[00:00:01] Luke: Tell me about your trip to Mongolia.

[00:00:04] Julian: Mongolia. Yeah, that was the--

[00:00:06] Luke: For those listening, I saw the photos already. I was like, "This looks fascinating." And the fact that you went there to source your shilajit, which is commendable  because you could just get some cheap shit out of China and not test it and not care where it comes from, make a bunch of money. But tell me about the trip because I think that's a great starting point.

[00:00:22] Julian: Yeah, yeah. We went there to understand sort of how it's sourced, where it comes from. Everyone speaks about shilajit in the mountains, but we had never actually seen too much about that. And so wanted to [Inaudible] the mushrooms, and we grow and extract and vertically integrated through that process that trust element.

[00:00:40] When we think about brands today, a brand is something you trust or you don't trust. Within the shilajit category, there's a bit of a boom going on now, of course, for the last couple of years. And we wanted to go there and see how it was sourced. And so we went into the Altai mountains on the West of Mongolia, where you have the border of Kazakhstan.

[00:01:04] It's like going into another planet. Needing a translator, driving into the Altai mountains, and staying with the eagle hunting family, so nomadics. A lot of Mongols are still very nomadic living in their yurts and just dinging it up in big crevices. The guys there, the local Mongols know where to look.

[00:01:23] So you'll be in this wide-open space in the Altai mountains and they're like, "Yeah, it looks like it's over here." Drive up, hike up, and start digging. Just basic shovels and the likes with some bags and some picks. And just come back with 100 kilos, 200 kilos of rock that they then purify down into the shilajit. So amazing experience to witness how that comes about and see it firsthand and hold shilajit in its entirety.

[00:01:51] Luke: Do we know what shilajit really is? Is it ancient decomposed plant matter or bat dung? What the hell is it?

[00:02:02] Julian: It's probably a concoction--

[00:02:02] Luke: It's such a unique substance. There's nothing like it on earth. It's like hash of the mountains or something. It's a really interesting creation of nature.

[00:02:14] Julian: And there is an element of it being one scarce, and two, when the rain comes, it dilutes as well. And so I was chatting to some guys from Bhutan recently as well because there's shilajit in Bhutan, and that's even in much smaller amounts. And there's only certain seasons on when you can harvest it because, one, the snow and the climate. But two, when the rainfall comes, it gets washed away.

[00:02:36] So how much shilajit is getting washed away in rainfall is also another side factor to the whole shilajit harvesting thing. But the understanding is that it's plant material, carbon material, 1,000-plus years old that's been compressed over time.

[00:02:52] And that perfect trifecta of altitude, age, purity of being untouched and left alone for so long as well, not dug up like in the plains where there's a lot of things happening construction wise. But that's the perfect trajectory, is altitude, Himalayas, Siberian mountains, Altai mountains, where there's that compressed carbon for thousands of years that's been left alone.

[00:03:21] Luke: Do you think there's any sustainability issues with it, or is there plenty of it out there to supply the world if people are willing to go to those remote lands to get it?

[00:03:33] Julian: There's definitely that element to it. It's not like a lion's mane mushroom, which we can grow. And so the Mongolian government and other governments give out licenses for harvesting. And those licenses are based on how much we want to dig up in this next decade and in the next decade, or how much we're allowed to harvest.

[00:03:53] And so there is that element coming in, and they probably didn't foresee even how much it's ramping up now. And so those licenses are getting reviewed and renewed. But it's definitely something to be conscious and aware of. And I think what's important to add to that is just how we best utilize it in terms of delivery to make sure we're getting our best bang for buck.

[00:04:14] Luke: We're going to get into the liposomal lately because you can use much less product if it's actually getting into the body, right?

[00:04:19] Julian: Yes.

[00:04:20] Luke: The bioavailability versus expensive pee.

[00:04:22] Julian: Expensive pee, we can all be guilty of that unknowingly.

[00:04:26] Luke: Oh my God, dude. Yeah. You know when you take a handful of vitamins and then your pee is like neon yellow, you go, "Ah." You can just see the dollars going down the toilet.

[00:04:36] Julian: The most obvious is the IV vitamin C, which in an emergency case, flu, whatever it may be, yes, you should get an IV of vitamin C. But typically, you just see your fluorescent pee going down the toilet. It happens also with NAD and others. So IV is amazing for bioavailability, but how much do you absorb at that one point in time?

[00:04:59] And that's the idea around homeostasis. And if we move too far out of homeostasis with biohacking, the body wants to go the other way. And so if you flush the system with something, it's not going to absorb all that in that one flush. It's going to try and restore itself. And so that microdosing element with supplements is very applicable.

[00:05:18] Luke: Tell me about the eagle hunting people.

[00:05:20] Julian: Eagle hunters. Yes. Back to Mongolia. So we could talk about Mongolia the whole episode because it's such a--

[00:05:26] Luke: We might. I'm so fascinated.

[00:05:26] Julian: It's such a phenomenal untouched landscape and pristine, reserved culture. And so right near the Altai mountains, across Mongolia, but especially around the Altai mountains, a lot of hunting that takes place-- hunting of wolves, of deer, of foxes, and a whole bunch of other native animals.

[00:05:47] And so the eagle hunters, we stayed with a seventh-generation eagle hunting family. They don't speak any English. We had a translator with us during that time, and we just lived with them off the land, the whole family. The kids are out farming, herding the sheep, looking after the cub.

[00:06:05] They have a cub wolf that when they hunted and killed the mother, there was a cub left. And so they adopted the cub. But whether it's wolves or deers or other animals, the eagles, the way they do it is they go out in packs of three to five eagle hunters at one time.

[00:06:21] One will go to the top of the mountain and have his eagle ready to go. It's got a mask over its eyes, so it doesn't see daylight until it's time to hunt. And so it knows when the cap comes off, it's time to hunt. And so this is a golden eagle. They're very heavy, very strong.

[00:06:42] And then the other hunters will be around the base or the foothills of the mountain that will knock on the rocks and things just to rustle anything that's hiding. And as soon as something pops out, the guy up the top will take the cap off.

[00:06:57] That golden eagle can scan 3.6 kilometers, 360 degrees in a matter of seconds and just lock in on its target. It will lock in and then pick off the prey and then hold it down until they arrive. And then they will have a wolf, have a fox, have a deer to take back to the family.

[00:07:22] And so the warm gear that they're wearing is not something they bought from a store. It's everything that's been hunted. And so the guys are wearing multiple foxes, multiple wolves to keep them warm because it gets to negative 30 in Mongolia. But that's their way of life for those guys, and it's so pure and so connected to nature and still very honoring of the whole lifecycle of the process of the animal as well. So it was just so good to see that purity element of the hunter gatherer that still exists in Mongolia. Very strong.

[00:07:55] Luke: So incredible. As we were discussing down downstairs, we just got back from a pilgrimage in Peru in the Andes and interacted with a number of people that were living pretty close to that. Just very remote, in the middle of, nowhere living off the land. And it's beautiful to see that that still exists.

