The Magic Power of Mushrooms in Enhancing Immune Function, Lowering Stress & Optimising Hormones with Simon Salter, Co-founder o

7:55AM Jul 26, 2022

Speakers:

Angela Foster

Intro

Simon Salter

Keywords:

mushrooms

fungi

people

chaga

mane

incredible

studies

lion

brother

quadriceps

amazing

add

capacity

compounds

reishi

community

breathwork

anxiety

nice

experience

Just steep into these mushrooms, they really do perform like incredible kind of benefits.

Welcome to the high performance health podcast with your host Angela Foster. The show where we talk about everything you need to break through limits and achieve a high performance, mind, body and lifestyle.

Hi friends, we're gonna be diving into mushrooms today. longtime listeners of this podcast will know that I love mushrooms, like Chaga and Reishi. before bedtime, I take quarter steps to enhance my workouts. And I also love to have Lion's Mane in the morning. And it's a fact a fantastic substitute for coffee. If you don't have extra caffeine just to keep you awake. It's been shown to help him enhance nerve growth factor in the brain. So this is good news, right. But lots of things you probably don't know about mushrooms and certainly things I didn't know about mushrooms until I sat down with Mr. Simon Salter, who is the co founder of Dietea. they make ultra pure powdered mushrooms that you can just scoop into your shakes or make a nice hot drink in the morning, the evening in fact throughout the day for different purposes. And in this episode, we're diving into what type of mushrooms you should be using, and when, what the effects are on your immune system, which I think we'll all be needing more often now that COVID seems to be on the rise again. Also, interestingly, how they can affect female hormone health, and how they can really modulate the HPA axis and reduce stress. So this is a fantastic episode. I'm so excited to introduce you to Simon. So without further delay, let me do that now. So Simon, we could I think just chat for hours, we were chatting before the show all about mushrooms, we have a really shared common interest in this and the power of them. I'm so excited to finally get you on. I know we've tried a few times. Yeah, a very, very warm welcome to the show. First of all,

thank you. Thank you for having me, I know it's really taking a few times to make this happen. But I'm very happy to be clear and see the colour of your eyes. And the colour of my pink jacket is popping.

It's a little bit brighter under the lights for anyone watching. So let's get started. Because I think a lot of people when they first think of mushrooms, they don't necessarily know the full distinction between medicinal mushrooms and other types of mushrooms. But I know that you're you have a very powerful story in terms of how you got into creating Dirtea, and the world of mushrooms. So let's let's start there. And then we can open up people's minds to this amazing world.

Yeah, well, I think watch, it's powerful in some capacity, because it really relates to a wider audience because it really started through burnout about I say, six or seven, seven and a half years ago, naturally. But there's another business my brother and I had, and my brother and I have been, we've worked together pretty much from day dark, we've always been interconnected, there was this unconditional kind of journey we've been on together. But I won't go too much into the other business. But it really represents what others I think go through the idea of always having your foot heavy on the pedal and ignoring these kind of chronic symptoms that kind of present themselves to you. Because I think it's easy for the body, if you want to kind of suppress it. And for a long time we were doing we were doing that where we're building the business, the business was becoming success but so as much as we becoming a CEO of a company, we weren't really become the CEO of our own body, but completely disregarding everything that was going on. So you know for in order for my brother and I to keep going keep pushing the envelope and what we were doing, we would use these things like Red Bull to keep us awake and keep us wired, which inevitably led us into the sleep deprivation and as a result of which that amplified into kind of consistent idea of anxiety and walking into a meeting room and you know, falling into a panic attack with no reason there was absolutely no reason there's no bear or lying behind a sofa or anything because it was remarkable that we lost complete connection with mind and body and I'm actually older than my brother. If you see him he's got very biblical look, he's, he's definitely younger than me. He's beard and hair and I'm everything, anything but that but you know, see what he was going through as well. All these symptoms, and I felt the success or failure. I didn't actually have the answers through what he was going through. And the only source that we had our trusted source was our GP. And my experience them was like they were almost a Farm agent so just dishing us pills, subscribing us pills or even going to SSRIs and so forth and I never I never wanted to take that I felt the I always was taught the body does hill but for some reason we were ignoring everything was going on and you know constant headaches and flus common cold skin When was tired everything, you know, I'd walk down through Oxford Street, and I'd always have my hood up and my hat down because I felt physically, like, so tired and fatigued and embarrassed by this look. And so, but I was, but that frustration drew me to look at different other integrated medicines that weren't actually been handed to me as an option by our GP. And obviously, your GP is a trusted source, but they're just there, their bandwidth of knowledge, knowledge was incredibly limited. So looking at alternative therapies, and you know, acupuncture, all this other stuff, it just nothing was really working. But remarkably, one day we were introduced to a tea master in West London, which is incredibly random in itself. But there was a tea master who came in from the southern province of China for a couple of weeks. And she was hosting tea ceremonies and a dear friend of ours said, Look, I'm not gonna tell you much. But I can just tell you that this is going to be incredibly profound. When someone says they're doing a mushroom tea ceremony, the one thing I anticipated say to my brother was that we were going to go on some sort of psychedelic kind of journey when a crack the door open and go into this mystical world for a minute or two.

