Mycopreneur

Today on the pod we’ve got Danielle Ryan Broida, a classically trained herbalist and highly engaging raconteur who’s also the National Educator for a little mycopreneurial venture called Four Sigmatic.She's going to be educating us today about some of the pinning developments and innovations coming out of the Four Sigmatic laboratories - which in reality, are actually reimaginations and recontextualizations of ancestral knowledge and wisdom centered around leveraging fungi.What kind of mycopreneurial innovations slash reimaginations are we talking about here? Well how about mushroom-based edible skin care products that can double as a creamer in your Lions Mane coffee? Whaaaaat?!Danielle will also share some of her best practices for polysaccharide extraction and the process of medicinal mushroom tincture production, as well as home fungi cultivation -- we’re also exploring the intersection of consumer habits and the global supply chain, Four Sigmatic business ethos, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alex Dorr is the Founder and CEO of Mushroom Revival, one of the quintessential purveyors of premium quality functional mushroom products the world over. He is also the host of the #1 mushroom podcast in the world, called - wait for it - Mushroom Revival.And above and beyond all that, Alex is just a solid dude who is obsessed with the power of cordyceps and mushrooms in general.Alex has all kinds of mushroom juju and creative energies afloat, educating the world about the power and the efficacy of fruiting body tinctures and planting a tree for every single product sold -- more than 45,000 trees to date. Alex has a goal of planting one million trees via Mushroom Revival and their commitment to reforestation. I can also say Alex has been extremely supportive of the Mycopreneur Podcast and completely earnest in his willingness to support our own little corner of the mushroom universe here, and that means the world to us.Today we’re going to talk about his entre into the world of mushrooms, we’re talking mycoremediation and it’s vast potential (and also it’s practical limitations), we’re talking the science of cordyceps, we’re talking how he scaled mushroom revival, we’re talking transparency in business culture, a little bit of mushroom history, and a lot more juicy morels of mycopreneial wisdom and demystification. Please subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts! Hit us up on Instagram or YouTube and let us know who we should tap in with next! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Wyeth is an emotional wellness and spiritual life coach from New York City.He’s also an extraordinary songwriter and musician who has scaled the heights of the music industry, having played sold out shows from Tokyo to New York, From Sydney to Paris, and hundreds of cities In between while on tour with the band Hockey, which he founded and fronted for around a decade.( Ben sound bite)I personally saw Hockey at Coachella in 2010, and I still consider Ben’s performance to be one of the most impressive live vocal performances I’ve ever seen — Between 2009 and 2010, Ben became a fixture on the worlds worlds biggest stages, from major festivals like Glastonbury , Bonaroo, and Lolapalooza to sold out stadium concerts across Europe and the United States with major pop acts like Pink and Portugal the Man, to late night television performances on the Jools Holland show and Spin Magazine.As the relentless international touring, high stakes pressures of life in the spotlight, and the bands meteoric musical successes gradually gave way to Ben’s plummeting sense of confidence and self-worth, he unintentionally threw it all away. In the years since, he spent the better part of the last decade lost and searching for himself, and in doing so has undergone a profound personal and spiritual transformation.Today Ben is going to walk us through some of the insights he has gleaned from it all, with a special focus on strategies for living in the here and now, tapping into the flow state, and nourishing our innate creativity and emotional wellness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fungi Solutions Website: https://www.fungisolutions.com.auMycommunity Applied Mycology Lab -  https://myco.org.au/ This organization is a fantastic hub for community cultivators and great place for beginners to learn the ropes. They also conduct fantastic environmental conservation and citizen science projects. The Circle Awards - https://thecircleawards.com/anz/2021Link to vote in the People's Choice Award - https://bit.ly/3oiDbbuIn this episode we connect with Amanda Morglund, co-founder of Fungi Solutions. Fungi Solutions is a mycocycling and mycomaterials outfit based out of Melbourne, Australia.Amanda has an extensive background in biomaterials design and prototyping, including in the fashion industry where she pioneered a process called "Mycotailoring", which leverages the adaptive capabilities of fungi to create new mycelium-composite fabrics out of discarded textiles.This same principle of environmental remediation and transformation is the guiding ethos of Fungi Solutions - With fungi, landfill refuse and discarded resources can be broken down and rebuilt into circular packaging solutions and other useful products while capturing Carbon Dioxide, instead of emitting it.Today Amanda is going to walk us through some of the exciting research and development that is in full swing at the Fungi Solutions HQ, including their collaboration with an Australian charity to mycoremediate the environmental damage caused by the more than 7 billion cigarette butts that are discarded annually across the Australian continent.We’re also going to hear about the mycelium-composite modular acoustic treatment blocks that Fungi Solutions is outfitting recording studios and media production facilities with, as well as their goal to create clean social spaces with bio design.These are just a few of the impressive range of Fungi Solutions that we’re going to dive into on the 15th episode of Mycopreneur Podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laboratory chemist and fungi fanatic David Poplin joins us on the pod today to talk about the High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Process, the science of solvents and fungi extracts, mushroom genetics, and the bigger picture of citizen science and community service through the lens of mushroom cultivation and distribution. We also explore the intersection of music and psychedelic mushrooms, speaking about our personal experiences and adventures in the world of music production and performance on small doses of psilocybin mushrooms.David is of the most genuine, humble and intelligent humans you’re going to come across in this crazy world. He also happens to be a classically trained laboratory scientist with a diligent understanding of all aspects of mushroom and cannabis cultivation. He embodied everything a mycopreneur can be; community and service minded, resourceful, and always working towards answering his the mushrooms call for him to "be a better person". