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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 113: Discovering Nature's Medicinal Wonder
Jerry Ouellette shares his journey from skepticism to obsession with Chaga, a rare medicinal mushroom found on birch trees that has transformed countless lives with its healing properties. After witnessing remarkable health improvements in friends battling serious conditions like cancer and diabetes, Jerry dedicated himself to researching, harvesting, and sharing this extraordinary natural remedy that indigenous peoples have utilized for thousands of years.
• Chaga is a rare conch mushroom that grows on approximately one in 10,000 birch trees in northern cold climates
• Contains extraordinarily high levels of antioxidants - 100g of Chaga has about 385,000 units compared to 2,450 units in 100g of blueberries
• Functions as an immunomodulator that can both stimulate underactive immune systems and calm overactive ones
• Offers significant anti-inflammatory properties that may help with conditions ranging from arthritis to cancer
• Can be easily incorporated into daily routines through tea, coffee, or as a powder
• Research from institutions like Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center supports many traditional uses
• Harvesting should be done sustainably, leaving some on the tree to regrow, and properly drying to prevent mold
• New product lines coming soon include Chaga mint blend and possibly a yerba mate combination
Visit ChagaHealthandWellness.com and use code CANOPY for $1 off all Chaga products at checkout.
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SPEAKER_01: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 Oulette, and I was honored 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, as we say, Guten Morgen, Vigates. I happen to meet some German tourists, and I spoke a little bit of German to them, just kind of give them a can uh just uh a hello, how are you? And as good morning, how are things sort of uh uh greeting? Um once upon a time, I used to be able to do pleasantries in 13 languages. But it's like a lot of stuff, you don't use it, uh you lose it, and I can still say quite a few, so uh there's quite a few. And anyways, these German tourists were in talking to me about Chaga, which is what we're gonna talk about today. But before we get to that, just some updates, uh as always. You know, you got them, ask them. Yeah, you know, you want to hear something about something, let us know. We can see what we can do. And we very much, as always, appreciate all our listeners all around the world, and especially, of course, Canada and Switzerland and Trinidad, Tobago, Ghana. I mentioned about Dr. Nick and his hospital in Ghana, and actually uh there were some students that a friend of mine, uh Elaine, is uh who made acquaintances and has friends going to school. I think it's a horticultural courses that uh Elaine's taking up at the local college and met some people from Ghana and became very acquainted and quite surprised, I guess, my podcast came into the conversation because we rank so high in Ghana. But we really appreciate that. And as always, you know, it's that time of year. The colors are changing, and actually they're quite a bit early. And what we're seeing now is what I normally see about Thanksgiving weekends, so I'm seeing them now out there, and I think it's been exceptionally dry, which has added to the color change that much earlier, although I haven't seen any specific research that indicates as to what the causes for color change potentially are. But colors are changing. We're out there. I'm I'm abusing myself as usual uh in such a way I'm out cutting, splitting, hauling wood, you know, helping out uh my sons with uh a lot of the wood stuff and myself. And right now I've got a a wrist brace and a knee brace on. Well, the knee brace was actually from a fall, and what happens there is it uh the the joint falls out of place a bit, so I got it put back in by Dr. O, he's a chiropractor, great guy, does uh marvelous work. And actually, this chiropractor, I have to tell you my son, our son uh Josh, Diana and I's son Josh, he's our oldest, he had scoliosis for five years and was in to see a specialist on a regular basis. Do this, do that, do this, try this, try that. Nothing seemed to pan out for him. So where my wife used to be, she used to be the the manager at a a store until COVID came in and closed all the stores Canada wide and lost her job worse than than that would be lost her uh uh anyways, her pension, which has a huge impact. So we didn't lose it, it just doesn't come to full tuition, so it's very, very minimal as opposed to what it should have been had she gone full term. But anyways, she's in there and she'd hired a person from a graduating student from the local college. And they were in talking and talking about uh she happened to mention about her sister having scoliosis and a chiropractor fixed it. And I said, What? Really? Well, I just happen to know a chiropractor that I would take my son to. So I made an appointment, and you remember he'd been dealing with this for five years. So we go into the chiropractor, he looks, he checks him out, and I'm not a chiropractor, I'm not a doctor, can't give medical advice. But the chiropractor looks and says, Well, part of the problem is is kind of your spine's caught up on the on your hip where it goes through, and one of the vertebrae is caught it, and that's what the problem is. And in one visit, fixed his scoliosis. For those that don't know what scoliosis is, it's curvature of the spine. So Josh was absolutely uh perfect after that. No issues, no problems, no curvature of the spine, no uh difficulties. And a year later, Josh says, he says, Dad, dad, uh, we need to go to the chiropractor. I said, Why? Is it bothering you again? What's the problem? He said, No, no, I just gotta check to make sure everything's okay. I said, Okay. So we go in to see Dr. O, and he looks at him, he says, Nope, everything's fine here. You know, you don't have any problems now. Everything's the way it should