So there you go. The first the first engagement was the misconception. But we went to this incredible apartment, and it was all based on set and setting and the whole, the apartment was like dimly lit and it was shrouded in Palo Santo, and she was there. And there were these cushions in a circle when we sat down, and she sat with us cross legged for about two to three hours. And it was even before drinking, it was mind bending, because she presented these teas, these powders in these bowls, and they were powders festival because you I anticipated she's going to have as a mushroom, we're going to chop it up or something. And each one is mushrooms had the most profound stories. And, and the way that she would hand us these teas, and you should borrow the water, she'd hand it over as a sacrament. And she would be incredibly serious about each mushroom. So she would, she would have these narratives that was steeped heavily in 1000s of years of history and ancestral stories. And those stories were kind of complemented by these peer reviewed papers. And each one had these incredible healing properties. And so inside these mushrooms, and the fruit in the body of the mushrooms is packed full of all these nutrients, dense nutrients and minerals and that and compounds that we as humans kind of require, because most of which we may be deficient in such as magnesium and zinc, and so forth them but each one of these mushrooms had a compound which would engage in the mind and the body in very different ways. So for example, the first one I always remember she handed me was a lion's mane. And actually, if you look it up, you'll see it's the most stunning mushroom that is hidden, and he'll grow forest and the growing dark conditions. And they're beautiful. It's like nature's art, it looks like a mane of a lion, which is why they call it lion's mane. And that, for example, in that lion's mane is a compound called erinacines and its compounds so light enough it can break through the brain blood barrier, and an activate stimulation of the growth of new brain cells. As a result of which increasing memory, focus concentration, suppresses anxiety, everything she was sharing with me, I just didn't believe I didn't believe it. But we were I was never taught about this and, and if truth be told, when I grew up, you know, the authority figures around us would always point violently, mushroom telling not to touch it, because it's poisonous and and it will kill you and they'll send you a mystical journey. No one's really telling us about this other side about mushrooms. And so with every mushroom she handed to us, we would receive them as a sacrament. And I say a bowl because it was almost like drawing water from the river. So everything was done consciously. We had this amazing music and, and we drank it. And slowly, each one, each mushroom, and they, we had a very visceral feeling that night from the experience. Maybe placebo was kicking in. But it's not to kind of dismiss or have a negative connotation with placebo, I think is a great thing to have. And it's amazing how the body can shift its chemistry to improve the well being. And

after two or three hours of being there, my brother and I left that tea ceremony. We lived in East London that time we walked from west to east because we couldn't believe this feeling we felt and we actually took about two or three weeks to apply for mushrooms with us because we're saying Well listen, we've been trying everything in anything. So for about two, three weeks, we actually found a way to kind of bring these mushroom teas into our kind of lifestyle from sunrise to sunset. So in the morning, we would have sugar and then go through the benefits in a minute but and then before going to work we would have a lion's mane before going to the gym we would have quarter steps mushrooms and then before bed we'd have the queen of mushrooms ratio, which is one of the most research mushrooms in the world. And over that couple of weeks period, everything shifted. Our sleep was on point we became sleep champions so we fell because we got it back it was just to get sleep back is it It was the greatest feeling because I never worked with a clear mind. And I worked with a clear mind, you know, didn't have any brain fog. My brother and I were spell binded. By this experience matching episode the T monster game, she was an FM on experience to us. But then after that experience, we started to kind of delve into more research for what you're sharing to us and the mushrooms decorates in about three or four decades of research. And we were shocked that nothing no one ever knew about this. So what we did is every Friday evening, we replicated a tea ceremony she did. So for every Friday evening, from seven o'clock onwards, we had about 1015 of our friends, or within different industries, anything from philosophers, artists, content creators, Chef, and all of them were stressed. So it was a great time to do this on a Friday to see if this is placebo does this actually work. And every Friday evening, we sit down pal Santos with the shredded around the room, dim lights, we create amazing music and we sit we talk we share our knowledge of these mushrooms we share the misconception, the misconception around mushrooms and start to retell the narrative around mushrooms because one of the most extraordinary things to take into consideration is for example, we share more uncommon with mushrooms and we do plants which are around 54% DNA with with fungi, which blows my mind. But then when you when you look at how they heal us as much as the healing the future, will help the planet it's an amazing symbiosis we share with nature. And then after that we are friends would who were going through certain experiences themselves such as depression, stress, migraines, everything that they would be lifted. And

your brother in terms of when you started this protocol, and you're doing a kind of mourning tonight, did his panic attacks then completely sort of fall away?

