Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 79: Talking Mushrooms with Dr. Greg Thorn
This episode explores the multifaceted world of mushrooms, revealing their ecological, culinary, and medicinal importance. With insights from mycologist Dr. Greg Thorn, the conversation covers mushroom foraging, health benefits, and engaging community resources.
• Overview of mushrooms and their ecological roles
• Discussion of chaga and its medicinal properties
• Exploration of nematode-trapping fungi and pest control
• Research on medicinal mushrooms like lion's mane
• Importance of mycological clubs and community engagement
• Emphasis on safe foraging practices and knowledge sharing
Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite Fishing Show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right Every Thursday, ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio Now what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know, there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 3:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, From athletes.
Speaker 2:All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists.
Speaker 3:But now that we're reforesting and everything.
Speaker 4:It's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 5:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 1:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 6:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of this strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. Well, good day to everyone, and it's certainly interesting times that we're going through. First of all, as always, we want to thank our listeners all throughout Canada and the States and around the world, in Switzerland and Ghana and Trinidad and Tobago and I know we have individuals in the Bahamas as well and a number of other locations Really appreciate you listening to us and if you have any questions or you have any suggestions for shows, don't be afraid to reach out to us. We're always interested in finding out what our listeners are wanting to hear about.
Speaker 6:Now, this morning was a usual one. It was let me see what would we say minus 15. This morning I was out running my chocolate lab, ensign Gunner, and it's that time of the year where yesterday there were two coyote sets of tracks in front of us, fresh in the snow, and this morning there was one. So they're starting to pair up and I understand foxes are pairing up. So it's that time of the year, but we've got a special guest today to talk about something that's very interesting. I find and it's Dr Greg Thorne Very appreciate you coming on board and talking to us. Nice to be here. Yeah, thanks, greg. So tell us a bit about yourself, where you're from, or for our international listeners, so they kind of get a sense of where basically you are from, say Toronto, sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Great listeners, so they kind of get a sense of where basically you are from, say Toronto sort of thing, right? No, I grew up here in London, ontario in fact and was a member of the local naturalist club and you know, like birds and plants and all those you know, catching frogs and all those things that kids do or used to do. I'm not sure how much we still let our kids do that, but anyway that's what I grew up doing. And then I got a job as a summer naturalist in Algonquin Park for six summers and during that time I was introduced to mushrooms and led mushroom hikes and gave mushroom talks and I ended up getting a lot of assistance on that from a mycology professor at Guelph, the late Dr George Barron, who just passed away last Thanksgiving, and he really encouraged me in my mushroom pursuits.
Speaker 2:And then I ended up coming back and working for him as a mushroom photographer for two years towards his planned book on mushrooms of Ontario, which some of you may know it's a really good guide that came out first under Lone Pine Mushrooms of Ontario in eastern Canada and it's still quite good and has a few of my photos, but mostly his. He's a very, very fine photographer and anyway. So that was one thing led to another and I did my master's degree with him and then a PhD in Toronto and worked generally around the world on my way towards a mycology job, which ironically brought me right back home. It wasn't intentional, but that's where the job was and it's a good school and I've had a great career since 2000 here at Western.
Speaker 6:Well, I know what you're saying about when you're talking about the Naturalist Club there, and as a kid and I know it was great for me it was always hey, mom, we're heading down to the creek. You know, that was first thing in the morning, don't remember to be back for supper or sometime when the lights come on, and then we would be gone for the whole day catching frogs and turtles and all kind of stuff, and it was certainly a way that inspired my desire with the nature and the outdoors and a lot of stuff like that. And, of course, I was a member of the Oshawa Naturalist Club for years as well. Now you mentioned a book there, greg, and I want to mark that down because I'm going to pick it up. What's it called again?
Speaker 2:So Mushrooms of Ontario and Eastern Canada. For listeners in the US it's quite a different title Mushrooms of the Northeast, but George Barron, b-a-r-r-o-n. And yes, it's dated now a little bit. Some of the names have changed. As we do in mycology and botany, we keep changing the names, but the photographs are still very good and it's a very, very usable, user-friendly book.
