296. Benefits of Mushrooms: Lion’s Mane, Turkey Tail, Chaga, Cordyceps, Reishi, Gut Health with Fergs Fabulous Fungi | Brody Ferguson

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh I gotta say the your cocoa product, I mix it with my coffee. Uh I love it. I've been drinking it nearly every day since I got it from you. So, what would be the biggest mistake that people make when they get their mushrooms in terms of prepping them for a meal?

SPEAKER_02 0:14

I would say number one is just like eating a raw mushroom. Again, you're not our uh bodies are really bad at digesting a raw mushroom cell wall. That Kitan cell wall is just very hard to break down. So just some form of you know cooking is really beneficial to get those nutrients. Uh, talking a little bit more on like our processing for the mushroom cocoa or a mushroom supplement, this gets kind of controversial depending on what kind of product it is. You know, talking whether it be a hot water extract versus a dual extraction method, and just like a whole argument between like mushroom fruiting body versus uh mycelium or duo products, uh, it's kind of very intensive. For everything that we do, we've kind of standardized it to fruiting body only. And we actually just do a hot water extract just because it's a more, as far as current science goes, the beta glucan content is kind of the easiest thing to test. And so if you're mainly tracking the beta glucan content of just like a simple hot water extract, is one of the best ways to retain those beneficial beta glucans.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

The following information for educational and entertainment purposes only, and it's not meant to diagnose, treat, prevent, cure, or prescribe for any medical or psychological conditions. Take out the opinion of a qualified healthcare professional if you need medical attention. Guests of this show provide your own opinions that may not represent the values or beliefs of Living Water Wellness Center or Hold By Detox Show. And welcome everyone to today's Hold by Detox. John David DeHas from Living Waters Wellness Center. Living Waters Wellness Center was formed after we discovered how to heal my body from multiple symptoms, including allergies, asthma, chronic fatigue, back pain, psoriasis, acne, hives, yeast infections, and finally cancer, and I did it all naturally. After 20 years of trying numerous different treatments, medical treatments, cleanses, iridology, muscle therapy, acupuncture, acupressure, homeopathy, naturopathy, those experiences led us discover that recipe that become known as the four natural odds of healing. Combining multiple natural healing modalities to fully detox and cleanse the body and allowing the body to take the perfect nutrition to fully restore the body back to its innate health. This became known as a 10-day healing retreat. We've helped thousands of people just like you get their health restored so they can live their life to the fullest. If you want to learn how you can get your body back to living your best life, go to LivingWatersCleanse.com, click on that link for natural lies and healing, and watch the video. Or call the office at 208-378-9911. Good morning, everyone. David Dahaas from LivingWatersCleanse.com, your host of the Whole Body Detox Show. If you're ever walking around downtown Boise on a Saturday after morning in the farmers market, you might run into a booth that's got a lot of unique plants. Well, not plants, mushrooms. And uh that young man in that booth is Brody Ferguson, who established a business called Fergus Fabulous Fungi. All kinds of assorted mushrooms at his booth. If you haven't tried it out, you definitely want to get down to the uh farmer's market before it closes for the winter and grab some mushrooms and try them out. Brody, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Thank you, David. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

So tell me about this. You got started as a young lad of the science project. What the heck? Who knew that one? Turn into a business.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Yes, sir. Yeah, it's been over a decade now. Um, actually 11 years ago, started it as an eighth-grade science project. Was a hobby for a few years. Um, there's really no information on how to grow mushrooms back then. So everything was self-taught. Took a couple years just to figure it all out, um, and then started the business out of high school and been doing it professionally ever since then.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Besides being the farmers markets, do you deliver your products to grocery stores? Do you mail them out to people? How do people get your mushrooms?

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Yeah, yeah. Our bread and butter locally, I would say, is restaurant service. We work with a couple dozen local restaurants across the Treasure Valley and Wood River Valley. We work with uh some uh farm stands and stuff as well, lots of farmers markets, as you said. Uh, and then we have an e-commerce store that we do ship anywhere in the country for all of our value-added products.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So yeah. Did you win first prize in this science project growing mushrooms?

SPEAKER_02 4:36

You know, ironically, the project itself uh was kind of a flop. I never even got past the first stages of the mushroom growing process. That's just so involved. But learned a lot and I mean got a passing grade, of course, but I was not the winner.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Now, why did you choose to do a science project with mushrooms? What was the what was the uh allure to doing that?

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Yeah, I just um honestly always grown up around agriculture and loved plant sciences and anything in that realm. And I just happened to see an article online about uh growing mushrooms at home. Um like I say, 10 years ago, this was just uh like you really didn't hear that much about mushrooms. So it was just so awestrucking. I was like, huh, like that's super unique. I want to give that a shot. And so what better way to do it as a project?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

So well, tell us how do you so how do you grow these mushrooms? Is it is it grown in a greenhouse? Do you plant in a field like you'd plant corn? What's that look like?