Yeah, we both were experiencing the same symptoms. So both of us have that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I think it was it was really my, my, I'd say my success and failure because I was going through the same thing as my brother and actually being the older brother. I didn't want to share that I had that. But I maybe I can find the answers. But I didn't even have the answers. So we were both experiencing the same healing as each other. So the panic attacks were going within a couple of weeks, the anxiety just disappeared. And we almost became the CFO and body once more. And it was a lightbulb moment when our friends and our family were reaping the same benefits we were we were like well, one that there's so there's something profound here, we felt like we had a renew, we had a responsibility to kind of propagate the goodness and change the misconception on mushrooms or bring mushrooms to the mass like if it can heal us, it can heal anyone. And when you look into the research, beyond our interconnection with them, looking at how much they heal us, we wanted to kind of change the narrative around mushrooms, which is why we started Dirtea.

And, and I love them. I think they're amazing. And I think the research when you're talking there about Lion's Mane excites me as well, because you know, where it can help you produce more things like more nerve growth factor in the brain is very powerful in terms of the research that's going on in relation to things like Alzheimer's, right? Which for me, you know, when I've looked at my genetics and I carry a copy of APOE4, that's something that I really want to kind of hang on to, you know, hold on to my smarts. And I think I do notice the difference as well, in terms of how powerful it is on its own. And sometimes in combination with other nootropics what I'm doing I'm curious, how did the name Dirtea arrived?

Actually, my mother was involved in this conversation, my brother and I was seeking our apartment. We're trying to find something provocative. So that starts a conversation. There's, you know, in the industry of wellness, there's all these kind of pristine white looking, pharmaceutical looking kind of products are trying to be lifestyle, and they use very obvious names, but not those names are very scientific. So you're already kind of dismissing a market you want to engage with. And you know, dirty I mean, mushrooms are from the dirt.

You were going to share a discount code DIRTEA and

DIRTEA. It's a name that probably people will know. And maybe it may even change your name on the streets, people probably caught in a dirty and jail. And they were teased and we'd like to be putting it together. But also it's a name that can be used in so many different conversations. It's an icebreaker first of all, but also people are already curious about mushrooms. So having a name like DIRTEA it just allows for a gentle conversation if you want to be scientific and anything we're doing we just merely we're on a mission to share and DIRTEA became a name that kind of job world and every time we were using the very beginning everyone loved the name. And we kept it it was an it's a name that we can be used in different areas. I mean, we were talking offline, because we do you know the company now Dirtea has actually created a stunning community of curiosity. So we're not just a transactional company in any capacity at all. You know, the real heartbeat of Dirtea is the community because people are reaping the benefits. And what I want to do or my brother I wanna do is bring this community together into a physical space. I think in one capacity, I do honestly believe that we've lost the essence of a community, it's something we long for to to be connected in a physical capacity. So we create something called the DIRTEA tribe. And the dirty tribe is a community of dirty lovers, or anyone curious around mushrooms. And we do these different kinds of experiences to improve mind and body mushroom almost becomes it's almost personify. So it's like the fireplace, it's that it's the one thing that brings us together and the storytelling concepts around the fireplace. And it's excuse to look at other alternative therapies we can do to improve mind and body and most of those are natural. So the tribe at the moment, philos, six months, we meet at the serpentine lake at 630. In the morning, between 637 the morning, we're doing at that time, because that's as the sun was rising. And we have an amazing breathwork master the Dirtea breathwork master see I'm seeing we're seeing how many times we can use 30 in different kinds of territories, and it works, no one has challenged us on it. And we meet we do breath work by the lake, we drink a tea, we sometimes start with with Lion's Mane because it does reduce anxiety as well. And when you're stepping into uncharted territory, the body can go in a bit of fight or flight, putting in that sympathetic kind of state of mind. And certainly when the lake is between zero and four degrees, which is what we started with, we had all kinds of interrogate the fear of the cold is one. And that's quite an amazing thing to kind of, you know, when the first battle was pretty much people who would just generally strangers, they would never met each other, which I love. And it's a nice experience, bring people together. And you know, we swim in most cases, you've most recently, we go beyond the lighthouse Serpentine, we go into nature's territory, so we're actually swimming with the swans, the herons. And they swim, they actually glide past us the most, the most amazing thing is when we reached the bridge, which is about 300 metres you turn around, and the sun the the rare as it is the sun bleeds through the trees onto the lake onto the body. And it just it's such a nice symbiotic kind of relationship, you feel this connection, we have nature, not to say this is let's go and hug the tree or anything, but it's just a nice kind of way to bring in the mornings. And then we we swim in and we come back to the onto the bank side of the Serpentine, we drink some more kind of tea, and and we disappear and we only won nine to five. But for that moment, that FML moment to kind of bring a community together, it has shifted the mindset of many, to the point where some of the community are going through their own personal things, and they feel this is the one thing that kind of gives them strength. And for me, that's everything,