Speaker 6:I believe I have that one already but, to be honest, I remember the title but I don't remember the author and I have to check that because I believe I have it was sold. My wife used to manage a scout shop for Boy Scouts Canada. She was a manager there and they had mushroom books there and I believe I have Mushrooms of Ontario and Eastern Canada and I'm going to take a look at that. But if it is, I know that book very well and it has some great photography and images that people can rely on as good sources of information. So, craig, what's your current position and whereabouts or how long have you been there?
Speaker 2:Right. So I've been at Western, the University of Western Ontario, since the year 2000. And I'm a professor in the Department of Biology and I teach plants and fungi and other courses in the biological sciences. Sometimes, of course, some of my favorite courses are field courses, when I go out with a small number of students to the field, to the woods, whether that's Algonquin Park or. I've been lucky to co-teach a field course in Ecuador for six years, so yeah, that's where I am, what I do.
Speaker 6:Very interesting Now when you do your classes, because I find that different mushrooms come to light, bearing their fruiting bodies, at different times of the year. So, reishi, I always find end of May, early in June, and other mushrooms. But the pinky is my Polish in-laws, bless their souls, used to call them or mishleki. We're always in the fall. So you would take out different courses in different times of the year so that you can see different mushrooms.
Speaker 2:Well, I wish, but actually academically mycology is taught in the winter term. So here I am teaching it right now with the snow on the ground, and we don't actually do outings for the most part, although I get them to dig up some soil about March when there's some chance of seeing some bare soil Right, and we study the nematode trapping fungi that might live in those soils. So they do get to sample a little bit and I also send them home with petri dishes to sample the spores that might be in the air of their house or bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and they come home with some of the most interesting or they come back to the lab with some of the most interesting molds and we identify those.
Speaker 6:Very good. Yeah, I know there's a lot of ones. It's quite surprising. I saw some late blooms of turkey tail, which would be probably November. I think that I was the last one before it came in, before the cold weather came in, and then ended those blooms that I was seeing. But you mentioned about the nematode-catching fungi. Yeah, because I know a lot of people will buy nematodes to take care of the grub issues in their soil. Any information you can enlighten us on that?
Speaker 2:on Sure Well that's an interesting connection that nematodes are some of the most abundant tiny little animals in soil. Many of those nematodes are just swimming around eating bacteria and small organic particles, fungal spores and such, and they're not causing any harm to the lawns whatsoever. But there are of course some nematodes that eat the roots of plants, including our crop plants or our lawns. And those nematodes well, if you've got a lot of nematode-trapping fungi and you apply nematodes to your lawn, they may be eating the fungi or the nematodes that you're trying to fix the lawn with.
Speaker 2:And indeed there was a case in California where a shrub in the coastal system there was actually suffering from caterpillar you might say herbivory on its roots. So this underground caterpillar that chewed away on the roots of this shrub and there were naturally occurring entomopathogenic nematodes. And there were naturally occurring entomopathogenic nematodes, in other words nematodes that eat caterpillars and kill them and were helping to keep the disease down or the death of the shrubs down. And then along came the nematode trapping fungi and ate those nematodes and then the caterpillars were released from predation and were going back to killing off the shrub. So ecology can be a complicated thing, but the nematode trapping fungi are for the most part thought of as beneficial because they do regulate nematode numbers in soil and very often do control numbers of root pathogenic nematodes.
Speaker 6:Right, I know that I spray my mother's backyard on a regular basis with nematodes for grub control.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 6:And, believe me, I don't think it works very well for her, at least as well as she would like to see it work. But we certainly try. But, greg, I know golf courses they're always looking for because they have a fungi that's killing off their greens. Now, have you ever looked at anything to try and assist golf courses? Because they're always looking and when I meet major golf course owners they realize that organic materials is coming their way and that they're going to have to. Do you know of any that work on greens, on golf courses and eliminating the fungi that's killing off the greens?