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Yeah, there's uh a lot of different uh ways you can go about it, some lower tech methods as well as like you know on a commercial scale. Really everything is done in a climate-controlled environment. Uh so we have our climate-controlled grow rooms, which we keep about 65 degrees, 60 to 65 degrees, and then like 80% relative humidity year-round. Um, that's kind of the goal. Um, most of the uh like 80% of the process is done under a sterile environment. So we have uh essentially an ISO class 5 equivalent of a lab room, uh uh positive pressured epifiltration, uh all of our substrate is sterilized so we don't get any competing organisms, mold, fungi, bacteria. When we're seeding the particular mushroom species that we want to grow, we want you know that main organism to grow and thrive throughout the entire process.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, so I gotta guess that it's a very a tough process to make sure you keep everything sterile and clean so it doesn't cross-contaminate and you're growing basically it's it's a moldy product, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yep, something like that, yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Is there any competing growers in the state of Idaho?

SPEAKER_02 6:50

There's a lot of people that come and go over the years. Um, like I've probably seen half a dozen growers just in the Treasure Valley in the last, you know, five or six years. Um I would say it's a big it's a big jump to go from a lot of people get into it as like a home grow, hobbyist grow, and then try to go commercial with it. And that's just a really difficult uh jump to make. Uh just some of the things you can get away with on a smaller scale, you can't get away with on a larger scale, just as your, you know, your volume of uh doing a couple little blocks a week to, you know, hundreds, if not thousands, of blocks a week. Uh just you gotta have the right, right systems to keep everything consistent. And uh that's the biggest thing, is like consistency. Uh we really have to do everything in the entire process. We're planting every week and harvesting every week, harvesting daily for that matter. Um it's uh 365 days a year uh production loop.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

How long what's the the growth cycle of a mushroom? You plant a mushroom today, when do you harvest it?

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, no, great question. So it drastically depends on the varieties. Some of our faster growers, oyster mushrooms, and lion's mane, from the time we're actually seeding those to fully mature harvestable mushrooms, you're looking at about four to six weeks. Some of our longer growing varieties like shiitake, mitake, more like four to six months, start to finish. Uh so there's quite a big difference depending on what variety you're growing.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Do you have to have these in separate rooms then, these different varieties?

SPEAKER_02 8:26

To some extent, we just have a couple of grow rooms currently. So thankfully most of the mushrooms will grow under the same general climate-controlled environments, you know, as we continue to grow. There are a few nuances between varieties where it would be beneficial to have, you know, a dedicated grow for one particular mushroom. But for the most part, we can get away with one, you know, grow room environment for everything. Through most of the process, I should say, they are grown out in this, so it's a sawdust-based block. It's an organic hardwood sawdust-based block, and we'll supplement it with an agri uh, like a nitrogen-rich agricultural byproduct. Usually like soybean holes or uh wheat bran are some of the two most common ones. Um, but primarily um it's this hard hardwood sawdust-based block. And uh it comes in these specialized substrate bags, bags of sawdust in. It will get sterilized, uh, and then we'll open it up in our sterile lab environment to be able to seed it with the particular mushroom root system, if you will. And then it gets sealed in this little uh 10-pound sawdust block. This bag has a little filter patch on it uh that allows for some gas exchange, um, but no contamination, like any mold spores to get into that bag while this particular species is growing out in there. So uh through, like I say, 75% of the process, they're growing in their own little microclimate of a bag, um completely sterile. Um then once that is fully grown out in this block is when they'll actually initiate it into fruiting to produce the fully mature mushroom that you actually see and eat.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Do you transfer that then into uh a regular soil or it still stays in that particulate that sawdust?

SPEAKER_02 10:13

It stays in that uh same block throughout the entire process. So uh those blocks will just basically change rooms, change uh growing room environments. So when we cut that bag open, it's the fresh oxygen and humidity of our grow chambers that will actually stimulate it to produce the mushroom itself on the fruiting body, and that will just get picked right off of that initial block and uh you know get distributed or go into processing for like a value-added product from there.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

So what how so how do you know what kind of nutrition you're getting into the plant from these blocks that you get?

SPEAKER_02 10:52

The mushrooms are pretty fascinating. So I wish there was more research out there, to be honest with you, as far as like you know, changing the soil complex versus the benefits of like the actual mushroom, but for the most part, uh the mushrooms are really good at manufacturing their own nutrition, if you will. Like it can be, you know, pretty much anything that's a carbon-based matter. Like you can grow them on cardboard, you can grow them on straw, you can grow them on hardwood sawdust. Um, you know, there's a lot of different types of material you can grow them on. Um, you know, just hardwood sawdust being kind of the most standardized uh just for yield uh and cleanliness and processing. But for the most part, mushrooms are very good at cleaning.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah. Well, now, do you have to have a little grow lights? Or I mean they're mushrooms, they just they grow in the dark. What's the story there?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah, yeah. So uh a lot of what we're growing, they do need a little bit of artificial or natural light. Um they can be natural or artificial, I should say. But yeah, mushrooms, the ones that we're growing, do need a little bit of light, uh despite you know, the normal superstition that mushrooms don't need light to grow. Um it is more of a they're not photosynthetic. They don't actually need it for the nutrition or anything, but it's more of a trigger to them. Uh the light light cycle is just kind of a natural fruiting trigger, so they know which way to grow. And uh yeah, it's uh you know less about the nutrients and more just about like a general trigger of fruiting, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

What's the typical day? I mean, to be a farmer with mushrooms, you you say 365 days you're growing and harvesting, so what's your what's your day like? Is it you're planting every day, you're cutting every day? What's that look like?