be. I said, Oh, well, what do I owe you? He said, Well, I didn't do any work, so you don't owe me anything. Which is something you don't really hear a lot of, but uh we really appreciate that. And the same thing with uh now he tells me that he he read a study that showed that 91%, don't ask me why they said 91%, but 91% of individuals dealing with carpal tunnel is a small bone in the wrists that falls out of place and puts pressure on that tendon where it goes through the carpal and it's perceived as carpal tunnel, and he puts that bone back in. And for me, it works wonders. So I know when I can't sleep at night when I'm abusing myself, just like I am now, was uh two days ago, and I will be on Friday and on the weekend again, cutting, splitting, hauling wood. And of course I'm running the saw and splitting and hauling it and cutting it with a large maul, which we call Das Clumpit. It's about a, I don't know, it seems like a 10-pound splitting maul. But uh by the time you end up doing that and all the work and going through the bush and twisting and turning, I need to go back and see Dr. Rowe again and put me back in place, which he will. And the other thing he does, which is kind of surprising, is he actually he checks something and I can tell I get this pain. It's on my right arm near the top, about three inches down from the top where the the top of the shoulder where it connects in. And he looks and and sure enough, a rib has come out of place. And the last time I was in, which was a week and a half ago, he says, Jerry, I can almost grab this rib, it's sticking out so much. And he puts it back in place, and lo and behold, the pain goes away almost instantly, like within I would say a minute, it's normalized. Not only that, but uh my breathing starts to ease up as well because it takes the pressure off what's happening as the rib's out of place on my lungs. So it worked really good and I really appreciate it. But yeah, so I'm back to normal, but I'm wearing a knee brace because my my knee is out of uh like if you make two fists and join your hands together at the knuckles, you'll see where it kind of meshes together. However, if you slide one hand another way, the they're kind of out of line, and that's what kind of happens with the knee when it's not lined up. And Dr. O puts it back in place for me and takes away. Otherwise, uh I'm walking along and all of a sudden my knee buckles on me, and that's because it's out of place. So, uh, I got a uh a wrist guard on and a knee guard on until I can get in next week to see him. But those are the things we do. And I don't know, I just to be honest, I love being in the bush, love working and cutting and hauling wood. But as I mentioned, it's fall time. The colors are out. We're winding down in the the uh the locations and the events that uh Chaga markets that I do. And I'm still be doing Tuesday. Uh there's two more Tuesdays in Halliburton. You want to come up and see me, or in Lindsay. Uh there's uh markets on Thursdays, two more in in Lindsay as well. And I have always Chaga samples so people can taste it and ask questions. And the market's on uh Halliburton, right downtown, right by uh right on the waterfront there. There's a park there in Halliburton, and I provide samples and I answer all kinds of questions as best I can. Um there's a lot of stuff. We get a lot of people coming in with some knowledge about chaga. Uh first thing is is it Chaga, Chaga, Chaga? And I said, well, either way, uh, you know, if you talk to my German friend Roland, it's Chaga. Uh if you talk to my mother, it's Chaga. But I usually say Chaga. Either way, it's all the same. But uh Tuesdays uh 10 to 2, uh next couple of ones. It ends the Tuesday just before Thanksgiving in Canada. And Thursdays 10 till 3 in Wilson Fields and Lindsay. I'm there as well with samples. And that ends the Thursday before Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. And you can come up and and ask questions or taste samples uh because I've always got it. And I'm gonna get into some of the new lines and things like that. And I'll do a rundown on Chaga again because a lot of people uh don't really know um details about it. It's still people they hear about it, but uh well I know a little bit, but I don't know all about it. So you can come and taste it and see some of the test ones that we have. You know, I thought uh I'd give uh an update on chaga. Now, first of all, what is chaga? Chaga is a um a rare mushroom, it's uh falls in the conch family, but uh people call it a mushroom, and in order to classify as a mushroom, and that whole mushroom kingdom is is changing completely on a regular basis. Some of the names are changing. Uh so chaga is in Autanus obliquus and is a Latin name. And so long as it has um mycelium, and that's so we'll compare it to a an apple tree, say. So an apple tree has roots. The roots of a fungus would be the mycelium. And the mycelium is what that fungus uses to extract the material that it's connected to. And chaga is a tree fungus that grows on a number of different trees, uh birch, uh, ironwood, poplar, and some others as well. But we only harvest off birch because that's where all the medicinal studies are that I see out there. It it extracts certain things from the birch bark being triterpenes, betulin, and betulinic acid out of the bark and converts it into things that are beneficial. So you've got the mycelium that uh basically runs in the tree, it's the roots, same as the apple tree. And then in apples, the fruiting body is the apple itself. Now we had the apple experts on, and apples are actually uh the fruiting body is an extension of the stem in order to protect the seeds. So, and the fruiting body of a mushroom. Now, if you take uh like the white button mushrooms that you normally get in the grocery store, that would be the fruiting body of a fungus. Okay? And then you have your chaga as well. And then you have how it spreads. Now, apples use apple seeds to spread to grow new apples, where mushrooms or fungus, their their fruiting bodies actually spread by spores. And so long as it has mycelium, a fruiting