In this episode we chat with Alex Dorr. Alex has a wealth of knowledge of all things fungi. He is cohost of the Mushroom Revival Podcast and creator of fungi supplements that you can find at his website link below.
For more about info on Alex, his products which you can get 15% off of by entering the promo code SUITCASE , all capitol letters and to learn more about his excellent podcast go to:
https://www.mushroomrevival.com
www.thepsychedelicsuitcase.com
https://www.facebook.com/thepsychedelicsuitcase/
https://www.instagram.com/psychedelic_suitcase
Email: thepsychedelicsuitcase@gmail.com
In this episode we chat with Alex Dorr. Alex has a wealth of knowledge of all things fungi. He is cohost of the Mushroom Revival Podcast and creator of fungi supplements that you can find at his website link below.
For more about info on Alex, his products which you can get 15% off of by entering the promo code SUITCASE , all capitol letters and to learn more about his excellent podcast go to:
https://www.mushroomrevival.com
www.thepsychedelicsuitcase.com
https://www.facebook.com/thepsychedelicsuitcase/
https://www.instagram.com/psychedelic_suitcase
Email: thepsychedelicsuitcase@gmail.com
Welcome to The Psychedelic Suitcase, It’s good to back chatting with you. We took a bit of a hiatus recently to recharge the batteries and I think it worked. While we were away we spent the summer in Nova Scotia, there is an episode coming soon that will touch on what we did and who we met over the summer. But for now we are in Ontario and it’s wintertime. Before the snow started to fall we took advantage of the long fall and would go out mushroom foraging. More than previous years it seems like they were everywhere this year. Check out our instagram page to see what I’m taking about. Depending on where you live of course we highly recommend heading out and exploring your local forest.
With that in mind, we thought who better to talk about mushrooms and fungi than Alex Dorr. Alex’s company mushroomrevival.com provides customers with herbal supplements created from functional mushrooms that improve energy, focus and others that help you relax. If you listen to the full show there is a discount code for 15% off the supplements. Where you may know Alex from is the mushroom revival podcast, which is the number one podcast when it comes to all things fungi. Alex is also the author of The Mycoremediation Handbook: Grassroots Guide to Cultivating Mushrooms and Cleaning Up Toxic Waste with Fungi. In the talk your about to hear we discuss a variety of Fungi related topics including the growing mainstream popularity of psychedelic mushrooms, the benefits of all different types of functional mushroom, their benefits to not only our health but to the planet. How to start growing your own and where to find out how to do all that and what he sees as the future of mushroom consumption and use.
Our guest today,Alex Dorr, knows better than most what mushrooms have to offer. But when did the journey begin?
It was a natural pull for Alex but his first experience was with psychedelic mushrooms in college, after consuming a Solo cup of mushrooms it wasn’t a smooth entrance into psychedelic mushrooms. After that night he never went back to the pharmaceuticals he had been on and it helped him quit smoking and ultimately making better life decisions. He soon realized the potential for other fungi, how fungi can break down cigarette butts, he learned about a variety of different mushrooms including Cordyceps which grow out of the heads of insects and zombify them. He learned that mushrooms could help clean up the environment so he dove in creating supplements, a podcast which is the number one Fungi podcast going and to champion the cause of fungi quit possibly saving the world.
To say mushrooms have been around for a while is an understatement . By all accounts they predated trees and plantlife and share more similarities in their dna to humans than they do with plants. The fungi living on the forest floors use enzymes to break down fallen trees, plants, and dead leaves and convert the decomposed material into energy and nutrients that plantlife can use. And how they deliver those nutrients they create a network underground, its called the mycelium network and its a way that helps trees and plants share resources. For those of you that don’t know a good example would be this if there are a group of trees and one of the trees isn’t as healthy as the others the healthy trees will send the needed nutrients to the ailing tree. And they use this mycelium network to do it. And we haven’t even mentioned their therapulic, psychedelic and environmental impact. The uses and benefits of mushrooms and fungi are almost too many to list.
Anyone who has experienced a psychedelic mushroom trip is bound to question their intent, their guidance. I asked Alex his thoughts on whether there could possibly be a consciousness that we are tapping into, his answer was pretty clear.
Made me wonder if Alex thought mushrooms had an intelligence or were trying to communicate something to us. “NO”, Alex answered, we developed ability to use psilocybin. But can we learn from intelligence of nature? Examples of fungi thriving. How do we learn from them?
Functional mushrooms, 3 main types, Immune system energy focus, reishi- calmness, cordyceps energy, lions mane brain, memory.
There is always a challenge to learn about mushrooms, not a rich culture in North America. A narrow view of mushrooms in North America, still lots to learn from what Alex calls YouTube university. Check for local mushroom farms where you can find used mushroom blocks for cheap if not free. Or find a grow kit which will walk you through the whole process.
Alex has seen an improvement in his own personal health. Not only from his mental health concerns but also in his energy level.
Alex’s book The Mycoremediation Handbook: Grassroots Guide to Cultivating Mushrooms and Cleaning Up Toxic Waste with Fungi was written as a way of putting all this information in one place and making it available to everyone. It is available free if you the support on Alex’s website.
Alex’s podcast The Mushroom Revival Podcast aims to educate and entertain, through that and their supplement business Alex and his team have been able to use a portion of their profits to plant over 45,000 trees.
Big business always seems to want to cash in on the next big thing and Psychedelics seems to be going down that road, Alex see’s their interest as possibly positive, as a way of reaching more people. The goal is to make it available for all people. He see’s it going down a similar road as marijuana where people will be able to discover different strains that give different results, depending on what you are looking for.
With functional mushrooms Alex is hoping that they become a daily habit for people to support their health and wellness. If you head on over to Alex’s site(Link Below) you can use the promo code SUITCASE to receive 15% off of the functional mushrooms Alex has to offer.
https://www.mushroomrevival.com
Not only can mushrooms help your overall health but they can benefit the planet too, Alex discusses this and more in his book the Mycoremediation Handbook: Grassroots Guide to Cultivating Mushrooms and Cleaning Up Toxic Waste with Fungi. Its a great resource if you want to learn how fungi can break down waste on both large and small scale environments. I was curious to hear who Alex had in mind when writing this book.
If you haven’t heard Alex on the Mushroom Revival podcast you should definitely check it out.Alex and his cohost strive to get the information out there as sometimes it’s hard to find.
One of the concerns people have with the growing popularity of mushrooms, specifically psychedelic mushrooms is that rather than it growing through a grass roots network of people looking to take control of their own wellbeing is that big business will try and find its way in and takeover what some feel is a natural and sometimes free commodity. For Alexs take we have to go back to the beginning.
At Mushroom revival . Com Alex is offering a variety of functional mushrooms, as we wind up our conversation here he talks about what to expect if you head over to his website and has some thoughts on what could be possible if more of us take a close look at what fungi has to offer
And on that note our conversation wrapped up. For more about info on Alex, his products which you can get 15% off of by entering the promo code SUITCASE , all capitol letters and to learn more about his excellent podcast go to mushroom revival .com. I’ll put a link in the show notes.
Thanks for listening.
The psychedelic suitcase is produced by Carolyn Myers and myself your host Dave McNee
Join us again as we unpack more of the psychedelic suitcase.
https://www.mushroomrevival.com