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Yeah, yeah. So it's definitely we kind of split it into a weekly cycle. So once a week, like we're uh making these fresh sawdust blocks, starts as like a loose sawdust, gets hydrated to the exact like 62, 63% moisture contents. We'll be loading these into our commercial sterilizer, sterilizing them, and uh usually that usually uh hyperheat those to about 180 to 200 degrees for eight to twelve hours to kill any competing uh microbes that might be in there, and then those get unloaded into our labour room to cool before we seed them. Uh so typically we can do about three hundred bags per batch. These are ten-pound blocks, so we're talking about three thousand.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

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SPEAKER_02 14:59

So uh that's not quite every day, but uh yeah, we're making essentially seeding new bags a couple of times a week. And then same thing, we're fast forward, you know, four to six weeks, depending on the variety. We have uh big back room that we call our incubation um room. That's just basically the all these bags that are racked, they're just on vertical grow racks um that are kind of like in their active growth phase, just like the root system growing through the bag, mushroom mycelium growing through the all the bags back there after they're seeded. So planting a couple times a week, and then we're fruiting the blocks that are ready to actually go into the grow room a couple of times a week. So those are getting rolled into the grow room. And then as far as the actual picking goes, pretty much every day. Uh like they'll picking times vary slightly. So it's like if we're fruiting blocks on Monday and Wednesday, it's we're still picking mushrooms pretty much every day. Mon Monday through Friday, uh, Monday through Saturday. Usually we'll do a hard pick on Friday before farmers markets, and we can get away uh with you know everybody's has Sunday off, so that's kind of like our our one day, I guess, that nobody's on the farm typically, but uh yeah, picking pretty much every single day. And then so I guess back in production, uh that's kind of what that looks like. Uh yeah, like say planting a couple times a week, fruiting a couple times a week, kicking daily, and then kind of the odds and ends of just like general maintenance, cleanliness is a big thing. So once a week we'll be completely getting a grow room, deep cleaning the entire thing before the new crop gets fruited. Um and then kind of what I most of my day-to-day is kind of spent on like the front end, the marketing, the deliveries, the sales. So we do a delivery route a couple times a week for the fresh mushrooms, and then farmers markets two or three days a week, depending on what time of year it is. Uh, we're just kind of getting into our slower season, but a lot of farmers market events.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

So this is about as intense. This is maybe more intense than being a dairy farmer, isn't it? You mean you gotta be there every day. You're it's like you're milking the cows three times a day almost.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Yeah, yeah. It's a just about.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

I mean, yeah, sometimes we pick two times a day, so maybe not quite as bad as Do you have to sneak some illegal migrants into the country to pick your mushrooms or uh No, no, haven't haven't had the resort to that yet.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

So that's a joke, of course.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

No, yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

But tell me, uh I mean, do you have a hard time keep I mean in this economy we've had a hard time, everyone's had a hard time keeping staff. Do you have a hard time how many employees do you have, and do you have a hard time keeping people working for you?

SPEAKER_02 17:42

It's uh yeah, by nature, uh we take advantage of a lot of part-time uh help for sure. Uh this year we've had like seven guys on payroll, I believe. So that kind of boils down to like a couple full-time positions, and then the rest is up to some part-time uh college kids or really whoever you can get that will fill in a couple times a day or a couple times a week for uh picking and just the odds and ends.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

So how many farmers markets do you go to? What farmers markets are you in?

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Yeah, throughout the summer, we usually do five to six a week. Um, and then kind of our off-season boiling down to just a couple of weeks. So starting in April through September is kind of that busy season, but we do Cobla Farmers Market, has a little Tuesday night markets. We do some Thursday night pop-ups, West Bench Farmers Market, and then a Kin Art House Bar does a first Thursdays event. We usually do those. Uh and then for Saturdays uh is our big day. Um we do Nampa, Eagle, Capital City, and Boise Farmers Market, all the same uh time frame on Saturday mornings.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

So holy smokes, you gotta really get the troops out there then. So that takes that takes a pretty good staff to do just those Saturday markets.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

For sure. Yeah. Yep, that's uh all hands-on deck day there.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Well, good thing you're young because you're working all the time. I can see it. What's been the what's been the biggest, the hardest part of your of running this business? Is it staff? Is it the growing environment? Is it educating consumers on here's why you need to buy these mushrooms?