body, and spores, it basically falls into a mushroom category. But I'm sure there's lots of mycologists that would challenge me, and all I'm doing is trying to give a best understanding for those people who don't really understand and know mushrooms that well, how to compare and what to look at. But chaga is a rare one. It grows in northern cold climates around the world, so it grows in Ontario. First nations have been using it uh for thousands of years. And for those that don't know, uh my family has miti status through my father and through his Mamer, as uh dad used to say. And it um First Nations have been using it for thousands of years as uh medicinal tea. So but one in ten thousand birch trees will produce one. Now you can find it in the northern states as well, and a lot of the TV shows uh that deal with um far north and remote locations. Uh I think Moose Meat and Marmalade had it on that show. Uh there's that one, what is it, uh north of no, what is it, uh Life Below Zero and stuff like that, had it on that show. There's quite a few TV shows that are starting to show chaga in it and the benefits of it. So it's very popular and all through Canada, but it also grows all around the world. So uh Finland, Poland, Germany, all through Northern Asia as well, it grows. And uh actually I I met some people from Finland that uh informed me that uh the the chaga is the only mushroom that members of the EU are not allowed to pick in Finland because it would completely decimate the population. Now you've got to remember chaga. It only grows about my research and I've got uh well, I've got about 3,000 hours, uh over a thousand studies worldwide on it. Um and my indications, because I've got about three dozen test trees as well. I've tried to inoculate trees, and I monitor and look at growth on trees, and I check to see how it comes back after it's been harvested and all that kind of stuff, because we do a sustainable harvest, which means it's going to be there for future generations. And once I get this inoculation thing down, I might be able to inoculate trees, mind you. Some of the foresters may not appreciate it. Anyways, so uh it only grows about, I find in the moist, damp areas, about half an inch a year. But the high, dry areas, where we do find some, actually grows about three-quarters of an inch a year is what I'm finding with my measurements when I'm doing my testing and checking. So it's it's interesting. Now, we've had Pierre on um a number of times, and he's up from uh just west of Timmins. And Pierre is the one that introduced me to Chaga in the first place. That's how I started. He he kind of said uh after I was done with with uh the political life and having served as minister and other portfolios, he asked me, Jerry, have you found anything yet? I said, No, I'm so looking. He said, Look into this chaga stuff. And and like most people, I said, What's that? He said, If I told you you wouldn't believe me. Well, he knows I'm a little obsessive, compulsive. So sure enough, I started reading about it, and I can't believe what I'm reading. Yeah, right. Cancer, arthritis, diabetes, blood pressure, even MS, snake oil stuff. So I collected it for a year and a half and gave it away to friends. Now, one of the friends I gave it to was Bob. Now, Bob had open brain surgery, open heart surgery, over a dozen heart attacks. I drove him to the hospital during one, was dealing with stage four prostate cancer. Gave it to Bob. Bob, this is supposed to be good for you. And Bob says, Jerry, every day I get up is a good day, so I'll be more than happy to try it. So Bob tries it and goes in to see his oncologist, and his oncologist says, Uh, Bob, uh we we don't understand what's happening here. Something's like, we don't know how this is possible, but it appears that everything's normal now. And we don't know how that's possible because we haven't begun any therapy with yet. And you'd have to meet Bob. He just kind of looks and he says, Oh, I wonder how that happened. Well, he goes in for his next three-month uh uh visit to find out details. And guess what? Same results. So tells the uh oncologist, you know, I offered him. I said, I'll give you as much as you want for free to test on patients if you want, but never heard from them. So and then Doug was another friend of mine. Now, Doug was dealing with two forms of cancer, multiple myeloma, which is a blood bone cancer, bladder cancer, had arthritis and was diabetic. Now, both cancers were neutralized and in remission, eliminated his arthritis and stabilized his blood sugar. And when I started getting results from this, I realized, hey, there's something to it. So Pierre has done quite a bit of work, and he's um he is logging and has a mill as well. And Pierre was telling me, and so I've been trying to find more research, but he was saying that every single tree that they log that has chaga on it, the center core is rotten. Well, essentially what it is is the mycelium, as I just said, is actually spread through the entire tree. So we're finding that uh the mycelium will actually spread, it's not localized, but spreading through the entire tree, and you get your breakouts. And we only harvest off birch because of the, as I mentioned, the chiterpenes. Um I'm finding that if the tree has been scored or, for example, a branch breaks off, then the chagas are coming out or breaking out on those locations. It's kind of like if you've seen any of those uh people that grow mushrooms in bags, now what they do is they they put a growth media in, a lot of times it's sawdust of some sort, or straw, into a bag, and then they'll uh put mycelium in the bag. And what happens is the mycelium spreads through the entire bag, and once the entire bag, and you can see it growing through the entire bag, is basically supersaturated with mycelium, they make a slit in the bag, and then the fruiting body or the mushrooms come out there. It doesn't work with Chag. We've tried it with Birch Bark, I've tried a number of different things, but we're working on it, and we'll see if we can crack this nut and see if we can move farther.