to speaking of resiliency and managing stress in the female bio hacker collective. We have just spent the last seven days doing an amazing challenge. With daily meditations, journaling, affirmations, and breathwork sessions to help you master your state is just been an incredible challenge with such a lovely community of members. And I would love to see you in there we are about to close the founding members offer on the 31st of July. So if you've been thinking of joining head over to Angela foster.me, forward slash bio hacker before we close the amazing founding offer on 31st of July and connect with a community of beautiful like minded women who want to optimise their health and performance and live their best life and the link is Angelafoster.me/biohacker. Now let's get back to the show. Let's talk then about how to prepare these because I think this is where people maybe don't have enough information right in terms of how you should make it more of a ceremonious occasion in terms of drinking these mushrooms. So because we live such busy lives, right, and I think often anything that really is improving mental function, for example and capacity, we're almost inclined to do it quickly, right because we think it's a performance hack. We can make it quicker but what I love there is what you're sharing in terms of this slowing time down a little bit and actually savouring and mindfully enjoying that moment with the ceremonies in the morning and both the ones that you had in your apartment in the evening. For something like let's start with Lion's Mane it's one that a lot of people have heard of and it is actually a beautiful looking mushroom. I love it when I when I look at Lion's Mane what's the best way to make this that you found? Have you got a recipe How should it be drunk slowly? How quickly should people feel the effects?

What is a great question that there's a 10 by one veterans launch the logo right there on the top. Interestingly enough lion's mane is is is a nice to Taste, it resonates perfectly to the westernised tongue, it's a relatable taste. One thing I should say is that there powders, so we extract them, we have a dual extraction process, which allows us to kind of break into the fruiting body of, of the mushroom, because in the fruiting body, the mushroom is a cell wall, which is called chitin. And chitin has a very strong resilience wall, it's the same cell wall you'd find on lobsters. So to digest that to human, you just couldn't do it. So in order to get all the goodness, the beta glucans, which kind of exposes the polysaccharides, and other nutrients and minerals in there, you have to go through his process of boiling hot water. And alcohol, the ratio between the two allows the cell to melt down and expose the potency of these kinds of compounds, and then we spray dry out, so then it becomes a mushroom into powder. And the compounds are all activated within that powder. And it's we're not doing we're not shifting behaviour in any capacity at all. It's literally you take a spoon, and you put it in a in a cup. Because of our extraction process, I would say globally, we're probably the most purest and potent because of the extraction process we've used has been masked over many years, and the technology we use has been exponentially grow. And the moment you put it into your cup, and you put I would say between 8085 degrees, not not boiling, but it's the same temperature I think you'd use for green tea. It's so Aqua soluble you weren't and don't really need to stare it and I love that. And when I say we're not forcing behaviour, we're basically just elevating your morning ritual, for example. So you can add this to anything. So you can add it to coffee, you can add to your protein shake, it doesn't share, it may change the taste but doesn't change the efficacy. But with Lion's Mane, for example, because of everything just shared with like nerve growth factor, the fact that will stimulate the growth of brain cells in the hippocampus, the thinking part of the mind. And everyone, every time I talked about it, everyone says oh, I need that one, I need more brain cells. But the idea of it's such a simplistic kind of idea, we're not changing anything, you can add it to your coffee, it really does get into the circulatory system quick as a powder, it really does work remarkably well. So But interestingly enough, the tastes I should say a taste the notes we always get is a very nice taste at notes, or also chocolatey caramel. So it really works remarkably well. We don't add anything else is purely the fruiting body of the mushroom.

Downside to when you when you sort of drop them or when you when you're pouring water on it. If the water's boiling, so for example, like if you're preparing matcha tea, and I think a lot of people don't know this, but actually the pattern match of powder dissolves better in cooler water. So I'd often mix that powder in and then add not boiling water because that destroys a lot of the antioxidants. And you want to use a bamboo West, for example. So that you're preserving that right and oxidising things about with the lion's mane? Do we need to kind of be careful with that in the preparation or not?

Yeah, yeah, definitely is a bamboo whisk even as a fun experience of Metro. But you're not to not to boil it, I would say because when I say green tea, because I know when I've been someplace else for green tea, they give you boiling water and green tea, you're basically having burned so it's it's just not going to do what it's supposed to do. So yeah, I would say between 80-85 degrees really allows the compounds to be activated and work into the circulatory system quick as well. So another thing actually another advantage, another benefit, which is important. We were talking offline about this system, cognitive dysfunction in the early stages of dementia. There's some amazing studies that supports the repair of nerve damage. And some of the studies will show that those in early stages of cognitive dysfunction by taking by drinking two grammes of Lion's Mane a day which actually are serving improves cognitive function and reverses some of the symptoms that people get from dementia in the early early stages for me like how can something so hitting these dismiss for so many years, which is another reason our mission is is is unquestionable. And the one thing I should say with what we've done we've created a lifestyle said like a juxtaposition between lifestyle and fashion our brand because it looks so good. And I should say show I shouldn't bother me saying that this is good. That's how I'm gonna get you one of these by the way, is the is the Welcome to World wooden display and the colours, the colours now let me just say sorry, I've done this completely wrong. So I can just really quickly show you because it's important. So the reason why we did these colours is also based on sunrise to sunset the way we took it. So you know, as a sunrise because you know, orange, and this is the way we actually take it. So let's go through actually

