I appreciate what you're doing.
John Gallagher:
Thank you. Oh, Tara, before everyone goes, do we have an Herb Note coming up?
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, we sure do. Let's give it a listen.
John Gallagher:
And right after you listen to that, if you wouldn't mind going on that podcast app that you're listening to and rating, reviewing this, that really helps us out.
Tara Ruth:
It helps.
John Gallagher:
We should come up with a rate and review song.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah. We will. Can use AI or something?
John Gallagher:
(Singing). Yeah. Let's work on it later. Anyway.
Tara Ruth:
Great.
John Gallagher:
Let's get to the Herb Note.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, yeah.
Welcome to Herb Notes. I'm Tara Ruth. When life gives you lemon balm, you're in luck. With its uplifting citrusy scent, Melissa officinalis, certainly is a balm for the soul. Let's dive into three benefits of lemon balm leaves. One, lemon balm for stress. Lemon balm is a relaxing nervine and sedative, which means that it can help promote relaxation and restful sleep. While calming the nervous system, lemon balm also has an uplifting quality that can gladden the heart, making it a wonderful herbal ally in times of grief and heartache. Two, lemon balm for digestive support. Just as lemon balm leaves soothe the nervous system, they can also soothe the digestive system. Lemon balm is anti-spasmodic, which means it can help address mild stomach cramping, and it can also ease stagnation and promote overall digestive health.
Three, lemon balm for skincare. Lemon balm is anti-inflammatory and topical applications of lemon balm can help support skin health and address skin irritation. Through supporting the digestive and nervous systems, which have a major impact on skin health, drinking lemon balm leaf tea can also help support skin health. And here's an important note of caution. There's some debate in the herb world about whether lemon balm may inhibit thyroid function. So, if you have an underactive thyroid, avoid consuming lemon balm in excess. Want to learn more about the benefits of other common herbs? Visit herbnotes.cards to grab a deck of our top 12 herb notes. You'll learn all about herbs like chamomile, elderberry, yarrow, and more. This has been Herb Notes with me, Tara Ruth. Catch you next time.
John Gallagher:
Herb Mentor Radio and Herb Notes are 100% sustainably wild crafted podcasts, written, performed, and produced by Tara Ruth and me, John Gallagher. Sound engineering by Zach Frank. Can you do us a quick favor? Look up Herb Mentor Radio on your favorite podcast app like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and rate and review us. We'd really appreciate it. Also, visit herbmentorradio.com to find out how you can be part of Herb Mentor, which is a site you must see to believe. Herb Mentor Radio is a production of learningherbs.com LLC, all rights reserved. And thank you very, very, very much for listening.