Speaker 2:No, I really don't, and I have to say it's an unfortunate thing that you know. Golf courses, and golf greens in particular, are about as unnatural a habitat as we make, and next to a cornfield it truly is a monoculture of very susceptible non-native grass, and so getting a biological control system to work in that system might be very, very difficult.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I've provided some golf courses with some sample solutions to see if we can get natural controls on their greens. But we're still in the test phase with that In Otanus obliquus, the Chaga material, to see if it can kill off and consume some of the fungi that's killing off the greens. But those are just and I just because you mentioned that I thought I wonder, never know, greg, you had I happened to the way I came across your name was you were mentioned in an article in one of Canada's national papers. Can you give us some insight regarding the article and were you participating out there in the collection and is this something that happens on a regular basis?
Speaker 2:Yes, every year since about 2004, the mushroom enthusiasts and naturalists of Newfoundland have gotten together for what's called Foray Newfoundland and Labrador, which is a foray being an outing to collect and gather mushrooms. And in this case and so I've been going since then not quite every year but almost every year, and I'm one of the mycological directors of the Foray Newfoundland in Labrador and so last fall, toward the end of September, we were there in the Avalon Peninsula at the Salmonier Nature Park, which is a lovely spot actually, if anyone has the chance to visit it, and about 60 participants maybe 65, went out from the woods and collected mushrooms on the Friday and then the Saturday again and had a nice mushroom cook up on the Saturday night, and a photographer from the Globe and Mail was with us for the weekend and took a lot of photos and ended up doing a photo story for the Globe and Mail which featured us going out in the woods and collecting our mushrooms.
Speaker 6:Very good. So is it available to other people to get involved? Because you do it every year, is there some way that people who would be interested in participating in that to get involved in?
Speaker 2:it? Yeah, absolutely. The Foray Newfoundland in Labrador is a public event and they welcome people both from the island and from away. There are similar forays run by the Mycological Society of Toronto and also in mycological clubs in Edmonton and Vancouver that come to mind.
Speaker 6:And that's very important. I get a lot of individuals that reach out to me to try and find clubs that they can get involved in, participate in these activities, and so there's a mycological club of Toronto as well. Yes, are you a member there? Do you get in regularly?
Speaker 2:I'm not a regular member but I've given talks there over the years and their size in terms of number of members has skyrocketed in recent years. When I started there might have been 100 people on the Mycological Society of Toronto and now they number in the thousands. So it's a very active and very good association and they have lots and lots of forays during the fall locally around Toronto and then further afield up towards Halliburton and Algonquin Park in the fall as well Halliburton and Algonquin Park in the fall as well.
Speaker 6:Very good. Yeah, I know, when I first started dealing with chaga chaga, chaga, chaga whichever way people pronounce it, anotanos oblacus, I was on the radio with the outdoor radio journal. They used to call me the witch doctor because I'd come in and talk about all these different things, whether it was this or whether it was turkey tail, or whether it was bulrushes or wild leeks or spruce sprigs and all sorts of different things that we bring forward and I would, we had. We were the number two AM radio show in the GTA at that time and we had 350,000 regular listeners and I regularly mentioned about people getting out to the Toronto Mycological Association. So we may have played a little bit of a role to inspire people to get involved, which is a good thing, I find, because the more knowledge people have I find knowledge is power the better it is for all of us.
Speaker 2:Indeed, and one of the reasons that I started going to the Foray Newfoundland and Labrador was that their first foray they made an unfortunate choice and ate some mushrooms they shouldn't have and fortunately it was just a gastrointestinal upset. But since then they've had experts, you might say. My PhD supervisor, david Malik from the University of Toronto, and a lot of international mycologists have come as experts to help identify the mushrooms and make sure that no one's you know putting the wrong mushroom in the pot.
Speaker 6:Exactly. I hear that all too often and I know we would go out with my mother-in-law and father-in-law and pick the ones that are Polish individuals and it was a mushroom that they used to pick back in Poland, which is basically an oyster and a slippery jack are the two main ones that they would harvest in forests and stuff like that, and we would go through and harvest them all and this would be 40 years ago and we would always give them the ones to go through and look and see everything harvested, make sure it was the right things, just to make sure.