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Boy, uh yeah, it's it's a balancing act of act of all of the above, I would say. You know, it's uh there's a lot of times I wonder why I got into, you know, food service, a probably one of the most difficult organization heavy, you know, business concepts you can get into, just because you're dealing with a highly perishable, fresh food product that needs to be, you know, uh picked and out of the out of the walk-in weekly. Like it's uh lots of turnaround and yeah, how long does it take by time?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

You pick it, you get it to the let's say you took it to the co-op or natural grocers or the farmer, whatever. How long before that mushroom needs to be consumed? What's the what's the t shelf life of the mushroom?

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah, yeah. So I mean I would say for most of them, up to a couple of weeks, like yeah, 14 to 10 to 14 days. Uh but you know, on our like we want to have most of that time frame be with the consumer. So for us, it's like we're picking, and it's pretty much out the door within two or three days, like um that it's actually in our hands.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

So you say you've got some restaurants buying from you. What you you grow quite, what kind of varieties do you grow?

SPEAKER_02 20:31

12 different varieties year-round. So the more basic ones, uh, people would now oyster mushrooms. We grow three or four different varieties of those year-rounds. So, like blue oysters, snow oysters, uh, then we have a couple tropical varieties we bring on through the summer season. Uh, pink oysters, golden oysters, uh, lion's mane is a big one. We grow a ton of lion's mane, shiitakes, chestnuts, piapinos, golden anoki, a little bit of uh turkey tail and raishi. Those are a little bit more specialty, black kings. I think that's about uh everything. Then we do some seasonal foraging too. We work with some direct foragers across the Pacific Northwest to do some seasonal forage varieties in the springtime. Morels are a big one, especially around Idaho here. Uh then, like right now through the fall season, we've got chanterels, lobster mushrooms, matsutaki. So yeah, always something new, it feels like.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

What so what's the uh well tell us about how okay? I you know, usually I you know I get the regular button mushrooms at the store and I chop those up, throw some butter. What what are some of the uh favorite mushrooms that people like to purchase? And do the taste change quite a bit or are they kind of similar?

SPEAKER_02 21:48

For sure. Yeah, you got all kinds of different flavors and textures with the different varieties. Lion's mane, I would say, is is one of the big ones nowadays for you know culinary uses as well as like uh you know functional. As a functional mushroom. As far as the flavor and texture, they're kind of a lobstery seafood flavor to them and texture. Kind of a sweet meat. That being said, they'll kind of take on the flavor of whatever you're doing. So I've seen recipes, everything from like an imitation crab cake to like chicken nuggets, like just a super versatile mushroom. Um, you got like shiitakis and king trumpets that are a little bit more stronger of a uh earthy umami flavor to them, a little bit more meaty. Oyster mushrooms are another classic. A lot of people love those just because they're so versatile. It's gonna be kind of more similar to your store-bought mushrooms, kind of a basic mushroom umami flavor to them. Chestnut mushrooms are probably one of my personal favorites out of everything we grow. They're like a nutty flavor, crisp texture to them. So it's kind of really unique flavor profile. Uh Pia Pinos, golden Anokis are gonna be pretty similar to that, kind of nutty, nuttiness, nutty flavor, crisp texture. And then as far as like you're getting into forage varieties, you got a lot more flavors and textures there.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

But what's the best way? Is there any specific ways that that you cook these up?

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Yeah, give us a tip there. As far as cooking, I mean I'm a pretty sweet and simple guy myself, so usually just a little bit loose chop them, a little butter, butter and garlic goes a long way. Uh so yeah, just a simple saute with a little butter and garlic is fantastic. Uh, but from there, I mean, you can do pretty much any mushroom recipe, soups, sauces, pasta, omelets. One of my favorite, just like quick 15-minute dishes is just like uh mushroom fettuccine pasta, like a cream sauce, mushroom fettuccine pasta. Um, like the mushroom isotto. Those are a couple classic, good, good ones.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Make me hungry now. Well tell tell me, lion's mane's course got a lot of tension for memory. Do does anybody buy your lion's mane and make them into uh you know go on the internet, you can buy a lion's mane tincture for for memory, or do you do you have people do that? Do they buy your mushrooms for tinctures?

SPEAKER_02 24:03

100%. Yeah, yeah. We have uh, you know, there's a couple local companies that get the fresh lion's mane and actually process them down to make their own tinctures or products, or shoot even just you know, eating them fresh, you do still get the benefits out of them. You know, it's a little hard, I would say, just to eat mushrooms that regularly, fresh mushrooms, that is. Uh, so that's why you see a lot of these functional products, whether it be a tincture or a coffee, just makes it a little bit more easy to incorporate in your daily lifestyle. Um, we actually make a mushroom cocoa mix that has lion's mane, greishe, chaga, trippy tail, cordyceps in it, which is kind of our biggest um, you know, functional mushroom forward product that we do in-house.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

I think that's the bag I've got. I'm I think I bought four bags for me the other day, so I'm stock for the winter. Okay, so you got to hole up. And we're in the gut business, we're in the healing business. Are any of these mushrooms really good for uh the gut?