[00:08:14] And at the same time, the experience I had was just the realization of how domesticated I am and how dependent I am on the infrastructure of society. As much as I complain about it, I would die in three days without it. And you see these people just living in perfect harmony with their environment.

[00:08:35] And it's inspiring, but also, there's a yearning, I think, that I found. Like, oh man. God, how can I get closer to this? It's not probably culturally possible for me at this point unless I became a renunciate and just left my life completely and went off and lived somewhere like that. But it's really inspiring.

[00:08:56] Julian: Yeah. It's a remembering as well, of where we came from and trying to find that balance. It doesn't make sense for you to discard everything that you have here but just touching base and going on that Peruvian pilgrimage and us going to Mongolia, it just reminds us of that actual journey that we've been on.

[00:09:13] And actually, biohacking is tapping into a lot of those things in a simple way of sleeping under the stars and living in community as well. Whether you're living in community or being in community, they were definitely flourishing. The women there were in the yurts all day, making things, preparing the home, gathering things. That was still very prevalent there.

[00:09:36] The grandma was there, beating the mare milk, making something called airag, which is the Mongolian version of a fermented kombucha that has amazing gut microbiome properties that they understand helps with immunity. It does actually turn into an alcoholic beverage. And so if you drink too many of them, you'll get drunk.

[00:09:58] Actually, at the other end, when they go to events in Mongolia, they'll take a liter of airag with them and get drunk with it. But during the day, microdosing, sipping small amounts, it's good for gut health. But the grand mare is there beating it in the bladder for hours.

[00:10:14] Luke: And it's fermented horse milk?

[00:10:16] Julian: Fermented horse milk. So they'll milk the mares, which I'd never seen before. We'd never seen before. And that's what they're milking and then turning into a ferment.

[00:10:26] Luke: And they eat horses there too.

[00:10:28] Julian: They eat horses. The horse is the top animal for them. It's been a big part of their history, their lineage. It's how Genghis Khan, Chinggis Khan was able to take over many continents and plains, was through their ability to fight on a horse as a technology back then.

[00:10:46] When you've got foot soldiers versus people coming through on a horse, that's how they were able to sort of take over lands and win. And so they're extremely good on horses. They revere horses. A lot of their instruments use horse tail for strings. Culturally, music, poetry, very sophisticated culture.

[00:11:07] Luke: Wow. Incredible.

[00:11:09] Julian: Which we don't hear much about. They're left to their own devices over there.

[00:11:12] Luke: Yeah, totally. All I know is Borat, Kazakhstan. That's as far as our culture ventures into theirs. That's so interesting. Yeah. I love stories like that and especially when there's-- I know there's an Indiana Jones element to that, where you're going to these remote lands looking for kind of the holy grail, health elixir. It's a cool experiment.

[00:11:36] Julian: Shilajit matches Mongolia so perfectly. The masculine energy that's there within the men is very strong and very stoic, which, again, I think is carried through all the way from Genghis Khan and the warriors and their history that they embody. And so it's inspiring as a male to go there and see that side of it.

[00:11:56] And as I mentioned, there's a lot of sacred geometry, a lot of sophistication in their culture with their music and their poetry and their artwork and their craftsmanship. There's deep shamanic roots there, which Genghis Khan was very connected to the earth and to the air and to the spirit realm, which I think played a role in how he led.

[00:12:18] Luke: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I think there's a strong misconception in the West that shamanism only has to do with indigenous people in South America or maybe Native Americans. Meanwhile, there's thousands of years of shamanic traditions in Mongolia and Russia and all those places over there.

[00:12:36] Julian: It was everywhere, I think. If you dig deep enough, wasn't it that-- and what is that? It's just connection to the elements and beyond spirit, intuition, and just going deep with that. And probably having the stillness and peace without the phones and the Internet and the distraction to sit in that and see what comes through in a meditative state was probably a big part of it.

[00:12:57] But even the way they dress when they would go to war, they would wear black. And when they were in peace, they would wear white. And just so many little nuances like that as to order, I guess. Where we think of these older cultures as disorganized, they were very systemized with function and discipline and rules that allowed for their prosperity.

[00:13:21] Luke: Wow. Incredible, dude. So you were on the show a few years ago in LA, and that would've been episode, let's see, 255. And by the way, we'll put the show notes here at lukestorey.com/julian2, J-U-L-I-A-N, Julian2. So anything we talk about today, guys, will be found there. But one thing we talked about then that I want to revisit today is the world of medicinal mushrooms.

[00:13:51] So we've seen an explosion in what we call functional and medicinal mushrooms over the past maybe 20 years or so. It's creeped into mainstream culture. And you were one of the forerunners in that and develop some products that are very unique for a number of reasons.

[00:14:08] And so I thought a good place to start would be just highlighting each of the heavy hitters. We've got our lion's mane, cordyceps, shiitake, reishi, chaga, etc. If we could do a little breakdown,  because I'm sure people go into Whole Foods or go online and see a zillion mushroom brands now. Out of my personal experience of using different products for a number of years, most of them are pretty shitty.

[00:14:36] I'm sorry, to those out there with shitty mushroom companies. But yours, I think, is probably the best, if not one of the best that I've experienced. So I'd like to give people an education on the benefits and qualities of each of the major mushrooms as a starting point. And then we can go into some of the details about extraction methods, growth methods, things to look out for in terms of quality control and actually taking mushrooms that are going to give you the desired effect.

[00:15:09] Julian: Yeah, yeah. And it's always good to rehash the science in each mushroom because it reminds you-- obviously, shilajit's having a moment. Methylene blue's having a moment. But there's these staples that have so much benefit that we can just forget to take.

[00:15:22] And that includes these mushrooms. And as you said, it's been a 20-year journey of becoming a more and more, I guess, prevalent and people wanting to take mushroom. And like all categories, olive oil, honey, it's about finding the purity. It's about finding the right source.

[00:15:37] There's a million olive oils out there. Many of them are diluted down. Same with honey. I'm not sure if it's the same in the US, but in Australia, you'll find on the label it says Australian honey, but we're finding that it's diluted with other honey. And we know Australian bees are the healthiest bees in the world, so we want Australian honey.

[00:15:53] And so within the mushroom category, we've seen that as well. We've seen, I guess, those elements of impurities and potencies, which we can speak to. But the lion's mane is always the number one heavy hitter most likely because the sexiness of the lion's mane. But I think just those cognitive neural benefits that take place so quickly.

[00:16:13] We did a study with the University of Queensland last year, the Brain Institute, and we just wanted to have a look under microscope how our lion's mane liquid extract compared to powder and what it did under microscope. And what we were able to show within 24 hours, you're getting neuronal outgrowth. You're getting dendritic connections.

[00:16:31] And so what that means is you imagine a tree. It has more branches. It's flourishing. A tree with less branches is not flourishing. And we know that the health of neurons helps with the communication of synapses, which helps with memory and cognition and articulation and recall and focus and mental clarity and not brain fog and not lack of inattention and not procrastination and those things.