Speaker 2:But we only picked the two types and there was all kind of others there in the fall that we stayed away from, which is a good thing, oh, absolutely, and that's one of the key things for beginning mushroom foragers is that one should really focus on maybe a handful of really readily recognized mushrooms that you can be quite certain about. Another one that a lot of people of Polish ancestry really love are the honey mushrooms that grow in clusters around the stumps of dead or dying trees, and they're really, truly recognizable. You can't mistake them, and they're tasty edibles and they can be pickled for the winter, they can be canned, they can be, you know, they're really flexible in their uses, but they're also just a fine fresh mushroom.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm seeing a lot more mushrooms in the grocery stores now, so I know that. Yesterday I was in and picked up a container of dried morels from British Columbia. I've seen lion's mane, I've seen inyoki, a lot of, of course, matakis and shiitakes in the grocery stores. That all have medicinal applications. But when I was talking with you, you mentioned that some of your students are working on medical research with mushrooms. Maybe you can expand on that a bit and let us know what kind of research they're working on and which mushrooms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of the listeners will be familiar with many antibiotics that are of fungal origin. For instance, penicillin, probably the first and most famous of antibacterial antibiotics, was produced by the mold penicillium. Fungi, including the mushroom fungi, produce antibiotic substances and they haven't really been well explored, and so some of my students are working away on that side of the problem and also have been working with and are still working with Hericium, the lion's mane mushrooms, maine mushrooms and their relatives at the compounds, which may in fact help us with the production of nerve cells. They actually produce a nerve cell enhancing compound and it's all. The research has been on one particular species of that genus of mushrooms and it turns out that other species in the genus that live here in Ontario and around the world really some other species may be better than the one that was first chosen.
Speaker 6:Oh, really. So I my understanding because I've done. I focus on Chaga and I get a lot of questions about mushrooms all the time, and there was Dr Anne McLemoyle from Waymac Mushroom Farms that carries a lion's mane product that they provide for individuals and my understanding is that it reconstitutes neural pathways in the brain and spinal column. It works with the myelin sheath and the connecting parts of the nerves and rebuilding of those sectors. But you're saying things like what is it? A bear's tooth might be a better one than lion's mane.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and interestingly, it's not actually the mushrooms per se that have this particular compound, erinosine it's called. Erinosine is produced by the mycelium, which is the part of the mushroom growing in the tree trunk that forms the mushroom. The mushroom contains other beneficial compounds, but the erinosines are produced by the mushroom in culture, and so when you culture these different species of Horusium, the genus of lion's mane, you get growth patterns that vary in terms of speed and production of the Orinocenes and there's actually more than one Orinocene, of course and so they may vary in their constituents, just like, you might say, pot growers are familiar with the fact that different strains of pot will have different quantities of the different hallucinogenic or compounds, the THCs.
Speaker 6:Right so chaga. It grows on a number of trees we found it on ironwood poplar but we only harvested off birch trees, whether it's yellow or white birch or various strains of either, and the reason is because my understanding and the research that I've found indicates that it extracts triterpenes of the birch bark itself, and so being betulin and betulinic acid, and then converts it into things that are beneficial to people. Are you finding the same thing, potentially with other mushrooms, or have you got any research?
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've done much research with the jag or you know thomas oblique is there in those areas no, I haven't looked at on a notice at all, uh, the chaga, um, nor really the, the biochemistry of the tree hosts of our mushrooms. We've been, I suppose naively in some regards. We've been culturing them in just pure culture in the lab on simple sugars and varying those constituents in the lab, but nothing like you would get from changing from an oak tree to a maple, to a birch tree, for instance. So you're quite right that the biochemistry of the substrate may influence the constituents of the mushroom, but I haven't studied that and there aren't many studies out there, if any.