through this because I think this would really help people. Okay, so

I'll be very brief on on the benefits so chegar which is is for some reason it's sending out so quick. So Chaga is has the highest source of antioxidants compared to anything else that mother nature has to offer. So like one cup of this in your one teaspoon in a cup is the equivalent 600 Bloopers, there's an org chart that will actually show you the concentration of the antioxidants in Chaga also has a high concentration of melanin, which is absolutely amazing. And if you see the studies based on those who have skin challenges where the psoriasis, eczema, or just tired skin, this can reverse this. And a lot of our customers over like four or five weeks have seen a complete reverse, in tight skin to glowing skin to psoriasis to know psoriasis. And I can attest to that from the feedback from the customers. But also, if you look at some of the peer review papers, and all the peer reviewed papers come from a website called mushroom reference.com. And also the NCBI and PubMed but mushroom reference.com was created by Larry Page as a domain name because there's so many studies and they filter or the studies depending on the mushroom, you're you want to look into is this. There's many, many edible mushrooms, and there's probably a small percentage of being given the research that people should really look into. So the reason this is in the morning is because your immune system sometimes can be compromised. So what what chegar does it like the other masters were very much chegar up regulates your immune system never overstimulates. So when you know, when you get the common cold or anything in your immune system is compromised, people go for a Kinesia. But what that's doing is consistently over stimulating your immune system where all the mushrooms want to do is it wants to adapt to the body's stresses it wants to get it to that kind of cruise level. And Chaga does that it's actually also very big kind of taste. It's a very dark looking powder. But don't be fooled by what it looks like it really is a nice to have on its own. So having that in the morning is incredible. And

really interestingly, my I was giving Chaga to my husband with the Reishi. And the telly what's really interesting is that we saw an improvement when you're just talking about things like psoriasis and autoimmune, we saw an improvement in his Graves disease.

Really? Yeah.

So first hand experience, actually. And he feels like the anxiety moderates, but also, like his need for meds is much less when he's taking Chaga and Reishi. And actually is almost transitioning off that

now. Okay, that's incredible. So more research to do. They're really interesting. And well, there's anything else I mean, it also has a high constant. You know, there's a lot of minerals that are unfortunate, in some capacity we're deficient in, I should say mushrooms are the only non animal species that secretes vitamin D. So even putting mushrooms under UV light, for like 5-10 minutes, it just kind of just proliferates the amount of vitamin D, which is just incredible.

You'd have the chaga first, right, so we're starting here Chaga would be something that's a nice thing. What could you have, like sunrise when you're meditating? Or that? Yeah, yeah. Okay,

actually actually complements what you were saying where time is an enemy. And then this kind of white noise kind of intensity that we have in the concrete jungle of Western society. Adding this in the morning just allows you to kind of really allow time to become a comrade. But also, it doesn't stop the idea of adding this into anything that you do have in the morning. Our thing is heavy on its own. But all we want you to do is have just just steep into these mushrooms, they really do perform like incredible kind of benefits for you. And then 11 o'clock, or maybe slightly before, if I'm going into some intense work or studies or you know, writing up a talk or podcasts, whatever may be Lion's Mane, because based on talking about near a growth factor and the benefits on cognitive function, it's an increase in focus, and an increase in memory recall, which a lot of my friends felt that they were failing. And now what was there other reasons in say about Lion's Mane, something that you brought up? But in any case, this is Oh, yes, it was those there are some studies and I should look more into this and shows the but I can tell you from so customer experiences, that there's one mother in particular whose son has ADHD, and she's been giving her some feel like it was like a four to six week, lion's mane. And she has been winning off the SSRIs. So I believe that's retro sorry, that's, I kind of think the name of the business or it would have been on Adderall was one anyway, so he's weaned off them because the lion's mane is giving him that sense of focus and concentration and calming him down. I should say there's no sedatives, no caffyns in any of this is purely the mushroom, quadriceps, which I know is Divinia, Taylor's favourite one which we were talking about the other day on stage with her. Now, quadriceps has a compound in this called quadricep in which basically activates the production of more ATP. It also increases oxygen into your lungs and also into your muscles. So should you be going on a long run? or an endurance training in some capacity running, swimming, biking with me. Maybe you can go beyond your via to Max, you can actually know your PB and the response has been amazing. And there's a lot of studies and case studies that proves the position of quadriceps. There's actually a study that was based in China in 1993. Were the Olympic team in China. were nailing their PV they were they're getting so many goals in in fields they would never actually achieving. I was down to quarter steps, but they were disqualified because no one actually recognised quarter steps as a superfood, for example, as soon as they were cheating. So quarters, that's pretty good also for libido, the studies on this has been incredibly it's incredible. We've worked on it

for like in terms of when you say libido right here, we're talking about, like more drive and desire. Does it increase performance as well?