[00:16:55] And so lion's mane has always been the heavy hitter, the number one that everyone loves. It's almost like the gateway into the mushroom kingdom for a lot of people  because they get that benefit. But that University of Queensland study showed that our liquid extracts was up to seven times more potent than the powders.

[00:17:12] Luke: Holy shit.

[00:17:49] Julian: Yeah, it was nice to reaffirm that because subjectively we felt that, and we used to sell powders once upon a time. We just didn't get the physiological reviews. The reviews were like, oh, I add it to my coffee. They were cute reviews, but they were not physiological reviews of like, "Wow, my REM sleep has improved." Or, "Wow, my brain fog is cleared. Or, "Wow, I'm just so much more articulate and sharper in my mind with lion's mane."

[00:17:39] And so the background-- coming from elite sport was always we wanted to be a performance-based company. And so that's lion's mane. What have you felt with lion's mane, and how does that fit into--

[00:17:49] Luke: I've definitely used it for REM sleep, tracking my sleep. And it's interesting because I'm a crappy test subject because I'm experimenting with so many things all the time. So I'll take a bunch of nootropics in the morning and they're like, oh yeah, great. I'll throw some lion's mane in there too. And it's like I don't really get the experience of isolating just lion's mane.

[00:18:14] But it's also something that I feel is a non-negotiable in my daily routine at the same time. So it's like, I don't know. I don't even know what it's like to not be on lion's mane most of the time. It's been so many years. But I would like to do an experiment where I literally wake up and just drink water and don't do anything and just take a couple droppers of lion's mane to see.

[00:18:41] But I would say over the years that I've been using it, I've noticed that I've gotten sharper. My memory's gotten better. My focus has gotten better. My sleep has gotten better, which all of those things you are supposed to get worse as you get older. And the older I get, the more those things improve.

[00:19:03] Julian: You are looking almost healthier than when I saw you last. You were looking healthy before, but--

[00:19:07] Luke: California will do that to you. But living in LA is not the healthiest environment.

[00:19:12] Julian: For sure. It's an oxymoron. And going back to that lion's mane and that aging element, and we can chat about NAD levels, that's a big one at the moment. And every cellular living organism has NAD within them. And so NAD levels as we age drop, but within the brain, it's BDNF levels, brain derived neurotrophic factor.

[00:19:31] These levels drop as we get older. And this is where that brain fog or that, where did I put my keys? Or I'm just not as sharp, or I'm not as articulate, or I'm not as focused as I once was as we age. But this is scientifically a lot down to BDNF levels. Now, BDNF is so important that there's no exogenous molecule that's been shown, peptide or anything, that you can inject BDNF in or consume BDNF and it will, I guess, mirror the production of the brain's own BDNF levels.

[00:20:01] So it's so important that only the brain can produce BDNF. What we showed in the University of Queensland trial was that lion's mane actually helps the brain exogenously produce BDNF. So it supports the brain to produce BDNF levels, which is super important.

[00:20:16] So it crosses the blood-brain barrier, lion's mane. It helps with nerve growth factor. It helps reduce neuroinflammation. And inflammation is always taking place as we're aging. Now, depending on stress levels, diet, previous injuries, whatever it may be, there'll always be a level of neuroinflammation taking place. And so the lion's mane helps reduce that.

[00:20:39] Then secondly, it helps support the brain to produce BDNF-- so a better brain. Other things to help with BDNF is high intensity exercise. That's probably the other main one, doing cardio sprints and HIIT workouts. But that's really, I guess, a key takeaway for lion's mane, is why it's great. It's supports those BDNF levels. Because I know NAD is all the hype, and it's important from an energy point of view. From a brain point of view, you got to think about BDNF levels.

[00:21:05] Luke: That's epic. And lion's mane has been verified to help your body produce more.

[00:21:10] Julian: Yeah, yeah. It works in harmony.

[00:21:13] Luke: That's incredible. I want to move on to the other ones, but I might as well just go into-- so to describe the lion's mane, the reason it gets that name is it's a stringy white substance that looks like hair, right?

[00:21:28] Julian: Yeah.

[00:21:29] Luke: And where does it typically grow in nature? It's not something I've ever seen on a hike in the mountains or something that I'm aware.

[00:21:37] Julian: In Australia, we've seen a few, which we've seen a different strain called Hericium coralloides. And the main strain that you see globally is Hericium erinaceus. And Hericium, those compounds come from the fruiting body. And erinaceus, a lot of those compounds come from the mycelium. And that's why a fruiting body and mycelium is important in that final product.

[00:21:56] But wherever you find most mushrooms, which is a damp forest, high humidity is good-- so close to rivers, close to waterways, and certain climates of certain times of the year. So obviously not summers. As you're coming out of winter or prior to winter is the best times. But yeah, low altitude in valleys is best to find the mushrooms on rotting logs.

[00:22:19] Luke: Could you take a lion's mane out of the ground and just eat it and have any benefits?

[00:22:23] Julian: You definitely can. It's not like a reishi where you're eating a wood. It's known as the lobster of the woods. It's quite delicious if you can cook it well. It's a delicious mushroom, but in terms of getting the 10 kilos of lion's mane into the one kilo of extract, it's like anything. You've got to consume a lot of it to get the concentrated version of it.

[00:22:45] But there's still benefits in taking lion's mane. And going back to that look, it does have that nerve cell look as well, because it's these lengthened little tips. And so there's that understanding of things that are good for the body look like kidney beans or other supplements or other natural products.

[00:23:06] Luke: Totally. It's like you cut a carrot crossways, it looks like an eye.

[00:23:09] Julian: Good for the eye. Exactly. There is a name for that. And so lion's mane, you look at it, make sense it's for the brain.

[00:23:16] Luke: When you look at it, it looks like it would make your hair grow faster. I don't know if it worked. If it worked for that, I'd have much more hair left. So tell me about the process you guys use to cultivate lion's mane because obviously there's only so much of it in nature and you want to mass produce it. How does that work?

[00:23:34] Julian: Yeah. The idea of wild harvested mushrooms is an interesting one. We went many times foraging, and there's not that much lion's mane growing wild, and it's not sustainable to do that. And so we work, one, with other farms and also have our own facility in Green Bay where we just went to last week.

[00:23:52] And we grow and extract different strains, including the lion's mane, where it grows in a Petri dish. So you typically go from a Petri dish, an agar plat, into a jar. And then a jar into bags. And then from that spawn in bags, you're either using wood in wood chips or sawdust or putting plugs into logs.

[00:24:13] The lion's mane, we don't grow on logs. We grow the shiitake, turkey tail on logs. So it depends on the strain. But essentially, it's a sawdust. Our origins were coffee. We used to grow off coffee once upon a time in Australia because the sawdust in Australia is not as applicable or natural.

[00:24:31] The eucalypt and other trees, they're not used to growing these type of functional mushrooms. So they don't work as in harmony. But the US timber and wood and native species are very used to mushrooms and they work well.