Speaker 6:No, I've not found with the chaga and I reference that because that's the mushroom that I have any research or details about. Got over a thousand studies in that and I've been able to grow it in petri dishes but I haven't found in the substrate. I've used a number of different materials to try and find growth but having difficulty transferring. I can grow it in the petri dish but to transfer it to a live tree but it's so slow growing that it's difficult to see if it's going to be successful because it takes so many years. And I've got about three dozen test trees. But the one thing that I did find is that any of the lion's mane, the bear's tooth, the monkey's head, strains of mushroom have all been on beech trees. I haven't found it on anything else but a beech tree and I don't know if you're familiar with any of those which trees to look for, if that makes a difference at all.
Speaker 2:Right. So the one mushroom that I guess he had called it the monkey's head or the lion's mane mushroom, what used to be called Horicium arenasius, around the world? My student has recently discovered that it may not be around the world, that the one that grows in Northeastern North America is different from the one in Europe, and the one in Asia is different again, and the one that grows on the West Coast, from Vancouver Island all the way down through California on coastal oaks, is different again. But all that aside, they're certainly close relatives and they probably all have very, very similar chemical constituents, have very, very similar chemical constituents. And, yeah, the one in Northeastern North America in the Arenaceus group does seem to favor beech and oak. So members of the basically the beech family, phagaceae, but the other bear's head mushrooms, horicium americanum, can be found on just about any hardwood here in the northeast.
Speaker 6:Yes, interesting. I don't see a lot of it. I only have probably half a dozen patches that I find the bear's head or the bear's tooth and the monkey's head, I think, are the common name. I think I've got it right, but I've been wrong many a times. But it's always been on beach and I haven't really seen any on anywhere else.
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Speaker 6:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, I'm here in Millbrook with Trevor, who had a great experience and wants to share it with us with the skin cream, the Chaga skin cream. Trevor, tell us what you went through and how much you used, and go ahead.
Speaker 7:I've had eczema on my arm since I was a little kid and it's always been quite a rough patch there on my arm and no lotion seemed to ever get it so that it was smooth Right. But using the Chaga, probably for three weeks, it feels like normal skin now. Yeah, and how often did you put it on? I put it on maybe once every other day. I didn't remember to do it every day, so once every other day, one time a day.
Speaker 6:Very good and you had great results, and now it feels like normal skin again. Very good, and you didn't try anything else.
Speaker 7:so you figure that's what. No, that was they work, so I'm sticking with that.
Speaker 6:Very good. Well, thanks, trevor, here in Millbrook. Yeah, okay, we interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode. So what sort of mushrooms are you currently working with, or what strains to try and do research? You mentioned the lion's mane, but are there other ones that you're working with as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so over the years I've worked a lot with the oyster mushrooms. Pleurotus is the genus and it has some close relatives with a much more difficult name, hohenbuehelia. There's no common name for that except possibly jelly oysters. Oh yes, and both of those groups attack and predate nematodes while they're decomposing wood. And I'm still working away on those two groups and it turns out that Hohenbehelia is much more species-rich than we recognized years and years ago based just on morphology.
Speaker 6:So yeah, so you're working on. What type of oysters was it? Because I know king oysters. Have you done any research on king oysters? I absolutely love a king oyster. I know king oysters. Have you done any research on king oysters? I absolutely love a king oyster and to me it has the consistency of it's slow sauteed with some garlic and butter. It's almost like eating a scallop from my perspective, and once I have kings, there's not many others. I enjoy a pink oyster as well and a few others. But what strains have you been working on and do you find different research from different strains of oysters?
Speaker 2:Well, we've certainly got most of those and indeed North America has a number of native species of oyster mushrooms as well that we've cultivated and are studying the composition of the toxin droplet that the oyster mushroom uses to paralyze nematodes. It's really quite a fun story. It goes back literally 40 years to when I was working with George Barron and we discovered that fact that oyster mushrooms eat nematodes. But yeah, the different strains and that's one of the cool things about the biology is that the biology really reflects the natural evolution of the group Members of the genus Pleurotus. If it really is a member of the genus Pleurotus, I know that I can culture it and in culture it will eat nematodes and things about which people aren't sure if it belongs in the genus Pleurotus or don't belong in the genus Pleurotus. People aren't sure if it belongs in the genus Pleurotus or don't belong in the genus Pleurotus. I can tell them right away whether it is or not, just by whether it eats nematodes or not, because that's a very conserved nutritional mode in the family of the oyster mushrooms.