Or? Yes, both? Yeah, but yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's incredible. And I should say, there's about 70 different species of quadriceps and the one we got as miniatures. And there's other ones, which basically dive into the host of a parasite being an ant or an insect. And they use the the, the brain of the ant to kind of sprout out of cordset. But that's a different cortisol because some people get the wrong idea of what which cordsets we have. And that's a very expensive one as well. Then you have reishi, which I've seen before is the queen of mushrooms. It's probably one of the most researched mushrooms in the world. And it has about 270 Odd compounds, maybe more now that have been discovered. But one compound is that this mushroom has actually calms the nervous system down. And the studies will show how it improves your sleep cycle, mostly your deep sleep. And the interesting thing about this is the mushroom actually allow my brother and I to kind of step away from insomnia and find our sleep once more. And when we're speaking offline. This tastes kind of bitter that business is the compound. But for 1000s of years, going back to the Tao dynasty, this mushroom was seen as a as a sacred offering from the gods because some of the great leaders would use this before going into war. And it would calm them down before going to war. And if every any Nobleman was seen with a ratio back then they would be killed instantaneously. And also, some of the great leaders would adorn the look and the feel of the mother. The Reishi Mushrooms is a beautiful looking mushroom onto their clothes, it would be seen as sculptures, it's in hieroglyphics. It's just a remarkable mushroom. And it's actually taken science to help us to rediscover what our ancestors were doing and tried to do in so many 1000s of years ago. Also, if you have hay fever, because now I haven't I haven't had hated about five years. And so what ratios are does it kind of suppresses your the arousal of your histamine levels. So anytime you get micro inflammation, so forth, I would always recommend using ratio. For some reason, pollen, I don't know what the reason is that arouses your histamine levels, but Reishi suppresses it. So this is a great kind of weapon of choice if you don't wanna get hay fever this summer.

So histamine reaction, basically. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting, isn't it, which is actually makes that then a good choice as well, for many reasons, then for sort of Peri menopausal women, because often they get this histamine triggering this histamine intolerance that's triggered around that time, because of the interplay with with the female sex hormones. And they're getting disrupted sleep and poor quality deep sleep, which then in turn that combined with the drop off, and progesterone is increasing anxiety levels. So this, this would be very much applicable to sort of women who are listening in their late in their late 40s, for helping with many of those things. I'm gonna have to dive into the studies about her siren. That's very interesting.

Yeah, there's, I'll send you the link for those studies. I didn't know about that. That's amazing. So and then the the interesting thing of these mushrooms is that people, so the simplicity, I should say, is literally one teaspoon, which is two grammes into hot water 8580 85 degrees there it and just steeping it and just be conscious when you're drinking it because it really is remarkable. But

how much water for that kind of optimal experience? How much water would you be putting alongside two grammes? Is that would that be a small cup? Do you make it into a long drink? What's your

how short of eight ounces? I think it usually is.

Okay, so a fairly long one. Yeah. Yeah,

sorry. That's my lines mean that at the end of it. And so what we're what my brother and I have been doing is that we were very kind of intimate with our community want to see how they're kind of responding to it and what more we can do to kind of help elevate their routines or their days, so they're not, so they're nailing their nine to five, rather, falling into these kinds of states have kind of been feeling fatigue, and I'd say actually, as COVID is concerned, those who've had long COVID And one of the symptoms of lung COVID Being Fatigue, quadriceps has completely reversed it for a lot of our customers. So I would there's amazing studies on this about on the energy. And again, when I say slow drop of energy there is absolutely no kind of fall down at all is there's no it's not like a caffeine kick or anything. It's just a feeling you get of feeling more energy which is it's incredible and

exercise would you recommend someone taking the corsets?

I used to do before like 45 minutes for workout a half an hour before workout, but less over time and me drinking it. I would say that, because you asked him before, like, you know, how long does it take before you you start to reap the benefits, for example. And it's very different depending on the human body. Everyone's very different, tailored differently. So I would say, you know, taking these over a period of like a week to two weeks to start to kind of see these incremental kind of changes. The most important thing to note, which I found is that in Western society, we kind of want a quick fix, which is why I think the caffeine kick is a big thing. But you know, the westernised pill can suppress these kinds of issues and so forth. But this is about consistency. A lot of studies will show that, certainly with Lion's Mane, we spoke about menopause, there was a study done clinical study done a blind PLACEBO Sorry, that was done, which was based on women in their 40s There was 30 women and it was done on a four week study where they would have a lion's mane cookie. So they've had two grammes dusted on a cookie, so they have a cookie every day. And the idea was that the symptoms from hot flashes, anxiety and depression would just slowly but surely disappear entirely. The moment that they stopped taking the lion's mane cookie, the symptoms presented themselves to them again. So consistency is important. So which is why we done 30 days, 30 day servings of each one. Yeah,

kind of like you effectively having one of each a day. But my understanding as well is that mushrooms, contrary to things like adaptogen though, they obviously work in an adaptogenic way in the body, but they're different than herbs which can be very stimulating and powerful mushrooms. Those seem to have a sort of almost an upper limit to what you can take as is my understanding.