[00:24:44] Luke: And then with the lion's mane, after it's grown into the fruiting body, what's the next step to turn it into a concentrated extract?

[00:24:53] Julian: So we have the fruiting body, mycelium. I know this is the debate of all time, which is, mycelium is better or fruiting body is better. We're like the bipartisan. Both have important compounds. Both have medicinal compounds.

[00:25:06] Luke: And the mycelium, we could call the roots of a mushroom.

[00:25:09] Julian: The roots of the mushroom. Exactly, exactly. And so that's amazing when purified, when we remove the starch and the grain. Where mycelium gets a bad rap is that some companies or brands or products will contain a lot of grain within that mycelium. And so it hasn't been separated out. And so you're getting anywhere between 40 and 70% starch, which we've seen in third-party lab tests.

[00:25:32] And so purifying the mycelium and the extract. Dual extract, hot water and ethanol extract. So both pull out different compounds. The fat-soluble ethanol will pull out the triterpenes, which are important, and then the hot water will pull out the polysaccharides and the beta-glucans, which have a whole cascading effect.

[00:25:53] And so that's really the gold standard, is a dual extract. And with some powders, you'll find that they're just doing a single extract, not the fat-soluble element of it. So you're not getting the triterpenes in it. And that's just what we believe and that's what we've seen customers resonate with.

[00:26:09] And so we keep doing more of that versus steering away from powders. And I guess in general, it's like we're going on this amazing awakening of technology and AI and all of these modalities in biohacking world with cryotherapy and etc., yet we're still consuming powders and trying to absorb as much as we can.

[00:26:34] It's an ancient technology that serves its place, like a lot of ancient things. But hey, how do we get more of this product into the cells of our body? Because we're living in an environment that is quite stressful, a lot of environmental toxins. We need to make sure we're getting that potency in and leveling up on that.

[00:26:50] And so we're excited by what we've been working on for that and with the liposomal products and even the liquid extracts. And even beyond that, that will get outdated in two to three to four or five years. And there'll be another process that is better at absorbing the products and the supplements and the nutrients that we need in a depleted world when the fruit and the veg are not giving us the minerals that we once needed because we haven't farmed the right way.

[00:27:18] Luke: That's my perspective on what we call biohacking, which I'm trying to outlaw that word on the show. Always trying to come up--

[00:27:27] Julian: I think it's transitioning to longevity maybe.

[00:27:28] Luke: Biohealing. I don't know. There's a better word. I just don't look at the body as something to toy with. It's a living organism. It's a partnership that we get blessed with for a while. But half of my perspective or more is just what's making us sick and dysfunctional, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, all the ways, is just the fact that we're cut off from nature.

[00:27:52] We're not living like the Mongolians and the Peruvians in the Andes and the people that are still living of the earth and on the earth. So part of it is just sleep, sun, get cold, get hot, get outside, breathe real air, which we can't even do anymore because of the spraying most places on the planet.

[00:28:09] But it's alignment with nature, circadian biology, not having blue lights on at night, mitigating EMF. Trying to incorporate the natural environment, the ancestral approach. And many people are just stuck on that, and that's all you need to do. But that would be great if it weren't for the fact that going back two, three generations, for most of us in the West, malnourishment and toxicity is just rampant, and it's only getting worse.

[00:28:38] So I think the days of just eat a healthy grass-fed steak and get a lot of sun, we're way past that point. We're just being inundated by so much toxicity. Not to mention the psychospiritual toxicity in the world, but just on a physical basis. So I'm very excited about innovations, like what you guys are doing to find these elements of nature that are totally natural, not synthetic.

[00:29:03] These are organic compounds. Finding ways to use technology and science to amplify their effects because maybe back in the day we could go boil a little lion's mane every few months and boost the brain and we'd be fine. But it's like we're living in a world now where it is antithetical to life. Our biology is under assault all the time. So to me it's a part natural approach, but also part how can we use technology to actually amplify what is available in nature.

[00:29:38] Julian: It's a real fusion that's needed because of that environment. We could just eat grass-fed steak and just be in the sun if we didn't have the environmental toxicity, the pressures, the monetary pressures, the capitalistic pressures, the stresses, the political stresses all coming in.

[00:29:52] So, exactly, we have to ascend the temple, which is the body and the spirit and the mind through these tools and keeping them as natural as possible and just fusing it with technology. I was having a conversation with someone on Instagram, a social media influencer, and just saying, "Yeah, you don't need to take supplements. You just need to do those exactly like that." And I just said, "I think that's probably not true now because of the environmental toxins we're in."

[00:30:19] And that idea of thinking is, it needs to be a fusion. It needs to be coming together to really flourish. Whether it's biohacking or whatever word we want to put it, you won't flourish. You won't feel amazing, which is what everyone is striving to do, is to wake up to feel amazing without doing these things.

[00:30:37] Now, it doesn't mean it has to be cost prohibitive and have to have every gadget. There is those foundational things, but there are these tools that we need to be incorporating into our biology, into our DNA to help it level up.

[00:30:52] Luke: When it comes to the lion's mane, which I have a bottle here, I love your new giant bottles too.

[00:30:58] Julian: In America, go bigger.

[00:30:59] Luke: Yeah, the old ones, I would go through them pretty fast. I'm like, "Oh, this works right here." So with this bottle of lion's mane, and those looking at the video will be able to see me holding it. It's pretty substantial here. How much raw material, if you even know, would go into one bottle?

[00:31:14] Julian: Yeah, so it's around a 10:1 extract. So for every one liter of liquid, you're looking at turning those solids into 10 liters of liquid as well. And so that's a mycelium base and a fruiting body base. And so you essentially, through the extraction process, turning it into a slurry, for lack of a better word, and then extracting from that liquid. So you're looking at around a 10:1 ratio of 10 kilos to one kilo concentrate. Which makes sense  because we're concentrating the compounds down.

[00:31:46] Luke: Wow. Epic.

[00:31:47] Julian: And then at the same time, making sure that you're removing the grain and the starch, as I mentioned before, which is, I think sadly-- maybe you learn about water, you learn about all these impurities within water and differences within the water category, honey, olive oil.

[00:32:02] Within mushrooms, one of the big ones is the starch levels. You go into Whole Foods and Sprouts and other places and you feel there's a level of deception that's taking place for the consumer because they don't know that and they would never know that. If I didn't know about mushrooms, I would just choose that as well off the shelf.

[00:32:19] Luke: Yeah. You might read something online about lion's mane and these growth factors in the brain and neurogenesis and all these amazing things. And then you go to Whole Foods, you're like, "Oh yeah, lion's mane. I'm going try some of that." You're buying a bag--

[00:32:31] Julian: It didn't work for me.

[00:32:32] Luke: You're buying a bag of rice, and then you're like, "I don't know. I don't really feel anything. And then it's like the actual substance itself from nature, this beautiful gift gets a bad rap and actually loses the credit that it deserves just because it's not delivered in a way that's actually efficacious.