SPEAKER_07: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. Hmm. Now, what are we gonna talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.
SPEAKER_09:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.
SPEAKER_04:From athletes, all the other guys would go golfing, me and Garcie and Turk, and all the Russians would go fishing.
SPEAKER_09:And now that we're looking for scene or anything, it's the perfect transmission environment for my face.
SPEAKER_08:Chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, they're needed before you will taste it.
SPEAKER_07:And whoever else would 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_01:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Hi, it's Jerry from Chaga Health and Wellness. We're here in Lindsay with Tula, who is actually from Finland and uses Chaga. Tula, you've had some good experiences with Chaga. Can you just tell us what that experience is?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I got sick with Fibra, and uh one weekend my husband came here alone. I was home. And uh he brought your um your leaflet.
SPEAKER_01:Ready?
SPEAKER_00:And I read it, and I said, next weekend when we go to the market, we're gonna buy some. And so we started putting it in our morning smoothie.
SPEAKER_01:Ready?
SPEAKER_00:And um the things that I was doing because of the chakra has been tested.
SPEAKER_01:Ready?
SPEAKER_00:I wouldn't want to live with a blood pressure. Yeah, so it's been working for me.
SPEAKER_01:Very good. And you had uh some good luck with blood pressure as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thanks for remembering that that's uh Yeah, I had a little bit of high elevated blood pressure, and within two weeks of studying that every day, every money, uh eventual.
SPEAKER_01:And you think the chaga was the reason why?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I didn't do anything else in that time.
SPEAKER_01:And so how much jaga did you have and how did you have it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we just put that powder in the smoothie and uh it's about tablespoon. Yep. No, it's less than tablespoon. Teaspoon. Yeah. So you don't need that much.
SPEAKER_01:Right. About a teaspoon, yeah. Very good. Well, thanks very much for sharing that. We really appreciate that. And wish you all the best with the janga. Oh, you're from Finland as well. And janga's pretty popular in Finland, is it not?
SPEAKER_00:I think it's because it's a professor at the university. Teaching it and talking about it, and of course it's speaking.
SPEAKER_01:Ready?
SPEAKER_00:You're not a northern police. And of course Finland has lots of ready.
SPEAKER_01:Everything else, but not Chaga. Oh, very good. Well, thanks very much for sharing that. Okay, have a great day. 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, Chaga Health and Wellness.com, 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. You know, and talking about mycelium, I I just come in into the recording studio here, and Joe's uh Joe's a techie guy. So when I have problems, uh it's either Dean or Joe I go to to fix the problems. Anyways, Joe says, he said, Did you hear what Nassau is saying about black holes? I said, No. He said, Well, they're apparently that uh they're looking at black holes and saying it looks like exactly like mycelium growing in black holes in space. Well, doesn't that open a new kettle of fish? And I gotta tell you, I tried a number of times to get NASA on uh to do a podcast, but uh they don't even so much as respond to any of my emails or phone calls or anything. But we'll keep trying and we'll see if we can get some interesting discussions from NASA, uh North American Space Agency, anyways. And one of the things that I wanted to ask them, which they probably don't want to answer, is my understanding is that you can't eliminate all the spores that go in, and then on the space station, there's actually mold from spores growing in the space station. Haven't verified it. I wanted to ask them, but uh that's what I've been told. Can't verify to say it's true or not, but I hear that. And uh that's one thing you'll find with me, is is uh I don't if it's a rumor, I tell you it's a rumor, and uh until it's verified, it's a rumor, and right now the mold is a is a rumor issue. And so if that's the actual case, when we sent material to the moon or to Mars, was there spore body in those units that are there? And are they driving around spreading spores on Mars and the Moon? Probably more so Mars rather than the moon. But interesting concept and thought of some of the things that may be happening that we can't really you know control as much as we can. But anyways, those are some of the things. So so yeah, so we're finding the the mycelium is growing through the entire tree. So Chaga is uh, as I mentioned, uh a mushroom. One in 10,000 birch trees, or I've seen some say one in 15 or one in 20,000, which could be the case. I don't know as anybody's actually done a study to verify the number of trees, but I gotta tell you, we look at thousands of trees before we start finding them. And the interesting thing is, here's a little hint for those looking for chaga. If you look on the leeward side of hills, and if there's moisture like a creek, a swamp, a bog, some sort of moisture, high moisture content in an area, seems to be some of the areas that they prefer. And we find a higher percentage of our chaggas on those areas. The leeward side of the hill and in bogs, uh moisture, moist areas seems to be pretty prevalent. So in all the thousands of trees, yeah. If this was if you look at a hundred acres, uh just to use that