National Mushroom Month: September

No roots, fed by mycelia

NATIONAL MUSHROOM MONTH: All through September, National Mushroom Month celebrates the wide variety of "mushrooms" (the fruiting bodies of fungal mycelia) that are available.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also takes advantage of the opportunity to educate people on the versatility mushrooms offer, including their many health benefits.

As a result, mushrooms are gaining more and more appreciation as we learn more about them.

#NationalMushroomMonth

To fully celebrate the heritage of mushrooms (shrooms, toadstools, Easter eggs, fun guys in the garden...), we must first learn about the Mushroom Capital of the World.

Located just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one will find a small town known Kennett Square. Surprisingly, this small Pennsylvanian borough produces over one million pounds of mushrooms a day.

Each year Kennett Square holds the annual Mushroom Festival starting with a parade.

Visitors also enjoy tours of mushroom farms or visit vendors to buy food and other goods.

'Shroom Science

Scientifically, mushrooms belong to the fungi kingdom (not plant, not mineral, not animal).

Fungi grow from carbon and energy from dead plants (particularly the cellulose sugar and chitin proteins from husks) and animals. Interestingly, this has helped scientists to conclude mushroom DNA is more similar to humans than it is to plants, as previously thought.

Through the study of mushrooms, scientists learn more about fungi, especially identifying whether they are single-cell or multicellular organisms.

Mushrooms contain many useful nutrients. Because of this, mushrooms are an excellent source of vitamins (particularly Vitamin D, which significantly increases when cut mushrooms are placed in the sun). Eating mushrooms is a great way to naturally get copper, fiber, potassium, protein, selenium, Vitamin B, and zinc into the human body.

Why do hippies take 'shrooms like acid?

Hippie bust to trip on acid (arptravels.com)

As scientists continue to study mushrooms, there is hope of discovering more medicinal uses -- such as treating depression, PTSD, phobias such as an intense fear of death, and other mental conditions, as with LSD, which is a fungus called ergot that grows on rye). These discoveries only add to the many benefits of mushrooms.

Mushrooms are either edible (nutritious, entheogenic) or inedible (toxic, poisonous). We find edible mushrooms in cuisine throughout the world. Almost all mushrooms available at the store are cultivated and safe rather than wildcrafted (foraged) and risky. These types of mushrooms are available year-round.

The most common cultivated mushroom are the white button, flavorful cremini (just a baby portobello), earthy adult portobello, shiitake, tasty tree oyster, maitake, but most mushroom eat (particularly in the form of mushroom soups) contains no soup at all but the more reliable mycelia).

"There are old mushroom hunters, and there are
bold mushroom hunters, but no old-bold ones."

Inedible mushrooms are often found popping up in the wild, though many also grow in backyards and moist front lawns. However, it can be difficult to determine whether a mushroom is poisonous or safe to eat. It takes more than a guidebook; it takes an expert. There are no reliable shortcuts, hacks, or rules of thumb to depend on. For example, some think mushrooms that have red on the cap or stem are known to be poisonous, or that stems that bruise purple are hallucinogenic, but it is nowhere near that easy to tell. Avoid eating mushrooms with white gills, a skirt, or a ring on the stem -- or anything else until knowing with certainty that it is safe for consumption. Not all poisonous mushrooms are deadly; many might just cause a stomachache or voiding. But often there are no symptoms just liver damage leading to death days later. Because wild mushrooms are hard to identify, leave identification of wild mushrooms to professional mycologists and mushroom hunters and foragers.

Eating poisonous mushrooms, even if not deadly (like the famous fly agaric Amanita muscaria, can and often makes eaters very sick. It can possibly kill a person based on their personal constitution or susceptibilities. So, when in doubt, throw it out. Save it for examination rather than consumption. More

• Mushroom hunting, urban foraging, and survival training: SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com

Wild mushroom foraging (Easter egg hunting)

Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven, Xochitl (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; SOSR

Chantrelle 101: All you need to know

(Mushroom Wonderland) This is an in-depth expose on chanterelles. Yes, our favorite wild mushroom we love to forage in the fall and sometimes out of season. This channel is based in Washington state, in the Pacific Northwest, so we are talking about Pacific chanterelles. Beware of white chanterelles, California gold chanterelles and dangerous lookalikes.

(Mushroom Wonderland) How to find delicious morels with a cellphone

Mycophiles, hit subscribe to Mushroom Wonderland to love mushrooms even more because that's what this channel is all about.

Avoid these toxic shrooms

(Old Man of the Woods) Seven common poisonous mushroom to know

These poisonous mushrooms grow worldwide: Destroying Angel, Death Cap, False Parasol, Deadly Galerina, Jack o' Lantern, Sulphur Tuft, and Earthball. Learn their different forms at different stages of development, as well as their safe and edible lookalikes. Location: VA, MD, PA, DE. Mushroom ID tool, AI-powered: ShroomID | Best Mushroom Identification App. More

• VIDEO: "FungusID" AI-powered app

Plant-based mushroom "chik-un" chef (video)

Chef, can you make us something like this Buddha's Delight out of tofu or green jackfruit?