[00:32:51] Julian: This is where trust is so important. And you've been doing your podcast now and sharing amazing guests and their messages and their stories on there for nine, 10 years now. And so you're building this level of trust which amplifies. And in the world of capitalism and social media, you get these brands founded yesterday, and they're just riding the gravy train of whatever the boom is. And so it is part of the consumer's responsibility, which can be tiring, is to source and find. But I guess that's why people come to you and others to help do that.

[00:33:24] Luke: Some of us enjoy that. Out of every 20 emails I get, there's probably one interesting product or brand. And God bless everyone for trying, but I just happen to be the guy who enjoys scouring the website, looking for every little detail. I'm looking at the studies. I'm vetting it primarily just for myself to see if I'm interested in taking it.

[00:33:46] And then the, I guess, secondary benefit for anyone that listens or watches the show is that they know that I've done my due diligence. And if it's good enough for me, then it's good enough for me to talk about and encourage other people to try. But not everyone has the time to do that or cares to do that. They're just like, "Tell me what the best thing is and I'll--"

[00:34:05] Julian: Pretty much, yeah. And I think you mentioned it before, but the biohacking, that's secondary to the mission. Whatever the mission is, whether you are a mother or a teacher or a CEO or whatever, that's what your mission is. And all of these tools and everything we're talking about, whether it's mushrooms or ice baths or saunas or fasting, that's to help you achieve your mission in a better way, in an easier way. So we all need to be doing those things to catapult that number one mission, whatever that is.

[00:34:36] Luke: Being healthy is not a means to an end. The way I look at it is I've got a finite number of days here in this incarnation to do what I'm here to do, which I have my mission, and we all have our mission. Mine is, I would say, more of a spiritual nature to remember who I am, to remember that love is the only thing that matters.

[00:35:01] Sounds easy on its face, but get out into traffic and see how that goes. See how long you can stay loving when you go to an airport or the DMV. So that's my mission. If I'm not physically healthy, it is exceedingly difficult to do what I'm here to do. One bad night's sleep, I'm just 10%, 20% more irritable.

[00:35:23] When I go out into the world and interface with people, I'm less kind. I'm less patient. I'm less compassionate, loving, etc. And so you're absolutely right. To me, the whole purpose of physical health and putting an emphasis on that is to be healthy mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So we can actually make a contribution.

[00:35:44] I remember when I was really ill, and I've been ill with a number of different things, but especially in the realm of addiction, I lived so long just in base survival that there was no way for me to make any net positive contribution to society. My whole modus operandi was survival.

[00:36:11] I was very rapacious. I'm just looking, clinging, attaching, needing, wanting, give me, give me, just living in a very self-centered life of suffering for myself and most other people that I interacted with. And as I've gotten healthier, I realized like, wow, I think I'm actually-- some could argue with this-- mostly a net positive in the world.

[00:36:36] I think most people I interact with probably, I'm hoping, feel a little better having interacted with me. And that would not be possible if I didn't feel well physically. I don't feel well physically, it's a wrap. Going out and doing anything decent in the world is just not even on the table because you just like, "How do I even get through this day?"

[00:36:54] And I think that's where a lot of people still exist. So it's really important. Okay, let's go into-- I really feel like I want for the audience to get a deep understanding of what each of these mushrooms can do. And then, of course, we're covering, just by default, what to look for in terms of actually making sure you're getting the medicine out of it.

[00:37:16] But reishi has been one of my favorites for a long time. I've done some experiments where I've mega, mega dose reishi, and so far, I haven't hurt myself. But I find if I take enough reishi on a consistent basis, it seems to really calm my nervous system.

[00:37:36] And I don't even know that much about the science behind it, but I just know it's one that turns down the heat and the intensity on life. It just has a really sort of calming grounding effect. So that's my just very basic subjective experience. But what can you tell us as a mushroom expert about this beautiful mushroom?

[00:37:58] Julian: There's the spiritual side of reishi being understood as the mushroom of immortality and a longevity mushroom and an elixir of longevity and anti-aging, which goes all the way back through traditional Chinese medicine. And then for the modern-day person, all of us right now, it's like we can probably all put our hands up and say our cortisol levels are too high for too long.

[00:38:18] Cortisol rises in the morning. That gets us out of bed. That gets us going. And then it drops off by midday and really tapers. And that's a normal process. And then when we can't sleep and we're up late at night, or we're feeling nervousness or anxiousness throughout the day and we're putting on weight when we shouldn't be, we're feeling stress. We're getting maybe some red, puff looking face from cortisol, having cortisol face.

[00:38:41] And so the reishi mushroom is amazing at modulating the hypothalamic pituitary access, which is what monitors and modulates cortisol levels. So the HPA access is what the reishi mushroom is really good at doing. So stress. That stress then carries over, obviously, to lack of sleep, poor sleep.

[00:39:00] And so the zen mushroom in two words is what it is. But that's what it's working on, is the HPA access, which modulates in our pituitary, the expression of cortisol levels. So if we get our cortisol levels right, so much changes for us in terms of, again, weight, muscle mass even. In our cortisol levels, our muscle mass is depleted.

[00:39:22] Also, our immune system is depleted. And so chronic stress, I think, is the silent pandemic that everyone is under. If we do everyone's blood pressure-- and even blood pressure is a secondary reaction also to high cortisol for too long. And so that's the reishi mushroom in a nutshell, is around the HPA access, decreasing stress, bringing calmness to the body. Which I guess also why that ties into longevity is because you see people who have lived a stressful life. You've seen pictures of Obama pre and post being a president. You've seen people pre and post going into war, and they've aged like crazy over a five-year period because of what they've seen and the stress they've been under.

[00:40:06] Now that's an extreme example. But on the everyday basis, I think you can see in people over their lifespan, people who've lived a stressful life. And sometimes it's a choice, a perception, and how we choose to live. But of course, having the tools like reishi to modulate that.

[00:40:25] I'm a CEO, entrepreneur. That's the worst thing you could do for biohacking and longevity. It's very stressful. But so is maybe having five children and going on that journey. So both of them bring their stresses in different ways. And so reishi mushroom, it probably moved into number one position for me personally as well.

[00:40:45] I don't go at night without taking reishi. I just notice my sleep is so much better when I have it versus maybe waking up in the night or not being able to get to sleep straight away. So it's an absolute staple.

[00:40:56] Luke: You mentioned the study you did with lion's mane. Have you or anyone else noteworthy, done any interesting studies with reishi? Obviously, it's been used for thousands of years--

[00:41:06] Julian: Studied, revered, and really studies have been around the HPA access. Like, okay, why does this calm us down? What does this do? And it's a lot to do with ganoderic acid that's-- Ganoderma lucidum is the species name of reishi. And it's funny, the lucidum part comes from lucid and from lucid dreaming. And that's what they named it after. So Ganoderma lucidum is lucid feeling you have and the lucid dreaming that you have. Again, science follows the wisdom, not the other way around.

[00:41:37] And so the science now shows that, oh, it's the HPA access that regulates the pituitary gland, which calms down the release of cortisol and slows that down and brings anti-inflammatory benefits to that, is in short what it's done. And that's been done on masses and humans and the likes.