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Yeah, yeah. I mean, lion's mane, uh sticking on that topic. Yeah, lion's mane is a really good one for uh digestive health as well. There's a lot of, I mean, really kind of that gauntlet dough. Um I think there's been some research done on like turkey tail chaga as well for uh gut health. Mushrooms have just a lot of natural dietary fiber in them. So yeah, there's uh I don't know too much on the exact nuances of the gut health, but I just know there has been a lot of beneficial research out there just uh on a lot of those. Actually, you'd probably know a decent bit about that. I don't know how much research you've done into the whole mushroom.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Well, not a ton, but I definitely do uh the combinations I've used personally for memory and and overall health has been a combination with the uh lion's mane and and and chocolate. I've I've used rishi in a pill form. I was telling you before the show, uh, crack spore rishi, FarmNet's developed years ago. They found that the Asians have been using Rishi mushrooms for cancer for years. And they have to dig it around the mushrooms and say, what's making this mushroom tick? What's the real key ingredient? What's the key thing? And they found out it wasn't just the mushroom, it was this tiny teeny spore. And if they could crack the spore open, that unleashed the body to produce NK and T cells. Those are your cancer fighting cancer fighters in the body. So the product is not not cheap, but uh it's very effective. So for boosting your immune system, we've been we've never been without our Rishi mushroom supplement down here at Living Waters. So yeah, and it's just interesting to see how much more oppressed it's getting for memory and dementia, our our rates of memory and dementia this country are way too high.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Do you find yeah, do you could would you find like if you're just gonna have a snack, you want to have some snacks, would you just chop up a bag of mushrooms and bring it to your office and just munch on it through the day, or do you want to cook a little bit first? Or which mushroom would you use as a snack?

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Kind of on that note, I I mean uh kind of what I tell everybody, even like a store-bought button mushroom, you want to make sure you're cooking them to get uh the majority of the benefits out of them, um, just because the cell wall of a mushroom itself, very whole uh made out of chitin, mostly uh chitin cell wall, which is very hard for bodies to naturally break down and digest. So some kind of uh cooking source, uh just a light saute, even, uh, will break down that chitin cell wall and allow you to get all the beneficial nutrients out of them. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

What are some of the key nutrients in in mushrooms? What what are they known for? Which vitamins and minerals?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah, yeah. So I mean uh most mushrooms pretty high in protein, um, hack filuria, daily antioxidants, vitamins, uh a big one is like the beta glucans. That's kind of like out of anything that they're standardizing down, is uh a lot of beta glucan content across a lot of different mushroom varieties. You got vitamin D is an interesting one. Mushrooms actually can convert and make their own vitamin D on uh contact with UV. Um so that's kind of an interesting um you know side point for outdoor grown mushrooms. Like a lot of people are picking their mushrooms, drying them under just natural sunlight to get that UV absorption and having a higher vitamin D content in the mushroom fruiting bodies.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

What about freeze-dried mushrooms? Do you do any of that processing? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Yeah, yeah. So we found uh freeze-drying to be one of the best ways to preserve um, you know, all the beneficial nutrients in the mushrooms. Just a conventional drying, usually done like higher heat, uh, it just is doesn't do as good of a job of preserving a lot of those delicate uh compounds. Lion's mane has a couple pom bones. You've got uh the horizonines and orisonines, brisanines and erissanines are kind of a tongue twister there, but there's a lot of uh unique mushroom compounds that if you're simply like freezing them or conventionally air drying them, um you lose a lot of those delicate compounds. So freeze drying, one of the best preservation methods out there as far as keeping that texture, flavor, nutritional values intact.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

So that's how we've When we bring these home, should should a guy you know waste these, clean them off, just go straight to cooking them? What's what's the best way to prep these mushrooms?

SPEAKER_02 29:16

For pretty much everything we grow, I it is grown in a sterile environment. So generally speaking, they're as clean as can be. Um you might see some like residual sawdust on them. So I usually recommend just take a little damp cloth, kind of wipe them off if you see any like resist residual sawdust on there. But for the most part, no washing necessary, and we just recommend cooking them, um, whether that be a light saute, you know, roasting them, whatever your preferred cooking method may be, uh is kind of most important thing. I I have customers that still eat them raw. Um, you know, this people would still like to eat the raw mushrooms. I would say that's more just from a flavor texture perspective. Personally, I'm not a big fan of raw mushrooms, but I know there's people that do it.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

How do we how do we buy we people listen to this podcast around the world, they want to get your mushrooms. How do they order from you?