Mushroom tastes like chicken, so make KFC

Why did the chicken cross the road?

(Sauce Stache) 9/15/19: I finally got my hands on "Chicken of the Woods," the mushroom that tastes just like poultry.

I can't believe how incredible this mushroom tastes, so I knew I had to make a plant-based KFC ("Kentucky Fried Chik-un"). I ordered mushrooms here (no sponsorship): oregonmushrooms.com.

Vegans love to love and be loved by chickens.

The goal of SauceStache is to continue trying something new to me and something different. I find inspiration from The SauceSquad and my constant hunt on social media to see what food is being made around the world and how I can try to make it. Let's try to make some food while having fun.

Patreon.com/saucestache. JOIN the SauceSquad Saucestache.com to print recipes and merchandise. Music by Joakim Karud (joakimkarud).

Fy: new "magic mushroom" found by NASA

NY Post.com; Nature's Fynd com; NASA Spinoff; Vegan Kitchen, Wisdom Quarterly

NASA helps serve Yellowstone extremophile fungi for breakfast | NASA Spinoff

NASA helps serve Yellowstone micro-extremophile-fungi for breakfast (Nature's Fynd)

This Adam & Eve Apple specimen is not it.

A “magic mushroom” is taking a wide-range of diners — from Manhattan’s famed Le Bernardin to astronauts in outer space — on a wild trip.

Known as Fy, rhymes with sci-fi, the funky fungi are a protein formed from a microbe found by a NASA-funded geo-microbiologist in the acid hot springs of Yellowstone National Park.

• NASA helps serve Yellowstone fungi for breakfast: Fy
• Fy [protein] will feed astronauts! (oliverwyman.com)
• Fy's origin story | Nature's Fynd (naturesfynd.com)
• It's science: Meat alternative made from Yellowstone hot spring fungus backed by capitalist Bill Gates and NASA (IFLScience)
• Microbes found in Yellowstone's hot springs are being turned into protein to make vegan hamburgers (Daily Mail Online)

New protein's origin story, found by NASA in extreme temp | Nature's Fynd (naturesfynd.com)

It tastes like anything or nothing in particular.

Astronauts are now studying these fungi in space as a food source during long missions. Back on Earth, Chef Eric Ripert has been using Fy in several dishes at Le Bernardin, the Michelin-starred seafood sanctuary named the top restaurant in the world by La Liste last month.

“We call it here, as a joke, the ‘magic mushroom.’ It’s basically magic,” Ripert told Side Dish. “It tastes like nothing, [if nothing tasted] like milk with a slight umami taste.”

For the past six months, Ripert has served Fy in his desserts, including a chamomile ice cream, and in a squash blossom delicacy.

He’s also recently included it in a savory Yukon Gold Potato dish with olive and a sauce vierge, in his $220 vegetarian tasting menu and in a cold hazelnut dessert.

More: "Magic mushroom" gets praise from Le Bernardin's Eric Ripert (nypost.com)

Minerals are missing from soil and food

The mighty Himalayas are riddled with Buddhist monasteries, monuments, and statues.

Shilajeet good, weakness bad. Eat rock (mineral).

Is author Dr. Steven Gundry, MD, a fraud and a quack now -- eager for a great gimmick as a money grab -- or is he a sincere vegetarian researcher who changes his mind as he goes along? It used to be "Avoid all plant lectins" then it was "Eat anything you want, just add my special secret ingredient olive oil" [which only grows in quantity in Morocco on a farm I made a personal deal with]. Now he's echoing the message of Dr. Joel Wallach (criticalhealthnews.com) in rediscovering that our "soil is depleted" and can't provide intensively farmed fruits and vegetables with the nutrient levels they once had.

Dr. Gundry MD ®

So we have to get it from supplements, but supplements won't be digest without these critical trace minerals needed for health. They are found in organic fulvic acid (Sanskrit Shilajit, English "Destroyer of Weakness" or Asphalt or Mineral Pitch, Russian Mumiyo, German Mumie), which comes most famously from the Himalayas. But Dr. Gundry claims to have found a richer vein of these minerals here in the United States. He won't say where [to keep his investment secret] but does claim it's in the lower 48 somewhere in the south of the country. It sounds like he found Dr. Wallach's mountain of prehistoric minerals, which are sold in Youngevity products. It seems Dr. Gundry is getting more extreme (ex-[main]stream), but he's absolutely correct that we need 90 minerals and vitamins that just are not in the soil anymore. We need to supplement them into our diets for maximum health.

• Gundry MD ® | Dr. Gundry Supplements and Wellness Resources

It might be better to go to the tallest mountain in the world, K2, in the Karakoram range

Organic Gardening: How to Water

Learn how to water your organic vegetable garden in this free online video guide to edible gardening. Expert: Scott Reil (safelawns.org) is an accredited nurseryman and horticulturalist with over two decades of experience in the field. Filmmaker: Christian Munoz-Donoso.