Yeah, you can't do mushrooms I can tell you that.

She's a really good thing because with herbs, you know you can it's

Yeah, I mean, I don't know too much, too much about into the I Vedic kind of area. One thing that we do is that we are in our blend. So the reason we dip blends because people were really enjoying adding it to their coffee. So my brother and I went out and actually went to find the purest, most sustainable and traceable instant coffee we can find because if you infuse mushrooms into an instant coffee, like I said before you still get the efficacy we just taste might be different, but we added maca for digestion and ashwagandha for the reduction in calmness. And that's our Dirtea mushroom coffee. We had three of the mushrooms being Lion's Mane Cordyceps and Chaga. And I'd probably say at the moment that's been becoming one of our best sellers now it's probably taking

this is cacao with maca.

Oh no no, it's coffee so it's instant coffee with three of them are mushrooms Chaga Cordyceps and lion's mane and we add ashwagandha and maca into that and it's a nice it's a really lovely experience and the reason we've done that is because it's the only and there's a few of these coffees on the market but we feel the only one that really gives you no jitters no crashes at all because of this absolute addiction to coffee globally. It's It's amazing that what the mushroom coffee is doing for those who have three or four coffees and they weren't actually they weren't have their afternoon lol or anything. So that coffee is done really well.

Yeah, I mean that again the ashwaganda you were talking about about menopausal women that also helps with hot flashes and maca also helps to support I certainly in the early stages of of perimenopause, what I found is that Maca is very good at supporting progesterone levels. Okay, that's incredible. That's really interesting.

Yeah, we have a very high number I would say there's more women buying our products than men. And what I'm learning from this I need to take a deeper dive into how some of these sending these the diabetic herbs and the mushrooms are supporting menopausal symptoms which is incredible and I learned a lot from the video Taylor the other day when she was on stage talking about that as well. So there's a lot there's a lot more to learn but you'll see when you see some of these peer reviewed papers which are just outstanding. There's so many studies supporting the the the power the healing power of these mushrooms

do you not with all cacao?

Yes, it's approving cacao organic and ceremonial cacao that my brother and I found after many months, and that cacao is we've infused that with Reishi and we also add lucuma cinnamon ashwaganda and coconut milk powder and the combination of all of that

the combination of all of that as one is like a warm hug at nights and it doesn't spike your sugar levels. And the reason we did that because like your feedback use things that you'd like the ratio does perform what it says it does, but the taste is very poor, not very good. So there's a business to it which is as a stranger to the westernised town and adding that into your concoction a lot of our clients such as customers or community I should say are experiencing better sleep more calm so that yeah, the Dirtea cow has done really well I love the colour as well it's it's a purple that pops really well. So the rest of the reaction to that has been amazing. And I should say there's a repetition like the mission really is to see how many more people we can get hooked onto our mushrooms is really about bringing mushrooms to the mass retelling the narrative fungi is its own kingdom and I think it was in the 1960s that it was a got reclaimed, it had its own kingdom because people were unsure where do you put mushrooms is it vegetables and fruit? Where does it go but 5.1 million species of fungi exists today. And you know 35% Of all fungi all medicine derives from fungi. And penicillin is a strand of fungi. So they are the great hidden warriors I said the forest mainly because it's we want to make the unseen be seen so it's an amazing thing is that because how hitting these mushrooms have been for our community they're they're excited to learn more about fungi and there's some great kind of source of resources such as fantastic fungi, which anyone we take on DIRTEA anyone who's interested in any capacity in mushrooms that's our go to it's like it's almost the Bible around fantastic fungi about fungi sorry and it's it's a documentary which is shot beautifully by a guy by the name of Louie Schwartzberg, who has shot the whole experience of fungi in a time lapse so beautifully well, and the narrative I can't think of the latest Hollywood actresses name but she was Captain America. And there's some great kind of mycologist such as Paul Stamets in there and other great pioneers of the world of fungi which is really democratising the, the the language and everything around fungi and and mycelium which is a whole other subjects in itself which is an infusion of a network that sits underneath our feet and in one teaspoon of soil. There's up to about 300 kilometres of fungi in there, and fungi in itself. One teaspoon so, I'm fumbling underneath is purely the network that is is is connecting plants and trees there's a there's something called Mycorrhizal and Mycorrhizal is based on a mushroom where it basically becomes a conduit between plants and trees and sharing in a very democratised way both the sugars for the mushrooms and the plants and the water and the nutrients that the trees need. And it only happens based on having that mushroom that kind of intertwines, this mycelium and unites percent of all plants require Mycorrhizal. To for the forest to to proliferate and in all its glory. So it's quite amazing. The power of mushroom, so again, a slight rabbit hole. But it's quite amazing to understand what's going on beneath our feet I find is incredible. So fantastic fungi is a must. And it's a book by a dear friend of ours called Myrna Sheldrake, which is life entangled, which really shows you the power of fungi, both for us and the future wellbeing of our planet. And interestingly enough, there's been five extinctions on this planet. And we're going through the moment, if you look at scientific evidence going through and as much as we may be the cause we'd also be the victim of every extinction from guys, we inherited the Earth, which I think is incredible to