[00:41:55] And so that's the level. But I think that's a huge part. And there's not that much reliable testing on cortisol levels. There's different strips. I'm not sure if you've found anything for measuring your own cortisol or how you do that, but I think it's a very important marker for us to be checking in with.

[00:42:09] Luke: Yeah. Years ago when I was working with a functional medicine doctor, we did a cortisol test for a few days throughout the day, and mine is just off the charts, so I stopped testing. I was like, "I'm already meditating twice a day. I take my reishi." It's like, okay, what else can I do? I'm a very active, hyped, productive person. I think I definitely lean more into the high cortisol realm.

[00:42:31] Julian: Yeah. If you do nothing your cortisol will be down. Okay. That's one solution, but not really. So tools such as that are important for the reishi mushroom. The ganoderic acid, the triterpenes, and the beta-glucans for immunity, because immunity is very much tied into it all as well. The cortisol level high for too long, you get the sniffles, you get a sore throat, and you get sick.

[00:42:57] Luke: So we talked about how the lion's mane grows in these different areas and it grows out of the ground, right? Or does it grow on trees?

[00:43:05] Julian: From trees.

[00:43:06] Luke: Oh, it does grow on wood. Okay. So I have not touched a fresh lion's mane, but it looks like it would be squishy like most mushrooms we imagine. Is that true?

[00:43:14] Julian: It's a squishy firmness. There's a firmness to it, especially as it's young. As it's young and supple and fertile, perhaps it's a bit more firmer, and then it gets softer as it gets older.

[00:43:25] Luke: Okay. And reishi mushrooms, by contrast, which I have seen in the wild on a number of occasions, although I'm not 100% certain, so I've never harvested them. So I'm like, "I think it is, but I'm not totally sure." But back in the day, going to Chinese medicine practitioners and stuff, they'd have these jars of reishi mushroom strips and they were like wood. It's like very fibrous and very dense. You couldn't take a bite out of it. So it very clearly needs to go through an extract process. So tell me about how you guys grow the reishi.

[00:43:56] Julian: It's grown on sawdust as well. The reishi mushroom, we grow it out of the top. It's a beautiful ornament almost. The reishi mushroom has a strong stem to it, and it will grow with a fruiting body over the top. And so it's similar. It takes a bit longer to grow. Different mycelium on different strains have different strength levels. So the turkey tail and the reishi are extremely strong.

[00:44:20] So what I mean by that is the root system is just completely pure white. Versus the lion's mane which is a bit more thread like. But essentially, we're growing it out of the top, almost like flowers. When we grow the reishi mushroom, it's just a sea of these beautiful flowers, and it comes off very early in a bright yellow color, and then it reddens after a week to two of fruiting, and then that's when it's ready to harvest.

[00:44:47] But as you said, it's got a lot of chitin levels, C-H-I-T-I-N, depending on which country and how you pronounce that. But that is very solid, very strong, and very woody. And that's why you can't just cook up reishi, and you need to extract it down with the water ethanol extract to pull the compounds out. And even after that, you're still left with a very strong, hard fruiting body.

[00:45:11] Luke: I used to boil the strips and they'd be just wet, but not even soggy. You can't even break them down. They really are like wood. They're so dense. How long does it take to complete a harvest of reishi mushrooms?

[00:45:27] Julian: If you're starting from the Petri dish, Petri dish, two weeks; into the jar, two weeks, and then into the spawn bag, two weeks, and then you fruit it from there. And so you're looking at around eight to 10 weeks for a reishi mushroom from brand new. But once you've got that incubation, that colonized mycelium, it's two to three weeks.

[00:45:49] Luke: Wow, that is pretty slow compared to-- I know people that grow psychedelic mushrooms in their closet. It's like they grow overnight. It's crazy.

[00:45:58] Julian: But that will be from a colonized state.

[00:46:01] Luke: Okay.

[00:46:02] Julian: If you're starting from the Petri dish, you're slicing a little bit of the underside of the reishi mushroom from a fruiting body. You're putting it on a Petri dish. you're letting it grow out. It looks a bit like that. And the [Inaudible] grows out, and then there's a couple of steps in there, and it's 6 to 10 weeks total span. And that's for all mushrooms.

[00:46:18] But if you're just getting it from a colonized mycelial state, two to three weeks. That's what you're experiencing. And that's the easiest part to grow from. The hard work's done before that. The mushroom science is done before that.

[00:46:34] Once you get to the colonized block, if you like, which people can buy-- there's block different fruiting blocks you can buy from farmer's market and then you fruit it. You can't stuff it up from there.

[00:46:44] Luke: About 20 years ago, I ordered some reishi spores online and tried to grow them in a log. Drill a hole and put them in the log. I was living in the Hollywood Hills. I was like, "I'm going to grow my own." It didn't work. I'm not very good at stuff like that.

[00:46:59] Julian: No, that's a lengthy process. You also got to wait a year for it to colonize or 6 to 12 months.

[00:47:05] Luke: That's probably why. Yeah. I was too impatient. I'll just go buy some. But I was idealistic back in the day. I'm like, I'm going to do it myself  because I want to bless them and put them through my whole energetic process. And I was like, "Okay, this is way too hard." Okay. So that's reishi. Let's talk about--

[00:47:22] Julian: Cordyceps maybe.

[00:47:22] Luke: Cordyceps, yeah.

[00:47:25] Julian: A great mushroom for VO2 max, ATP oxygenation. A lot of people speak about it in terms of post-menopausal, in terms of females, post-menopausal really good for energy levels or during menopause when energy levels are dropping. So different cohorts, populations experience it differently.

[00:47:42] Some of the UFC guys we work with training twice a day, not wanting to have a lot of pre-workout or caffeine jitters that could interrupt sleep and drain the adrenals. It's really nurturing on the adrenals because a lot of these mushrooms, especially the cordyceps, is pro-inflammatory or an anti-inflammatory in terms of dampening down interleukin-6 and TNFa-alpha, which are cytokines and inflammatory markers that come up from stress exercise.

[00:48:11] And so that's something people don't think about with cordyceps, is those anti-inflammatory benefits that it has and just calming down inflammation, which is always within our body. And if we do a blood test and do our creatine reactive protein, our CRP, we can see where our base level inflammation is up to.

[00:48:28] And obviously, if we get injured or we have an immune issue or we're sick, that spikes. But even on the everyday basis, that inflammation level might be too high. And that's where cordyceps is good at dampening that down. That's the one that people don't probably know much about.

[00:48:44] Luke: Yeah, I didn't know that. I always think of cordyceps just as like the energy workout mushroom. So many athletes are into cordyceps.

[00:48:52] Julian: That's the sexy element to it is, is exactly that, which is increasing metabolic activity and mitochondrial health through helping produce adenosine, which is a part of the ATP. ATP is the ultimate currency for cellular energy. And so by producing more ATP, more energy, and that's a natural wave, which is, as we know, with caffeine, you're not producing more ATP. You're just blocking the receptors that tell you you're tired.