as a size, where we look at thousands of acres where we're looking, if all of a sudden you find one tree in one acre, you might find a half a dozen or eight or ten or twelve uh trees in that one acre plot and nothing in the other 99 acres. So that's some of the things to watch out for. I know I was uh we have a spirit watch up at one of the places where we do harvesting. And um I put uh some of my father's ashes up in the spirit watch, and I walked down the trail, which goes deep into the bush. It's not it's not even well, it may have been a logging trail 40, 50 years ago, a skitter trail, uh, but uh you wouldn't notice that now because of the growth is so high. And I couldn't find any chaga at all, and I thought it was absolutely perfect. So I walked all the way down, didn't see a darn bit, and probably walked oh maybe a kilometer or two, and turn around and come back, and all the chaga was growing on the other side of the trees. And you didn't notice it when you're walking one way on the trail. But when I came back, lo and behold, there it was. So as I mentioned, uh First Nations, uh I've been using it for thousands of years. I actually had an algonquin come in and he says, uh, oh, we harvest we have this stuff and we call it buckbuck, which was new to me, and I pass on that information and take from what he said. So a lot of those ones, uh the locations that I mentioned, whether it's uh next couple or coming up uh starting in sometime in November, I'll be uh doing regular as much as I can in Peterborough at the Morrow Building, which runs from seven till one on Lansdowne. And I have samples there, and people can come in and ask questions and things like that, and you can find all the stuff. But so the Chaga we initially just started out with was just a straight tea. But we found that and what we try to do is that make it as easy as possible for people to incorporate in their daily routine. And so what I mean by that is that uh some people is like, you know, oh well, the taste is so so. Well, I asked, are you a coffee drinker or a tea drinker? And of course, a lot of people are coffee drinkers. And I said, Okay, how do you make your coffee at home? What do you mean? Uh cream and sugar. I said, No, no, no. What process do you use to make it? So I show people who are, for example, using a percolator. Now we have a line of chaga called grinds, which is about the ground down to about the size of a peppercorn. And I said, now I have a 12-cup percolator at home. And what I do is I put a spoon, a tablespoon in with my 12-cup percolator and slow perk it in there and get my chaga in my coffee. Now, one of the things about chaga is not only is it the highest antioxidant producing material of anything out there, 100 grams of blueberries on average produce about 385, or sorry, 100 grams of blueberries produce 2,450 units of antioxidants, where 100 grams of chaga, depending on the extraction type, produce about 385,000 units of antioxidants. So we hear about antioxidants, but a lot of people really don't know what they do or what their purpose is. So I'll try to put it in terms of easy understanding. So essentially when we do anything, we're we're talking, we're moving our hands, we're exercising, we're burning molecules. A lot of the times you don't burn the complete molecule. So those unburnt portions of molecules will be classified as free radicals. And you can get free radicals through the air we breathe, the food, absorb it through your skin, a lot of different ways. And free radicals essentially join with other molecules, and what they essentially do is start to break down your system. Antioxidants essentially consume or pair with free radicals and stop your systems from breaking down in the first place. So people use chaga because of the antioxidant level to stop your systems from breaking down in the first place. Not only that, but uh the there's a huge component of anti-inflammatory material in it. Now, June of 2024, I I follow a lot of the uh sites, um the posting sites where um research studies get posted, whether it's called PubMed, P-U-B-M-E-D, or Science Direct, is two of the sites that I checked. And there was about a half a dozen articles come out that were indicating that overabundance of inflammation happens to be locations where cancers appear to be starting out. So they're looking at the potential from what I gathered from that. And remember, I'm not a doctor, can't give medical advice, is that overabundance of inflammation can potentially lead to results of uh allowing cancer to take hold in bodies and spread from there. And if you look those up, like I said, Science Direct and PubMed, you can see uh inflammation and cancer, and you'll see some of those articles posted there. So the um the Chaga itself, as I said, you know, it uh grows about half an inch a year on average, and so long as you leave some on the tree, it'll continue to grow. And I I see a lot of of I do a lot of like I look at uh websites, not only websites, but also YouTube stuff, and there's a lot of stuff out there. I saw one where a guy says, he says, Oh, chaga only grows on birch trees, and if you think it's chaga on another tree, it's not, and you don't have to worry about it. Well, that's not true. So this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. And then I saw another one that said, oh, it has to be minus 20 for three days before you can harvest harvest it. Well, that's not true either. Because I got to tell you, every one of the powwows that we've been to, every one of the shaman of the medicine people at those powwows all harvest it all year long. Now, what I find is the potential and the