Gratitude Revealed

Big Sur Foragers Festival – Visual Healing, Gratitude & Fungi

Gratitude, Fungi & Visual Healing Does this look like fun or what? Last week, Louie was honored to be asked to speak at the Big Sur Foragers Festival at Post Ranch. As you can see, Big Sur is a magical place along the coastline of California. This was the setting for Louie to share his […]

Confronting the Shadow

The general public may be waking up, once again, to the healing and restorative power of plant medicine, thanks in part to “psychonaut” pioneers, like James Jesso, who push the social and cultural boundaries around the topic of psychedelics, hallucinogens and entheogens.

Healthy, Happy Soil with Mycorrhizal

hile mycelium wears a lot of hats, it has one primary job – to turn everything into soil, and then to feed the plants and trees that surround it. With an amazing intelligence, it’s wraps its mycelium filaments – called hyphae – around the roots of plants and trees. Fungal hyphae and plant roots working […]

Louie Schwartzberg

Fungi-Inspired Ideas for Global Wellness Day 2015

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number one health problem in the world is surprisingly not a virus or a disease – it is depression — which is linked to insomnia, stress, weight gain and a trickle-effect of other symptoms that can spiral into disease. WHO also reports that there are 1.6 billion […]

Fantastic Fungi

Make Better Meals From Scraps

Are you throwing away your broccoli stems and peach pits? Food writer, cookbook author and Fantastic Fungi Tribe Member Eugenia Bone says don’t. In her new book, “The Kitchen Ecosystem,” she writes that foods we normally throw away, such as leftover bones, pea pods or beet juice, can be used to enhance the flavor of […]

Fantastic Fungi Film

Coming Shroom: The Fantastic Fungi Kickstarter Campaign

Dear beloved fungal friends, It’s finally here. The scientifically sound, environmentally critical, consciousness-expanding, crowd-pleasing crowdfunding campaign to end all campaigns. We’re going to make a film about mushrooms and it’s going to blow your mind.

Fantastic Fungi

Sunshine on my mushrooms makes me happy

Louie Schwartzberg has been a fervent crusader in the fight against Nature Deficit Disorder. If you follow his company, Moving Art, then you may recognize his recent campaign hashtag: #BeatNDD, the slogan used to bring awareness to the mental and physical health benefits of nature. Science is proving what experience has shown us all along: […]

Simon G. Powell

Natural Intelligence: An Excerpt from Magic Mushroom Explorer by Simon G. Powell

Wild psilocybinetic treks undoubtedly inspired my ideas about the nature of the world. Indeed, they led to what I call the “natural intelligence paradigm,” which has become a major part of my work. Such wilderness voyages can be contrasted with Terence McKenna’s advice that the mushroom be consumed in the safety of one’s own home […]

psychedelic

Trip or Treatment? by Michael Pollan

Excerpt from The Trip Treatment Michael Pollan’s recent article in The New Yorker. On an April Monday in 2010, Patrick Mettes, a fifty-four-year-old television news director being treated for a cancer of the bile ducts, read an article on the front page of the Times that would change his death. His diagnosis had come three […]

Gratitude Revealed

Foraging the fragrant Matsutake, By Constance Green

This legendary mushroom is probably the greatest barely explored ingredient in the kitchens of western culture. In terms of preciousness, dollars, and demand; only Italian white and Perigord truffles surpass it in the world. The face of any Japanese person to whom I’ve handed a matsutake always looks much like ours when we got our […]

Paul Stamets’ Report from Underground – Save the Bees

Protecting Endangered Bees Mycologist, Tribe member and founder of Fungi Perfecti, Paul Stamets, recently revealed a breakthrough discovery that has the potential to change -and heal- our ecosystem. He proposes that there is a missing link that can dramatically influence bee health, and it’s right under our feet. Yes, it’s mycelium.

Mushroom Diet

Meal Planning with Mushrooms, by Eugenia Bone

Since my children were born I have put on a couple of pounds every few years and every time it happens, I get uptight about it. Over the years I’ve tried tweaking my eating habits in order to lose the weight without heartbreak. In fact, every New Year’s resolution includes something about losing those extra […]

Fantastic Fungi Truffle Trade

Inside the Truffle Trade

f you’ve ever felt like you’ve been skunked buying truffles, well, you are not alone. Serious home cooks and even food pros get bamboozled all the time. It’s actually pretty difficult and always expensive to attain good quality truffles, especially for retail customers. In fact, acquiring truffles is so fraught with potential rip offs that […]

Fantastic Fungi Tribe Member Christine Fischer

Discovering the World’s Best-Kept Black Truffle Secrets

Ten years ago most people thought “truffles” were dense, dark chocolate balls that we indulged in for dessert. Looks like this is changing. Culinary enthusiasts have discovered that true truffles come from the earth. And though dense and dark chocolate-y in appearance, their aromas will defy any singular description.

Let It Snow

We may be biased, but we think our fantastic fungi community (that’s you!) is the most intelligent, engaged, clever and hilarious crew on the interwebs. We’ve so enjoyed getting to know you, learn from you, listen to you and share our common love for all things fungi. We love how game you are for even […]

Fungal Art

here are only a handful of debates that have persisted through the ages. Which rock band was better, the Beatles or the Stones? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? While we’re divided on the first two, here at Fantastic Fungi, we are in unanimous […]

Dr. Weil Fantastic Fungi

The Skin-Saving Miracle of Mushrooms

Tribe Member Dr. Andrew Weil knows a thing or two about the ‘shroom. A long time mushroom hunter, Dr. Weil incorporates them into his holistic lifestyle for their immune-boosting, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits. While eating edible mushrooms is the most common way reap their many rewards, Dr. Weil shares that certain mushrooms offer significant anti-inflammatory benefits […]