Speaker 6:Very interesting Quebec is doing. My understanding is I didn't verify it, but I saw some articles that indicated that Quebec was moving forward with some psilocybin, some cybersilin mushroom research is being allowed to move forward and I get a lot of questions about the people micro-dosing with these sorts of things and I tell them I don't have any expertise on it. I can't give you any advice. I don't even know where to send people, although Zoomer Magazine actually did a psilocybin conference in Toronto that I send people to, and I don't know if you're familiar. Have you seen much research regarding this or have you been involved in any of that sort of stuff, greg?
Speaker 2:No, I'll admit I stayed pretty far away from that and I wasn't aware of the Zoomer conference. But yeah, I mean the genus Psilocybe is out there. It's quite a diverse genus around the world well over 100 species, maybe twice that many or more diverse genus around the world well over 100 species, maybe twice that many or more and they're important decomposers in different ecosystems and sometimes also on cow patties and the like. But of course, what they're famous for is production of the compound psilocybin, or sometimes pronounced psilocybin. But psilocybin is how I say it and that is, you know, neurologically it's a potent hallucinogen and there's been renewed interest and research on its potential for treatment of multiple mental health disorders, from PTSD to chronic depression. And no, I'm not a doctor and I certainly haven't done any medical or clinical research in this, so I can't make any recommendations. Like you, I get a lot of questions and people say can I eat this or where can I get that, and I really don't have many answers in that regard.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it's the same for me. I know people don't realize even the Super Mario game. The mushroom that Mario consumes would be. What is that? Amanita, gosoe or muscaria?
Speaker 2:Muscaria. Amanita muscaria is the classic red mushroom with white spots and indeed it has some allegedly hallucinogenic properties, but the amount of actual hallucinogenic property of different strains around the world is not that well known and, of course, a lot of it's anecdotal. Of course, a lot of it's anecdotal, and the species that we have in eastern Canada is often more yellow or orange in color with off-white spots and, as you say, it's been segregated into a different species, amanita gusoyi.
Speaker 6:And again, the hallucinogenic potential of that mushroom is basically unknown. Yeah, I get a lot of questions and I just point people. I said, look, I can't tell you, but I do have that. I believe I could find it again. It's been a while since I sent that Zoomer or conference that I had loaded so I could send people some information just to try and lead people. But my understanding is the research that they're doing with this is for PTSD post-traumatic stress syndrome that they're working with and a lot of other cognitive issues that people end up dealing with. And what's your thoughts on utilizing mushrooms for various and I'm not talking just the psilocybin, I'm looking at different mushrooms being utilized for different medicinal applications.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's very fair that we look into these organisms because they've been doing interesting biochemistry for millions and billions of years. They're not doing it for us, of course. They're doing it to combat competitors in their environment, things that are growing in the same piece of wood that they are, or in the same cowpat. They want their food and they need to protect it with chemical compounds, and some of those chemical compounds may be useful to us, may be beneficial. Others, we know perfectly well, are very poisonous or carcinogenic. So yeah, a lot of research should be done and I think it's very good to have this research going on. It's just to take a step back to Amanita muscaria, the red and white mushroom, or even its yellow to orange cousin, amanita gasowii. It is very well known that those mushrooms are known to cause very severe gastrointestinal disturbances and even death in small children and the elderly.
Speaker 6:Yes, that's one of the key things and I'm glad you mentioned that I'm not a doctor. I can't give medical advice and don't recommend people going out and trying these things unless they're with an expert to identify and know the properties of the various wings. The one thing that I found interesting about the Anamida gasowii if I got it correct, my dyslexia comes in a little bit and maybe the cybercylinds will help me with some of that. But I found that slugs were consuming it. Quite I was surprised. I happened to see some, quite frankly, in my cottage and I stopped to look at it because it came up. When was that bloom? I think late July and August, I believe, and I stopped and it was just covered with slugs. So I was wondering the slugs obviously finding it as a food. Are they doing it for them to get a high Well?