reason that they harvest chaga at certain times of the year is that the moisture content of chaga is higher when the sap is in the tree. So we always harvest ours when the sap is out of the tree, or try to anyways, in order to because when the moisture content is high, the chance for secondary mold growth is extremely high. And so, especially if you're going to harvest your own, first of all, don't put it in plastic bags. It needs to be a bag that breathes. So we use canvas or even old leaf bags, for example, paper will breathe that allows some of the uh air to go back and forth and start to dry it right away. It'll lose anywhere from 40 to 55 percent or even up to 60 percent of its body weight. But those harvesting it on their own, if you chunk it up, then um about walnut-sized pieces within 24 hours of taking it off the tree. Um you can use it a lot better afterwards once it's cured. Um, you need to take all the impurities like the birch bark off it and things like that. And uh and I'll give you another piece of advice is take a polyester brush. Don't use a metal brush because I've seen metal filings and some of the stuff that people were using to clean the chaga with from uh a wire brush. But use a polyester brush and just clean it with that, and you'll get rid of all the spider webs and the uh the any of the little bugs that might be in there and things like that. It brushes out really nice, and you can brush them pretty hard. You might get some of the little the dark exterior, which is a natural protective coating coming off at that time, but it um it cleans it up pretty good. So, anyway, so back to where I was started on this dangion was uh percolator, uh tablespoon of the grinds, put it in with that, and slow perk it. I perk it for a little, I put a little bit less coffee than I normally would in. I slow perk it for a longer period of time because the larger the pieces are of chaga, the longer they have to be exposed to water to get the benefit out of it. So that's one of the easiest ways with a percolator is slow perk it for a longer period of time, and you'll get it in your coffee. Now remember, chaga is alkaline. Coffee's acidic, and it neutralizes a lot of the acid in coffee and mellows it out very nicely. So that's one way, and I have people who have a French press. Well, you can do a couple of things. You can either do uh some of the things the same with uh a uh people that use uh a coffee-making machine that has a reservoir, one of two things. Right now I have a machine at home that I actually put a bag, because uh all our chaga comes in basically tea bags or coffee bags, and put that in the reservoir, and so long as the reservoir is changing color, I'm getting the chaga benefit in my coffee. And to be perfectly honest, one of the machines that we have, I put this um, we call it Morning Glory, which is a really special blend. And for those that haven't tried it, I've been trying to come up with a coffee substitute for years because it what happens is every time I put a new line on my website, all my competitors within a couple of weeks do the same thing. So I had a Chaga coffee, which was essentially organic coffee and Chaga mixed with the grinds together. But I try to tell people, look, just buy the grinds and mix it with your own coffee, you'll get more of it. And then within a couple weeks, all of a sudden everybody was selling mushroom coffee. And I'm like, all right, what is mushroom coffee? What does that mean? And nobody can give me an answer. So we came up with one that uh essentially is a coffee substitute, although I'm gonna uh have a new line. And a lot of the questions that people have about Chaga is there's no caffeine in it. And the coffee substitute that we have has no caffeine. It should be posted, it's called Morning Glory within um the next couple of weeks. I had some difficulty ensuring a stable quality supply line. Of course, we supply all the chaga, but the other materials mixed with it. Um I need to make sure I can get good quality supply lines that I are dependable, and I haven't been able to yet, so I've been working on that, and I think I've got that uh taken care of. But anyway, so I put that in my reservoir, and I get it directly in my coffee, and you don't even notice it, it doesn't change the taste of coffee, although it mellows it out, takes the acidity away, and smooths it out very nicely. So and the other thing you can do is people who use a French press, for example, or they have a drip filter. We have um you can either make a batch of tea, just a regular chalk tea, and use that as your water to make your coffee with, and you'll get it in your coffee that way. Or in a French press, we have a powder that uh people pull with their coffee and then put it in. Remember, the larger the pieces are, the longer they have to be exposed to water to extract the benefit. And the powder has the largest bearing surface, which means it requires the least amount of time in order to get the benefit inside your coffee because the powder is is so fine, so it's easier to extract it from there. Then I get a lot of people. I used to have Dr. Couture, who uh retired and moved back to New Brunswick. Dr. Couture used to uh promote the powder, and people just put it in their coffee and got it in that way. It doesn't dissolve, at least our product doesn't. And and it's fine to consume as well, so long as you, according to Health Canada, not more than 3.6 grams per day, I believe, is the uh Health Canada one. But there's so many details about it. Now, some of the nude lines. So we've got the regular chaga, a chaga chai blend, a chaga apple cinnamon, a chaga green tea