Today's a huge departure for this podcast. For the first time, we explore the virtues of eating something other than plants.
No, don't worry. I haven't gone paleo or keto or carnivore (although one of my prior guests has (SMH)). I'm not into fish oil or organic beef liver or hummingbird tongue.
Today we explore an entire kingdom that can boost our immune function, mood, and possibly bring us sanity: fungi.
Jeff Chilton has been into fungi for a long time. His book, The Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home, written with Paul Stamets, has been in print since 1983.
And as the founder of Nammex.com and RealMushrooms.com, Jeff has long pushed the use of mushrooms for medicinal purposes.
Jeff explains that mushrooms are high in protein, contain a slow-acting carbohydrate, mannitol, and are rich in an immune booster, beta glucan, that makes up their cell walls.
Jeff's well known in the mycological community as a stickler for purity, and skeptic of many of the formulations of medicinal mushroom now showing up not just in health food store pill aisles, but at checkout displays at Whole Foods and in high end coffee shops.
In our conversation, we covered the health benefits of mushrooms, the best ways to take advantage of them, and what kinds of supplements to avoid.
Plus we chat about psychedelics, and what they might offer us in this critical time on the planet.