Speaker 2:it's pretty hard to ask the slug gut that question, but it does bring up a very important point that there are out there a lot of old wives tales about how you can recognize an edible from a poisonous mushroom, and some people would say that if the animals are eating it it must be edible. And that's absolutely not true. Chipmunks, mice slugs, will eat some of the most deadly mushrooms and we don't know if they go off and die or if in fact they're just not susceptible to the same toxins as us. But we do know that the destroying angel, amanita virosa and its relatives is deadly to humans, and yet you can find it quite consumed by mice, chipmunks and, as you say, slugs.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it was very interesting. I remember seeing one of the things that inspired me was in the 80s I read an article where researchers were perplexed as to why deer were eating mushrooms and it was very interesting and although they didn't mention the strain, they just, quite frankly, I don't think in the 80s there was a lot of research from my perspective as regards to the various strains or individuals, bringing information forward to the point where it is today, or at least quite possibly it may have been, but I didn't know. The research was there, but they found it very interesting and couldn't figure out why deer were eating mushrooms back in the 80s, which was an interesting article that, quite frankly, I should have kept, but I ended up being a bit of a hoarder with some of those things.
Speaker 2:I found it very interesting to find that. Yeah, certainly any naturalist in the woods will see that other critters have been foraging as well, from red squirrels to the whitetail deer, and the whitetail deer do, in fact, consume a lot of mushrooms around here, including a polypore that we don't think of as necessarily a classic edible. Ischnoderma resinosum is his Latin name. I don't know a common name for him, but it's kind of a rich chestnut brown with multi-colors or shades of brown and golden brown, and it grows around the bases of hardwood trees, and sometimes you'll see them eaten right down to their stumps by deer. So why? Or we really don't know? Interesting, yeah, why we really don't know.
Speaker 6:Interesting. Yeah, there are a number of polypores that I end up harvesting, birch polypore, which, oh, oatsy, are you familiar with? Oatsy and Oatsy having birch polypore in his pouch.
Speaker 2:Yes indeed.
Speaker 6:Yeah, Maybe you can just enlighten us on who Oatsy is. So people are listening for the first time and haven't heard that. Give us a bit of a background of that.
Speaker 2:Well, that was the person who was found in the Alps melting out of a snowbank in the Alps, and it's thought that he died about 5,000 years ago. And he carried a little backpack and in his backpack were at least two mushrooms the birch polypore, now called Fomitopsis betulinus, and another one, fomis fomentarius, which was powdered to enable people to carry coals from one fireplace to the next, to enable people to carry coals from one fireplace to the next. So it seems that knowledge of the values of mushrooms goes back a long ways.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I've read some information that potentially, when they did the research on him that they found that they believe he had Lyme disease, he was that well preserved and he was using the birch polypore to assist with the inflammation from the Lyme disease. But this is all speculation, of course, because we don't know real reasons why, but that was one of the feelings that may have been part of the cause for that.
Speaker 2:Sure Well. Another story was well, of course. He was severely injured. He had been shot by an arrow, and he may well, in fact, have been using the birch polypore to stem the bleeding, because that's a known use of it today. It works as a styptic.
Speaker 6:And how is that? Is it just administered as a powder or as a mushroom on the bleeding area?
Speaker 2:Yeah, quite literally. You just apply a piece of the mushroom to the bleeding area and it helps coagulate and stop the bleeding.
Speaker 6:So that's interesting. Are there other applications of mushrooms like that that people might be interested in that you're aware of?
Speaker 2:That's not really my specialty. So yeah, I guess I would encourage people to explore the literature that is out there. There's getting to be a little bit more appreciation of indigenous peoples across Turtle Island and their historical uses of mushrooms. They were not big mushroom fans in terms of eating them for food, but there are other uses of fungi that they were aware of and did make use of some of those mushrooms for those Interesting.
Speaker 6:So where do you believe good research can be found regarding mushrooms that people if they want to find details and some reliable information? Where's a good source for people to check these things out?