blend, uh, the powder, the grinds, um, plus uh a couple of other specialty ones that uh the the cream, we have huge success with a topical application that I invented where we have chaga in it, and people use it for with huge success for eczema, psoriasis, rashes, uh bug bites, burns, and a number of other topical applications as well. But so I have some new lines coming out, and yesterday it just so happened that uh I had uh people test a chaga mint line, and it seems to be going over spectacular, which means that within the next few weeks we'll have a chaga mint, which uh I gotta figure out all the details. It's not just a matter of though I got the I got the supply lined up, so there's no problem with supply. Good quality mint that uh is uh reliable, no problems there. But uh, how much mint do you mix with how much chaga? And how many cups does it produce? And how long is the shelf life and all that kind of stuff? So those are some of the details that we work out with uh with new lines is coming up. Now, another new line that we're working on, and if anybody listening can tell me or send me a note on this, but I think it's called yerba mate. Uh Josh, my son, says that there's this new move with yerba mate that uh people are moving to. It's caffeinated, so it's a coffee substitute with caffeine if that's what people are looking for for their caffeine fix. But I'm looking at I have some samples of that, but I have not tried anything with it yet. But we may be coming out with a yurba mate chaga line as well. And same thing there, you know, I got the supplier short up, so there's not a problem with supply with it so far. And but how much uh yurba mate do you put in, how much chaga do you put in, and all the rest of it, and those are the details that we're working out. So those are some of the the uh the new lines that we're looking at. But there's always a lot of questions, and people ask, well, if you're looking at uh YouTube and things that are not coming through, uh, what are some of the places where we can find some good information? So uh one of the ones, and I hand out information all the time. So there's there's uh uh something called uh global healing. And uh Dr. Edward Group wrote a good article that I give out. And he goes into the uh details, and you can just look that up. But watch out with that particular site. If you if you email them, you're gonna get uh two, three inquiries a day about buy this, buy that, and usual stuff. But uh global healing, Chagga Mushroom, the immune-boosting superfood is the article that came out with it. And it talks about how it supports the uh the immune system, about the uh soothing uh properties, uh, about the uh supports the integrity of blood vessels, providing soothing properties in times of irritation. And those suffering from uh neuropathy and even diabetes, he goes to talks about in this article here. And you've heard some of the testimonials. I know Bill um was uh having uh blood pressure issues. So in it in this article also talks about uh ulcers and gastritis, uh normalizing blood pressure and cholesterol levels, antimicrobial activity, DNA damage protection, antiviral properties of chag as well. And it talks about the polysaccharides, the beta-glutins, the the uh the um antioxidants level there and other things, and then it gives comparisons. Now, another good article to look up that deals with uh chaga is uh it's by the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. And if you were to do uh a um a search, an online search of best cancer centers in the world, this one I always found was listed as one of the top five. And it goes into details on their research. And in this actual study they did has been cited by a number of different articles. And each one of these, so it talks about purported uses to prevent and treat cancer. And the same thing, if you go on Memorial Sloan Carrying Cancer Center, uh look up Chega Mushroom, uh the cinder conch, birch conch, clinker polypore, or some of the other names that it has listed for it. It talks about to prevent and treat cancer. Um, but all these ones specifically say that uh studies in humans are needed, and it talks about to stimulate the immune system, to reduce inflammation, uh to protect the liver as well. And it talks and if you look at that, um it has a lot of good sources of other articles that you can look up. And that's what I do is is when I was minister of natural resources, you you quickly learn before you even read an article, I look at the reference material used to write the article to determine the validity of it. And the ones that I'm mentioning here were very well researched. So that was one. So that was uh Dr. Group, G-R-O-U-P from Global Healing, Chaga Mushroom, the Immune Boosting Superfood. And it gives comparisons and talks about a bunch of stuff, as well as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and it's the Chaga Mushroom. Now, here's another one here out of Vitality Magazine from uh Dr. Ralph Moss, cancer, uh Chaga and Cancer Research, folklore medicine. And it talks about the details in there and some of the stuff in here, it's it's kind of interesting. It says uh on the in the second page, uh third paragraph, in 2015 experiment, the anti-cancer compounds were extracted from chaga powder three times with water at 60 degrees Celsius, i.e. 140 degrees Fahrenheit. And um this is an important lead to anyone thinking of making their own chaga tea for 140 Fahrenheit is hot, but not boiling. It is a good rule when preparing chaga tea to extract the beneficial chemicals, chemicals, without damaging or degrading them, as boiling water might do. And the reason it