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Yeah, so our website, Ferg's Fabulous Fungi.com. Uh, like I say, we do ship anywhere in the country. That would include our freeze-dried mushroom line or mushroom cocoa. We sell mushroom drilling kits. You can grow your own on your own kitchen counter. Those are a blast. And you know, probably more products to come. They do some seasoning blends and stuff as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

So there's a child someplace 10, 12 years old, a buddy entrepreneur. He can get his first mushroom kit and maybe he can become just like Ferg's fabulous fungi, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Yes, sir. Yeah. It's always a blast when I see inspiration of other kids coming up. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

How about for so uh I gotta say the your cocoa product, I mix it with my coffee. Uh, I love it. I've been drinking it nearly every day since I got it from you. So, what would be the biggest mistake that people make when they get their mushrooms in terms of prepping them for a meal?

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Yeah, uh I yeah, you know, as far as like fresh mushrooms or just any kind.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Yeah. Uh I would say number one is just like eating a raw mushroom. Again, you're not our uh bodies are really bad at digesting a raw mushroom cell wall. That chitin cell wall is just very hard to break down. So just some form of you know cooking is really beneficial to get those nutrients. Uh talking a little bit more on like our processing for the mushroom cocoa or a mushroom supplement, this gets kind of controversial depending on what kind of product it is. You know, talking whether it be a hot water extract versus a dual extraction method, and just like a whole argument between like mushroom fruiting body versus uh mycelium or duo products, uh, it's kind of very intensive. For everything that we do, we've kind of standardized it to fruiting body only. And we actually just do a hot water extract just because it's a more as far as current science goes, the beta glucan content is kind of the easiest thing to test. And so if you're mainly tracking the beta glucan content of just like a simple hot water extract, is one of the best ways to retain those beneficial beta glucans. And from there, we'll uh freeze dry it to preserve all of that. So you get end up with this concentrated, it's almost like a crystallate, um, but like a very concentrated freeze-dried mushroom extract powder. Again, that extraction step is very important. Um, like you'll see products on the market that's just, you know, lion's main mushroom powder, in which I've seen a lot of people just conventionally dehydrating a mushroom and throwing it in a blender and powdering it and making a capsule out of it. That's great. I just don't know that you're getting a whole lot of benefits out of it just because it's not really undergoing any form of processing. Like it's just uh for our bodies, it would just be really hard to break down that mushroom matter with any kind of uh without any kind of extraction process in there.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Interesting. Interesting. Do you see is is the market growing in the restaurant area for these mushrooms? Do you see that mushrooms the the the uh restaurants are getting a little more knowledgeable about prepping uh mushrooms for their clients?

SPEAKER_02 33:19

I would say so, yes. It's there's always ebbs and flows to it. Uh but just as a you know general consensus, uh people are you know eating more mushrooms, you know, learning more about the benefits of mushrooms and incorporating them more in the diet. So in terms of that, it's just the whole restaurant clientele is, I would say, slowly trending that direction uh as well. Just like you know, there's more than just the store-bought button mushrooms. So more people are starting to diversify their mushrooms.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Is there any mushrooms you can't cultivate? Like you said, some of the mushrooms that are foraged. Can you you create those in the in your warehouse?

SPEAKER_02 34:02

No, I mean there's still a lot of mushrooms undiscovered and uncultivatable. That what's that's what makes them, you know, more special. So like morel's that's actually an interesting one. There are a few outdoor cultivation techniques. People are kind of starting to crack the code a little bit on that one. Uh, but there's a lot of mushrooms that have a symbiotic relationship with native plant species, microorganisms.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

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SPEAKER_02 36:09

Such a unique relationship. You can't really recreate it in an in vitro environment. So yeah, there's a hand, plenty of mushrooms we cannot currently grow in our facility, nor any facility in the world. Morrels, chanterelles, lobster mushrooms, matsutaki, porchinis. I mean, the list goes on and on. Kind of a crazy statistic. Like there's uh don't quote me on this, but you know, you've got uh supposedly a couple million uh species of fungi, and out of those, there's only like 36,000 fruit body producing mushrooms. I think I messed that up. There's a couple million species of fungi, but only 30 or 40,000 of them are actually mushroom producing in terms of having a fully mature fruiting body. And out of those, you know, 30 some thousand, I think there's like a hundred, a little more than a hundred known edible varieties. And out of those, there's like thirty that are cultivatable. So very, very small percentage of the actual world of fungi is is uh discovered and actually cultivatable and edible. So pretty crazy that we're just barely scratching the surface on knowledge of fungi and mushrooms in general.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

What's the best way? I'd buy the mushrooms from you on Saturday. I'd take them home. What's the best way for me to store these mushrooms?