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's episode we’re honored to host the scintillating yet unassuming Doug Bierend, mycophile and independent journalist extraordinaire. Doug has written with a special interest in science, technology, visual and interactive media, food, sustainability and general subversiveness, for platforms like Wired, Vice, Outside Magazine, and many more.Doug has also recently been minted a first time author via his sensational debut book titled "In Search of Mycotopia: Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and The Untapped Potential of Mushrooms"In the book, which should be required reading for all mycopreneurs, Doug profiles how the emerging mycological vanguard is exploring, innovating and advocating for fungi’s capacity to remediate contaminated landscapes and waterways, provide food and medicine, and demonstrate how humans might live in equitable and sustainable accord with nature, and with one another.This is a book that for me, like any great work, inspires more questions than it answers - the extraordinary amount of fungi-related innovation, research, development, and corporatization currently happening poses challenging and nuanced, open-ended questions regarding the ethics of patenting and profiting from mushroom technology and indigenous intellectual property.Is there a sweet spot between anarchomycology, which is a term Doug will shortly unpack for us, and the filthy money tech bro fungi capitalist practices demonstrated in the recent patent grabs and billion dollar IPO’s we’ve seen in the space?Who is represented at the table and in the corporate board rooms when the fungi pie is being divided into market shares?Who decides what effective mycoremediation practices look like, and is the urge to solve climate related problems with fungi innovation really just white savior complex and Neo-colonialism masked in eco-altruism?And perhaps most importantly, how do we know that the virtuosic guitar playing showcased on Doug’s Instagram is actually Doug playing, and not some kind of black magic deep fake technology?"Mycotopia is already all around us" - Doug Bierend Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joshua English of okom wrks labs is a regenerative materials researcher and designer who has developed the strongest mycelium composite on the planet. What does this mean, exactly?Well, it means harnessing the self-replicating wonders of mycelium in order to create 1:1 replacements for materials that have historically led to deforestation.It means building houses, furniture, boat hulls and even spaceship hulls out of mushroom mycelium instead of the increasingly rare tropical hardwoods, toxic industrial wares, etc. that are currently employed.Joshua has pioneered a patent-pending mycelium based biocomposite called 'zerø-frm' with structural, load bearing properties…a monumental leap forward in the field, to say the least.zerø-frm uses low-tech means of creating load-bearing, structural components from 3 simple ingredients: mycelium, hemp hurd, and organic cotton.I ask Joshua if it is a pie in the sky fantasy to imagine a future where the world is quite literally made out of mycelium - you paddle your mycelium-composite canoe down the canal, disembark and walk up your mycelium dock into your cozy little okom-wrks zerø-frm structural insulated panel derived cabin, and lay down on your mycelium bed to dream of sweet little birds singing in joyful harmony!Spoiler alert - No, it’s not a fantasy world we’re talking about here, it’s the future of regenerative design.As Joshua himself states, “Science fiction always drives science." The potential impact of this kind of revolutionary and truly regenerative building material cannot be overstated.In this episode we touch upon Joshua's adventures in the world of mycelium-based biocomposite design, the future of regenerative building materials, the need for regional and circular economies, and other key players in the world of mycelium-design including Ecovative and MycoWorks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Darren Springer is an expert on Pan African and African Diaspora legacies and traditions, especially when it comes to their initiatory and ceremonial rites.Darren travels the globe providing insight into the legacy of mushroom use and other entheogenic technologies in Sub-Saharan and Kemetic Africa, Kemet being the native name of Ancient Egypt.This collective tradition of ritualized psychedelic use and advanced technology in ancient Pan African society is fundamental to the human race yet largely overlooked by conventional scholars and historians for reasons Darren will elaborate on in this episode - Ancient African entheogenic traditions are the well from which Abrahamic religion has drawn it’s own mythology and sacramental practices - the mysteries of Isis in ancient Kemet are the basis for the Eulysinian mysteries of the Greco-roman world, in which a Eucharist is consumed to facilitate communion with the divine - Sound familiar? We’re also going to touch base about the equity gap in psychedelics and how mushrooms and psychedelic experiences can serve as a lens through which to examine the wounds of colonization and to marshal a collective response to historical injustices and the extraction-oriented , violence-plagued state of the modern world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gary Heferle and his wife Addie run Fresh From The Farm Fungi LLC out of their home and have mastered the art of cultivating dozens of different rare and exotic fungi including Cordyceps Militaris, Lions Mane, Bears Head, Chestnut, Pioppini, Shiitake, and over a dozen more varieties - Gary breaks down cutting innovations in the mushroom cultivation industry, including his current experiments cultivating wild mushrooms that have thus far largely eluded the grasp of commercial cultivation. We also dive into nascent opportunities for the hemp industry and the mushroom industry to link up and double down on closing the environmental loop together.Gary was a full-fledged member of the corporatocracy working in a lab environment for a number of years before fully dedicating himself to the mycopreneurial venture that is Fresh From The Farm Fungi, so we’re also going to pick his brain about the how and the why and the when of fully committing oneself to being a mycopreneur. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Zach Kiser is a mushroom cultivator and educator who is the founder of Mushroom Cult.Mushroom Cult is a Denver, Colorado based Mushroom Cultivation and Education outfit which has been connecting people with "First Principles" of mushroom cultivation for several years as an established business. Zach conducts online and in-person cultivation seminars and is passionate about bridging the gap between home cultivation knowledge and people with non-laboratory or scientific backgrounds.In this episode, we touch on the origins of Mushroom Cult, innovation in home mushroom cultivation technology, the importance of cataloguing the genetics of wild mushrooms, the equity gap in mushroom cultivation and education, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.