says might, quite frankly, is because a lot of the articles that uh the research studies that I have from around the world, their extraction of chaga and the material and the benefits from it were at boiling point. So, and like a lot of stuff, there still needs to be more research. And I try to find out as much as I can, but uh uh Dr. Ralph Moss's uh Vitality magazine, Chaga and Cancer article is a good one as well. And it has quite a few different uh references on there which uh refer, you can look up the references as well and see those. As I mentioned, you'll find a lot of those on PubMed or Science Direct, or you can just go on PubMed and Science Direct and look up Chaga and Cancer. Now, another one that I usually give out, and what I do is because as I mentioned, I have studies from all kinds of stuff, whether it's Crohn's and colitis or different types of cancer. I met a woman in Coburg who had a her medical doctor got her some Chaga as a friend of theirs, and she cured her ovarian cancer with it, according to her and her doctor. Uh, and there's studies on that to focus on that. But here's another one. It's called from Brunswick Labs. And I'm not sure that this one is still available, but I happened to save it before, and I tried to find it to when COVID came in afterwards and couldn't track it down. And it's done by another doctor, um, and his last name is spelled Z-E-G-A-R-A-C, and it's magical mushroom chaga, functional components, and biological activity. And it's a great area. Another article that talks about the antioxidant components about it, the anti-inflammatory, the immunology effects as well, and the anti-cancer effects. Now, Chaga is um it works as an it works with the immune system in that uh it's a it's a modifier, as they say. And natural modifiers are hard to find. And what that does essentially is if your immune system isn't active enough, it stimulates it to get going. But if it's overactive, it'll bring it down. So and the Brunswick lab uh study talks about the polysaccharides that uh um work with the immune system. And so it works as an immunomodule modifier, immunomodifier. So it helps with the immune system in a number of different ways, and those are some of the benefits. So I think I've answered most of the questions that come up. No caffeine, alkaline, one in 10,000, uh First Nations, popular around the world, grows in northern cold climates, and uh the wide range of uses. Uh I mentioned uh some of the articles and what they're they talk about, whether it's you know the cancer, arthritis, diabetes, uh, blood pressure, and even uh I see some stuff regarding MS. And I think the uh the anti-inflammatory components of it may be. But remember, I'm not a doctor, can't give medical advice. I am a primary researcher, which means I go out and I find research all around the world and then try to bring together as much research to support each other's uh specific statements. Well, I think I've given you a pretty good update on Chaga and what's happening there. If you come and see us, I'm more than happy to. If you want to get in touch with us, you can. Or you can check out our products at uh Chaga Health and Wellness at gmail.com. Or you can uh check out uh Chagan Health and Wellness.com. And uh you can see our website there, and and a lot of these uh details I've given you were actual studies that have been around, and those are the ones that I hand out. But all we're doing is giving you an update and other stuff, and quite frankly, in the next couple of weeks, I'm heading to my Chagga camp to start picking Chaga for the for for our up-and-coming seasons, and hopefully uh we have a good harvest. I don't go back into the same areas for basically over about a 10-year period, and then we'll start looking back at the same spots. And we always leave some on the tree to make sure that it continues to grow, although our indications are that the mycelium or roots of it are growing through the whole tree. So, but so long as we take care of uh nature, it'll continue to take care of uh us. And these things have been out there for the longest time in thousands of years and being utilized as such. Actually, what's his name? Otsi. It was the um the hunter that they found frozen in the Alps that had a pouch. And in his pouch, he had another medicinal mushroom called birch polypore. And birch polypore, actually, I had a mycologist on that uh used birch polypore to uh as uh when he cut himself shaving, he he put a little bit of birch polypore powder on it and stopped the bleeding right away. So there's a lot of different ones. Chaga would be the number one medicinal mushroom in the world, rishi would be number two. After that, then there's it could be turkey tail, it could be gnocchi, it could be, it could be cordyceps, it could be birch polypore, it could be lion's mane, it could be a lot of different ones, mataki, shiitakis that have medicinal properties as well. But uh most of the mushroom experts uh out there well agree that uh Chaga is the number one medicinal mushroom, and that's what we take do out there is work with Chaga. Just uh an update on what's happening with Chaga and what's happening out there, out there under the canopy. Thanks for listening. You got any? Ask them questions, that is. You want to hear anything? Let me know, and we'll see if we can come up with a show for you. Thanks. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.
SPEAKER_05: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_06:Figure out how to get you back. And we decided we're going to be efficient.
SPEAKER_04:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm running in a little bit.