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Leave them on the counter, put them in the Yeah, just a paper sack in the fridge is one of the best ways I found. You know, a lot of people put them in plastic. I don't know why. Uh you know, if you're if you're putting a mushroom in plastic, you know, they're not breathing, and really they're just gonna they'll look good initially, but then they're just gonna hit this wall where they just turn to a soggy bag of goop, and that is not at all what you want. So yeah, paper sack in the fridge, really the only thing that's gonna happen. They might dry out a little bit naturally. Um, but as I've said before, um, you know, if it's dried mushroom, I you can still use it, you know, throw it in a soup or sauce, and it'll poof right back up and still be great.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

So is there anybody that should not be eating mushrooms? Have you heard is there any particular health conditions that a person should maybe yeah, mushrooms would probably not be the right thing for you at this time?

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Yeah, there's a couple diets out there that uh mushrooms aren't the most healthy for. One of the more interesting ones I've heard recently is actually like gout. I guess mushrooms can help contribute if you have like gout problems. That's a bummer. Gosh. There's a couple other ones that I'm spacing off the top of my head, but uh it's rare relatively rare, um, I would say, but there are a couple cases out there where mushrooms are recommended to stay out of your diet. Also, in line of that, again, pretty rare, but some people do have natural intolerances for mushrooms. And the super interesting thing, that can be like fully widespread or it can be isolated to a specific variety. So I have a couple of customers that can eat any mushroom uh except for like shiitakes, just because every mushroom kind of has its specific protein and amino acid makeup. And so, yeah, like say you can have every mushroom might be perfectly fine, but shiitakis might not settle well with you. So that's a very interesting use case.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

But that's fascinating. We teach people who come through a 10-day healing retreat, we teach them how to muscle test. So if there's a any I have we have them test for every product they put in their mouth, and I do that. There's been times where I thought, you know, I don't know if a mushroom is gonna be so good for me. Uh I think maybe there might be some people, especially if they're dealing with some mold, maybe some heavy candida yeast, possibly. But again, I would say muscle test, you'd be surprised, you might be perfect for you. It might not be. Um, and I think you're right. We've we plastic we put plastic in everything, and that's gonna make that mushroom deteriorate pretty fast, as you said. Yeah, silly humans. We do some crazy things. What would be uh, you know, I'm new to the mushroom thing. I'm gonna come down to the farmer's market and I'm gonna say to you, give me, tell me, give me two of your best ones, and how do I go home and cook those up? And what would you recommend to me?

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Yeah, as intimidating as they might be, uh, we do a kind of a mutt-mixed mushroom variety pack. Uh that's our number one bestseller. Gosh, you really can't go wrong. I mean, just take them all home. What of a uh assorted mix you get? Loose chop them about a fourth of an inch thick and saute them up with a little butter and garlic if you like it. Uh or olive oil, yeah, whatever, whatever oil like you like. But uh yeah, just a simple saute, little butter, garlic, olive oil that kind of allows you to get the most natural flavor and benefits. So awesome.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Well, it's interesting. I didn't know about the freeze-buying part. So that was a new one for me on mushrooms. And uh so yeah, I've got a I guess I've gotta bust out of my bubble here and try something a little different on these mushrooms.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

Yeah, that's uh there's a lot of education that's going into that product line just because there's a lot of people that just are have no idea the you know benefits of freeze-dried mushrooms or just why they're so useful. You know, talking a lot about like the shelf life, such a pain. Like, go down and buy fresh mushrooms every week, or you're gonna have, you know, dried mushrooms, like it's just you know, kind of a pain to go buy fresh mushrooms weekly to have fresh mushrooms. But freeze-dried are just so good because again, all the things I talked about before, but just uh nutritionally uh flavor, texture. I mean, it's the closest thing you can get to a fresh mushroom. Biggest thing is like with a conventional dried mushroom, you get usually like a weird texture, like where you're having to soak them for 10 to 15 minutes uh just to get kind of a reconstituted mushroom. Nobody wants to wait for 15 minutes just before they can even cook with. So freeze-dried or crazy, they reconstitute instantly. Like you can just add them straight into whatever dish you're cooking, whether it be you know, soup, sauce, pasta.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

I can take them on my I can take them on my backpacking trip or on my uh dirt bike when I go on a long ride, huh? And have a little bit of some mushrooms from my running.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

Yeah, yeah. Don't have to worry about refrigeration, supposedly the last 25 years. Wouldn't expect them to keep or you know, expect you to keep them that long, but 25 years, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

That's absolutely amazing. What has been you know, growing these mushrooms, not only from a business standpoint, but from a health standpoint, have you had people come back to you and say, you know, I've been eating this particular mushroom and it did XYZ for me? Have do you have any of those stories? Gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Uh I would say all the time. I mean, I uh hard to pick out specific circumstance, but yeah, there's there's a lot of believers out there for sure. I mean, uh just incorporating them in your daily diet, uh, especially with like the mushroom cocoa mix that we make, uh, just for like general, you know, cognitive function. So like, yeah, the lions mainly put in there, has a lot of supposed benefits of cognitive function, mental clarity, cordyceps is kind of a natural energy booster, similar to caffeine, but you don't get the jitters or the crash. So a lot of people come back like kind of trying to get away from coffee and like, man, this is just amazing. Like, um, you know, gets me going. I just uh don't get the crash. Just kind of a more natural energy.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Yeah, I felt like didn't do the best job at explaining that.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

There's there's you have one called cordyceps, right? Yes, yes. So cordycepsis, there's different strains, as I believe, correct?

