No fungi? No forests, No food, No future!
Fungi Fridays - December 16th, 2022 - Issue #61
What’s up Fungi Fam? Happy Friday!
This week flew… work was busy, traveled home, made a bit of progress on the new website which I’ll hopefully be ready to share with you all sometime in Q1 AND the holiday’s are quickly approaching. The end of this year is going to be here before we know it and then it’ll be on to 2023 mushroom preparations!
Probably will keep the updates short for the rest of the year, as there isn’t much to share, but the fungi articles will keep coming. So let’s get into them!
No fungi? No forests, no food, no future!
For featured article number one this week, let’s talk about fungi and their relationship to the environment. As you’re sitting around celebrating this holiday season, enjoying things such as cheese, bread, wine, beer or chocolate, it might be a good time to think about fungi. They’re needed to make all these tasty items possible!
In fact, almost all food production relies on fungi. Most plants need it to obtain nutrients and water. Trees and other plants in a forest connect through fungi to transfer nutrients, water and information between them, and that facilitate decomposition, without which life couldn’t go on.
“They are also to be thanked for many of the important medical breakthroughs in human history that treat both physical and mental ailments, for naturally sequestering and slowly releasing carbon, for optimizing industrial processes, and so much more,” a Guardian article reports.
These seldom thought of creatures do everything from holding soil together, distribute nutrients and water and enabling communication between plants, while also being a part of everything we eat, provide us with medicines, offer environmental solutions and are key to the constant cycle of birth, death, decay and rebirth. And therefore, due to their importance in so many different areas of our daily life, we must do all we can to protect wild spaces, agricultural soils and urban green spaces and the fungi that inhabit them. Mushrooms can live without us, but we can’t live without them!
Include mushrooms in your diet immediately to beat diabetes: 6 benefits of mushrooms
Let’s move on from mushrooms impact on the environment and look to their impact on our health with this next feature. As many are aware, mushrooms are a perfect alternative to meat as far as taste is concerned. People love roasted, tossed and fried mushrooms. However, not many know that mushrooms are nutritious as well. Mushrooms have multiple benefits, one of which is sugar control for diabetics.
Mushrooms are good in controlling diabetes. They have fibre and vitamins that help those with elevated blood sugar. Mushrooms don't contain any sugar content. They also help in insulin production.
They are natural immunity boosters. They are found to contain antioxidants and antibiotic properties. They help repair tissues. Their fat content is very low and they have been know to suppress appetite, so they can help those trying to lose weight.
All of these reasons and even a few we failed to mention make mushrooms an ideal food to add to your diet. Because whether you’re diabetic or not, we all can use mushrooms to get just a little bit healthier!
Two Arrested In Shroom House Raid
And finally, last week we promised to check in on the Shroom House situation, where it was rumored that a business in Portland was selling magic mushrooms over the counter to retail buyers… and as you might have guessed, there has since been a raid and multiple arrests.
The update in this article is short, but ultimately it reports that two people were arrested and face money laundering and delivery of controlled substance charges after a raid on the Shroom House in Portland. The store was selling psilocybin mushrooms, which is illegal in Oregon. Police say 32-year-old Steven Tachie and 32-year-old Jeramiahs Geronimo were booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center. Police seized over 13-thousand dollars in cash and 22 pounds of suspected psilocybin products.
No surprise here. The real question will be, how severe will this punishment be? And what will be the effects of this instance as we continue towards a more accepting world when it comes to psychedelics. The tide is certainly turning, so maybe in a few years this whole instance will be nothing more than ahead of it’s time.
Want even more? Here are some other interesting, mushroom focused reads of the week:
Fungi Are Everywhere’ seeks people interested in everything mushrooms
Spore-inspiring: how a gigantic fungal network orchestrates a circle of life
Include mushrooms in your diet immediately to beat diabetes: 6 benefits of mushrooms
If The Fungi Are In Trouble, We’re All In Trouble: The Importance Of Biodiversity
Psychedelics Could Change Human Evolution - if Science Allows It
As always, thank you for reading this weeks edition of Fungi Friday’s! We are especially thankful for all of you who spend your Friday lunch with us, learning about all things Fungi. If you enjoyed what you found, please feel free to forward to friends also interested in the Fungi Community!
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