[00:49:21] So it's like getting a bank loan out that you've got to pay later. You got to pay that caffeine debt later. Whereas with the cordyceps, you're not building a debt up. You're not accruing a debt in energy that you've got to pay later and sleep more, or feel that fatigue later, or increase those cortisol levels. It's like, again, going back to the bit of the theme, harmonizing with the body. That's what it's doing. It's helping the body produce more ATP.

[00:49:44] Luke: That's incredible. I guess that's really the beauty in adaptogenic herbs in general, is they have this innate intelligence to know how to modulate what's needed. There's never a forceful hand, like taking some other supplements or synthetics where it's like your-- or caffeine, for example, where you're forcing the body into a certain state.

[00:50:04] The mushrooms seem to have a way of, I don't know-- there's a communication network going on, much like the mycelium that they communicate with trees and the earth. It's like they tell your body how to find homeostasis. It's really interesting. If the cordyceps are having that positive impact on excitatory cytokines and this thing, do you have any evidence to support that they could be helpful with allergies?

[00:50:32] Julian: Allergies and antihistamine, that's more the reishi mushroom in terms of helping with that. But with the cytokines, the interleukin-6 and the tumor necrosing factor-alpha A, which is just words for inflammatory markers, helping calm those down is more the cordyceps. But the histamine allergen element, we haven't really dug into too much.

[00:50:53] Mushroom research and mushroom science and mushroom applications are so widespread, and we've probably been a bit narrow on that in terms of those sexy factors that people are focusing on. We haven't gone into specialist categories of illness or problems.

[00:51:11] Luke: I asked about the allergies  because that's a really big issue here in Texas. We have all these invasive, non-native cedar trees, and they just basically sperm the entire state constantly. And so people have a really difficult time, my wife included, with these allergies. So I'm always looking out.

[00:51:29] I never had allergies my whole life and neither did she prior to moving here. So I'm always looking for things that are helpful with that  because it's really problematic. It's like you have freaking Lyme disease. People get super sick here. Yeah, it's brutal.

[00:51:42] Julian: I'll look into that. Yeah, it's always you think you're in paradise and then you're, oh, there's something here that's knocking you off. Where we're from in Byron Bay, Australia, beautiful tropical climate, but then mold becomes an issue. And I was never used to mold ever growing up on the West Coast where it was very dry. And so it's a constant give and take with the environment. And again, going back to just working with it. But let me look into that a bit more for you because I didn't realize it was such an issue here.

[00:52:07] Luke: Epic. I'm open to any ideas. Let's talk about turkey tail.

[00:52:13] Julian: Have you had much experience with turkey tail?

[00:52:16] Luke: I've been using your Turkey tail for quite a while now because of the benefits for the gut, and it's very helpful for that. And also, I was reorganizing all my supplements and stuff, which I have way too many that I could open my own freaking supplement store. I probably should.

[00:52:32] They're not the thing you can donate though if they're like used. Thought I might take them to the Goodwill. So I just tend to hoard them. I give them to friends here and there. But for some reason I don't even know where I got this idea, I started feeding our dog, Cookie, your Life Cykel turkey tail. It's in her little pet drawer, and I put that on her food all the time  because she's had issues with her gut and stuff. And now that I think about it, she's actually gotten much better.

[00:52:58] Julian: Yeah. That's the first thing that--

[00:52:59] Luke: I'm hoping it's safe to do that.

[00:53:01] Julian: Yeah, no, we have a pet range and had a pet range, but we just focused on the humans. But like most things that are good for humans, they're good for our animals. It's just working out the dosing according to their weight and things of that nature.

[00:53:15] It's funny you mention that because that's the first thing people forget about, but also notice, is stools and stool health and how important that is just as a reflection of your gut health. And so a lot of people report with the turkey tail, more consistent stools, better stools, and that's just a process of the digestion.

[00:53:32] But we know from studies with Harvard Medical that the turkey tail with the PSP and the PSK-- so each of these mushrooms have sexy compounds Cordyceps and lion's mane, NGF, nerve growth factor. The reishi was ganoderic acid. And then with turkey tail, it's PSK and PSP. Those are a whole bunch of letters I've thrown out.

[00:53:52] Luke: No, I love that because I will never remember any of that. So feel free to geek out hardcore  because it is important for people to know. And there will be geeks listening that have heard of some of those things. They're like, "Oh, yeah." Probably identify.

[00:54:01] Julian: We're talking to the geeks right now because we are going on that evolution now. Mushrooms have been around for a while, but how do we innovate and take it to the next level and look a bit deeper? And so PSK and PSP, polysaccharide peptide and polysaccharide Krestin, really good for healthy gut microbiome for helping support lactobacillus, help support healthy gut microbiota to produce good flora.

[00:54:25] We've seen studies with Harvard medical post amoxicillin, post antibiotic use, really important to get that gut microbiome back. It's just been completely wiped out, both good and bad. And so turkey tail supports that healthy gut microbiome, which reflects in the stools, one.

[00:54:42] Reflects in any bloating and digestion. So you see a dissolution of that bloating that you may be receiving. Some testimonials are talking about like, yeah, I eat badly, but I just take turkey tail and it's all good. Because they don't feel that disease. And so there's an element. I thought that's a good idea actually to do that from time to time.

[00:55:03] But then beyond that, it's also mood. Our gut-brain access is so-- eat badly for a day, see how your mood is. It is so poor. And so understanding that importance of the immunity and your mood is regulated by your gut health is where turkey tail is the unsung hero, like we spoke before about sleeping.

[00:55:20] And if you don't sleep well, you're 10, 20% less better, less of Luke, who he really is. Bit more impatient. And so it's exactly the same if our gut's off. And so turkey tail for gut health is critical.

[00:55:32] Luke: It's just crazy because the dose of turkey tail is so small. I think at times I've kind of discounted it, even though I've heard some research and talked to people like you, they're like, "No, this is legit. It really helps." But a couple of droppers of something, you're like, "Eh, what's this going to do for my gut?"

[00:55:47] You feel like you need to drink an entire glass of something. You think of more volume of "medicine" to be able to have an effect. It's just crazy with the mushrooms. I guess it speaks to the concentration. If you're doing a 10x concentration, a dropper or two is much more than you think it is  because it's concentrated. But it's wild that it can have that impact even at a relatively small dose.

[00:56:11] Julian: Yeah, yeah. And that's also the innovation of technology and nano liposomal encapsulation and liposomal capsulation. It's like we don't need as much now and we can just put-- think of microprocesses, how big a computer used to be and now how big the iPhone is in our pocket.

[00:56:31] Luke: Right, right.

[00:56:32] Julian: And so it's a bit similar to that. As the science gets better, the concentration can get better.

[00:56:38] Luke: Dude, I had an upgrade from that. I had that iMac computer over there. I'm a guy that will use the computer for 10 years until it literally just like stops working. So I bought one of these Mac mini for some reason. Oh, I wanted a bigger monitor or something.