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Yes, yes, correct. So uh ours is like cordyceps militaris, it's kind of the main one that's uh cultivatable. The cordyceps nensis is natural. Found in the Himalayas growing on a on a caterpillar. So they're like pretty rare. I mean, if you can find a true cordycepsinescence, like they're usually hundreds, if not thousands of people.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Yeah, I got a great story about cordycepsinensis. So the company that I was repping for years ago, so going back, the this rare plant, cordycepsinensis, they noticed that when their yaks ate it, they got frisky. And so it was very you the the kings and and or whoever ran China says, okay, this is only reserved for you know our family. This is very rare, very hard to grow. Well, they figured out how to grow it in a laboratory. I think sometime in the 60s. In the 1992 at the Olympics, the Chinese swimmers kicked butt. They they outswam everyone and they were accused of doping. Well, cordycepsinensis increases your lung function 9%, so they were able to carry more oxygen, right? And swim faster. And so that became known as the Cordy Cordy Max with this with this company. And we started using it, especially anybody who had lung issues. Cordycepsinensis. But yes, it was the rare, the the natural plant, very rare. It's worth more than its weight in gold, which of course gold's pretty expensive today. But you they did figure out how to replicate it. And uh I've noticed I've had a lot of people over the years love that product, especially maybe with lung issues, benefited, and also just uh kind of a natural energy boost as well, and maybe a little more frisky as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Yeah, yeah, no, that's very cool.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Yeah. I know the I know that I uh that'd be interesting, like the species to species connection. But yeah, the the main mainstream one in America right now is uh cordyceps militaris, uh, as far as my understanding, a lot of the same benefits, but that one was just it's it's a lot more, I guess it's just like easier to grow because you don't have to have a native caterpillar, like you can grow it just on a like a rice grain-based substrate. But again, you get the still contains the active benefit. Cortyceptin um is one of the main active uh compounds that you get out of uh cordyceps, where again you still get that.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Yeah, that's wild the caterpillar thing. I forg I kind of forgot about that, but yeah, that's that's accurate. That it's just the darndest thing. You know, nature and the way God made a lot of these products is so amazing. And that's definitely one of them for the books for sure. Mind-blowing. Yep. Awesome. Well, you know what? Any last-minute tips you want to share with your audience? And again, share with us your website, how we get a hold of you, which which farmers markets you're still at.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

Josh, yeah, I feel like you're pretty uh pretty in-depth there with the questions. Uh yeah, not uh much else I can think of here. But yeah, again, uh my name is Brody Ferguson, Ferg's Fabulous Fungi. We've got a website, Ferg's Fabulous Fungi.com, ship anywhere in the country. All of our value-added products live here local in the Treasure Valley area. Um we do fresh mushroom service, wholesale mushrooms, um, and then lots of farmers markets where you can come out and get our product in person.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

So not only that, but I understand the Boise uh farmers market, for those people living within Boise proper, they'll deliver the whatever produce you buy from the farmers market directly to your door, which is quite an amazing thing.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Yeah, yeah. Yep. Lots of great programs there. Uh yeah, we got our mobile market that travels around weekly on with a bunch of different stops and then uh uh drive-through markets. You can either come pick up or for a small extra fee delivered anywhere in the Boise area.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

I suppose if uh if we go on your website, you probably have a list of where you're gonna be. And so people want to march down to that market, they can grab it.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

Yep, yep. We try to update that on the website and social medias. So we've got Facebook and Instagram as well. Oh, I should should have mentioned uh so we've been trying to do a lot of recipes. Uh, you're asking a lot on you know how to cook mushrooms. That's one big thing we've been trying to do this year uh is cooking content. So we try to upload uh two or three recipes a month, and that gets uploaded on our blog, on our website, just as a recipe blog. So a lot of fun, inspirational mushroom cooking recipes on there.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

So fantastic. So, folks, if you're listening, there's no reason for you not to go out and try these wild-looking mushrooms that you won't find in a big box store, by the way. Very unique. Well, young man, I'm uh hats off to you for what you've done and what you've accomplished a young age, having been unemployed permanently since 1981. I know what it takes to stay permanently employed and still still stay on earth. Hats off to you, my friend, especially a product like this where you're continually having to harvest it and uh and and be there and and and very it's not an easy product to grow. So hats off to you.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Appreciate it, David.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

Yeah, truly appreciate your support. Yeah. All right, my friends. Uh do share this video. There's a lot of people who could benefit from knowing about the proper way to use mushrooms, what to look for. I think we answered all those questions there. And if not, you can go to his website at Ferg's Fabulous Fungi.com and get that information. So do share it. And uh until next week, have a blessed week, my friends.