say that again, for i cos it's like, forever extension finger has

inherited the Earth once more, so we should be praising these mushrooms. So yeah, so it's a really education in itself. But for my brother and I it's like there's this planetary planetary anxiety that is very present at the moment. And everyone's looking for a quick fix and some capacity I think is just just deep into these mushrooms. Bring them into your lifestyle, and you will see the transition from from chronic tea to laser I'd focus so getting the common colds or being fully fully supportive and never having any of those bacterial formations again, based on what these mushrooms can do.

Yeah, and they taste good too. Amazing. So where can people can't find You on Dirtea world? Is that is that the best? Yeah, they are social and they host these ceremonies, please share. So we can link to this and everything you've talked about really in the show notes.

Yeah, sure. So the Instagram is Dirtea world, and Dirteaworld.com. And there is there's also a Dirtea tribe, which I asked everyone to kind of tap into to see what we're doing. And serpentine Lake if anyone's reach out and join us for wildlife swimming, or is more than welcome. And we're doing loads of different other programmes and experiences to really allow people to kind of go beyond what the conventional mind is aware of. So breathwork, we've talked about before, which we I believe, is the most powerful, and we're sharing this most powerful tool that we own. And we do this very deep conscious collective breath work. And we get between 50 to 150 people coming each time because we create the most incredible, globally renowned, it's one of the most amazing breathwork experiences, because you're stepping into sacred environments. And it's it's so much fun. It's we have screens of mushrooms in a very time lapse kind of way, we have downlighting littered with candles, we have usually have a live composer in the middle, and we will lay down and it's an introduction into mushrooms, my brother and I give. And then we have a wonderful man by the name of Jamie Clements, who runs the breath space. And he leads the breath work. And what I can tell you Angela is that most people come are very pessimistic that the perfect pessimist that people would just think nothing about the breath, what's breath going to do. And they're the ones who have this transition of getting rid of all this gunk. And also, remarkably, the releases anxiety and a lot of them cry off was a massive, great thing. And they have profound experiences. And we always start off with aka calm and Reishi to really calm the nervous system down. And to really allow people to kind of sleep into this experience, very in a very in a present way. And there's more things we're doing. There's something which is sharing before there's a Dirtea weekend we're going to be doing which is is the collaboration of in different states, actually around the UK in different areas abroad, where we kind of combined some of the most amazing ancestral and modern therapeutic practices to improve mind and body. And it's a lot of fun. It's not esoterical any capacity. So we have lots of entertainment going on. At night, we go into the forest, and we have a party. It's really great. And it's just personified. The one thing I feel has been missing for many years. COVID could be one of them is this idea of community. So and we're also you may have seen sorry, we have a partnership, also a Stella McCartney. And we have big announcement next week we're sharing with everyone. And it's just the idea of the more platforms we get like this. And I am incredibly thankful that you allow me to step onto your wonderful platform to share the story about mushrooms. There's an

assignment a whole new world, I think that

people thank you. Yeah, no, no, it's a real pleasure. And I'd love to do a part two, and share a deeper research. And actually, interestingly enough, I should also bring my brother into this experience as well, because I'm also speaking on his behalf, but it'd be a nice kind of collaboration. So you can ask him some questions as well.

Yeah, very definitely. I'd absolutely love to do that. I know. I'm conscious of your time today, because I know you have. Yeah, I think you're moving on to so I'm really grateful for you coming on and sharing all that and we will, we'll do stay tuned guys for a part two, when we'll dive even deeper into the Dirtea World. But thank you so much, Simon. Thank you for coming on today.

Thank you.

I hope you've enjoyed this week's episode. If you would like to try some dirty mushrooms then Simon has very kindly given listeners of this podcast, a 15% discount, all you need to do is head over to Dirteaworld.com and enter code DIRTEAANG15 I can't actually say that without laughing DIRTEAANG15 at checkout to get 15% off your order. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you on Friday for an episode of Bite Size by Max.

Thanks for listening. Remember to review and subscribe. You can grab the show notes, the resources and highlights of everything Angela mentioned over at Angela Foster performance.com You can also snatch up plenty of other goodies including the highly helpful Angela recommends page which is a list of everything she personally recommend to optimise your mind, body and lifestyle