Speaker 2:Well, there's good research being done worldwide. That's a fairly recent phenomenon, at least as you know my era. In the last 50 years mycology has really expanded from North Europe and a few centers in North America to truly a global pursuit. There's great African mycologists, australasian and New Zealand mycologists. China is a hotbed of research into medicinal mushrooms and mushrooms generally. So the way to access that literature well, we've got the internet now and the key thing is to be critical of what you're reading, because if it doesn't seem believable, well, it might not be institute or a government lab or a university in any of these countries who is publishing work that has been peer-reviewed by other scientists. That material you can really trust. But if I start writing on my personal blog about the medicinal values of this mushroom or that mushroom, that may not be true or certainly may not be reliable.
Speaker 6:Yeah, when I was minister, that was one of the things you quickly realized that I always tell people I said, look, before I read a research article, I look at the reference material used to write the article, determine the potential for validity within it and the more research that's involved with it background information I find it has a higher percentage chance of having more validity, and when I find more articles getting similar conclusions that there's a better chance of it having some reliability to it.
Speaker 6:Try Science Direct or PubMed, as the two locations or websites that are good spots that I find that have good research on various mushrooms from around the world, and one of the other spots that I find is a lot of research is South Korea. Seems to have quite a bit of research on a lot of mushrooms and various applications as well, which is always good for people to be able to take a look. So for me it's Science Direct and PubMed, and I think there was a I can't remember the name of the. It's kind of like the New England Journal of Medicine where animal and wildlife research is published. I used to get that on a regular basis and, quite frankly, I don't remember the name of it right offhand, Otherwise I would reference people for that, and I know a lot of researchers utilize or publish their articles there for peer review in that magazine, which was a good source as well. Maybe you're familiar with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, not that particular one reference tools, as well as web of science, which is accessible online, and also just scholar, google or google scholar, whichever way you want to call it um that taps into refereed science journals and, uh, gives you good results very good now once.
Speaker 6:Uh, earlier on you mentioned a number of the mycological clubs or associations are around and maybe you can just kind of give some people some. You mentioned the Toronto one and other ones that you're familiar with in Canada or externally, because we have a lot of listeners who listen outside of Canada as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think if you're in any big center in Canada or the US, you could Google mycological club Myco is M-Y-C-O and then logical, just like the logic mycological clubs and you'll find one near you. The New York Mycological Club, not surprisingly, is huge and very active and famous and I've been fortunate to be invited to speak to them in the past and it's quite fun that the center of mycology for them is the heart of Manhattan and there they are going mushrooming in parks on suburban New York. But in Toronto and Vancouver, edmonton, calgary, there are mushroom clubs to be found. I should mention Victoria BC, the South Vancouver Island Mycological Society. So, yeah, look near you and there may be a mushroom club. Or if not, and London, ontario, is one of those examples there's no mushroom club here in London but there's a very fine naturalist club and among the naturalists are a number of people who are quite interested and knowledgeable about mushroom fungi.
Speaker 6:Yes, very good. So, Dr Thorne, how can people get in touch with you or find out more information about your work? Where can they reach out or get some details about the great work you're doing?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm pretty easily found online. If you just Google Greg Thorne, t-h-o-r-n. Found on online. If you just google greg thorn, t-h-o-r-n. And mushrooms or western or one of those combinations, you'll find me there. I've got research pages and, of course, links to publications.
Speaker 6:That's probably the best way well, we very much appreciate you taking the time to enlighten us on mushrooms and the mycological aspects of various properties, and I was quite surprised about the nematodes and the details. We're always learning something, and that's one thing. Knowledge is power, and the more knowledge we have, the better off we are in making decisions. So we very much appreciate you taking the time and it's really something that people are learning about things that happen out there under the canopy. Thanks for being there, dr Thorne. Oh, you're very welcome.
Speaker 3:How did a small-town sheet metal mechanic come to build one of Canada's most iconic fishing lodges? I'm your host, Steve Nitzwicky, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the Outdoor Journal Radio Network's newest podcast, Diaries of a Lodge Owner. But this podcast will be more than that. Every week on Diaries of a Lodge Owner, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people, share their stories of our trials, tribulations and inspirations, Learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.
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