[00:56:53] So I got a display and then a little Mac mini and the thing freaking arrived in the mail. It's as big as a hamburger. And I'm like, "This isn't going to do anything. How is this faster than the one I had before?" And it's like, I'll be damned, dude. That thing smokes. It's a really powerful machine. It's so tiny. To your point, they do keep getting smaller and smaller. Pretty soon, our entire home desk computer will be freaking the size of a quarter or something. It's crazy.

[00:57:18] Julian: You better do everything from it. And so supplements can mirror that a little bit. And medicines can mirror that as well.

[00:57:24] Luke: Cool. All right. Let's talk about one that I know the least about that, even when we first met, I found it as interesting because I think of it as more of a culinary mushroom and not a medicinal mushroom, and that is shiitake.

[00:57:36] Julian: Holy shiitake. Yeah, it always gets forgotten about for sure. The key elements of like, well, we all want better hair, better nails, better skin. It's the vanity mushroom from that point of view, no doubt. It helps support that. And that's through shikimic acid. This molecule helps support the keratin in our hair.

[00:57:55] It helps support the strength in our nails. Keratin is important in nails and in hair. And so this is something, from a longevity point of view, very important. The one that people probably don't think about too much is how it actually can support cholesterol and cardiovascular health. And so one of the compounds called eritadenine, this helps support lowering LDL levels within our blood.

[00:58:17] And so from a cardiovascular point of view, shiitake is really good. And from a vitamin D point of view, which vitamin D is critical for cellular function within the brain and mood as well. We know that from Scandinavian countries, if you have low vitamin D in the winter, you know your mood drops off.

[00:58:32] And so we should all be striving to have high vitamin D levels. And so ergosterol is able to support vitamin D synthesis. So taking shiitake, going and getting sun is a great way to amplify the benefits of vitamin D.

[00:58:47] Luke: What? That's crazy. I would've never guessed that. And so if I go to the market and I get some shiitake mushrooms-- I can't stand the taste of mushrooms, so I don't eat them for pleasure. It's funny  because I take a lot of mushrooms, but I would never have them on a pasta or something.

[00:59:05] Julian: Yeah.

[00:59:05] Luke: I can't stand mushrooms. But let's just say someone enjoys the taste of shiitake mushrooms. Are they getting any of those benefits just from eating some on a salad or on a dinner plate, you think?

[00:59:14] Julian: It's the same thing of you're going to have to eat a lot. But at the same time, it's better than not taking them. And if you're not eating shiitake mushrooms in your pasta, what are you putting in it? And so what is that ultimate currency? But this comes down, again, also to-- skipping ahead a little bit, but the chaga mushroom, the ORIC score of chaga is around 156,000. This is the antioxidant profile. It's one of the highest, if not the highest, for ORIC score, is the chaga mushroom.

[00:59:43] Luke: Holy shit.

[00:59:44] Julian: Yeah.

[00:59:45] Luke: Would you explain that?  Because that's crazy high. Thinking about, for example, I make hydrogen water. I have this machine, the Axiom H2. H600, freaking. By the way, shout out to those guys. They made the perfect hydrogen machine for inhaling. You can treat your eyes. You can treat your ears, and you can make water.

[01:00:03] I have a number of devices that make the water, but that one just happens to be multifaceted. So I'll check the ORP, the oxidative reduction potential. You're looking for a really low negative number, like negative 400, 500, 600. It gets up to negative 580, which is super potent antioxidant. Do you know how that relates to the ORIC scale?

[01:00:26] Julian: I don't. Let's look into that.

[01:00:28] Luke: It's somehow related, right? It has to do with basically its ability to reduce oxidation.

[01:00:34] Julian: Yeah. The ORIC attains mostly to foods, so I'm not sure how that fit into that spectrum.

[01:00:39] Luke: Okay. Got it, got it.

[01:00:40] Julian: And to put it in context, blueberries are around four and a half to 4,600. So blueberries are around 4,600. We know they're great for antioxidants. Chaga is sitting at around 156,000. So bang for buck.

[01:00:55] And it's funny because, again, you look at these things subjectively. All of our chaga forages who are out there in either Alaska or the northern parts of New York or parts of Canada, they are some of the healthiest people we've seen. They're alive in their eyes and their skin and their face.

[01:01:11] Now of course, they're connected to nature out there foraging, but they're sipping on chaga tea for the last 20 years. And so it's always funny when you notice these things then you look at the data and you're, ah. You put two and two together. And so the chaga mushroom for antioxidants alone for anti-aging, known as the king of mushrooms.

[01:01:19] And you go back to, it takes 5 to 10 years to grow. It's not overnight. It's not like the 6 to 10 weeks like the lion's mane and the reishi, even though they're potent. This one is in nature, in the wilderness, being resilient and growing under negative 10, 20-degree temperatures for a period of time. And it's also the host of the birch tree.

[01:01:51] And the birch tree, we know the birch sap, the birch bark is very medicinal. And so from that spirit element and that just common-sense element, it makes so much sense. Then you put it under the microscope and it blows blueberries out of the water, pound for pound by about 32 times.

[01:02:06] Luke: That's crazy. So the chaga mushroom, when you see them on a tree, it looks like a wart. So is it a parasitic organism that's kind of living off of the birch tree and then extracting all of these micronutrients from the tree over the course of all these years, and then you harvest it and you're basically getting a concentrated birch tree?

[01:02:30] Julian: You are getting a concentrated birch tree. I don't want to speak badly of the chaga mushroom. Is he or she parasitic? And I think the chaga mushroom, from what we can tell, is towards the end of the life of the birch tree, maybe the immune system is compromised or whatever it may be of the birch tree.

[01:02:51] Does the chaga mushroom know that the birch tree is dying and takes nutrients from it? Or is it symbolically growing together and then it kills it? Nature's survival of the fittest a little bit. And so I don't want to be pro-birch tree or anti-chaga or either.

[01:03:07] Luke: I'm not calling chaga evil. We have parasites inside us and all kinds--

[01:03:11] Julian: And they're living off us, and maybe they're helping us and maybe they're not. There's good and bad. And so that's a great question and one I couldn't answer and say chaga is parasitic as such. But it is taking nutrients from the birch tree and it is usually towards the end life of the birch tree.

[01:03:27] It's not a young youthful birch tree that's coming up of where you'll find chaga. You'll find chaga on older birch trees that have matured and probably passed their time. And so, yeah, it is pulling those nutrients or gaining those nutrients from the birch tree. Just like a healthy tomato is getting its nutrients from healthy soil.

[01:03:47] It's no different. And so the soil is the critical part when it comes to veg and fruit. And so with a lot of the mushrooms, especially the chaga, which is wild harvested, it's from the nutrients of the birch tree.

[01:04:00] Luke: So there's zero chance of growing Chaga in a laboratory production setting.

[01:04:06] Julian: Yeah. It's hasn't been done to date to the extent of the compounds that you'll find in a wild harvested birch tree. And so what people are doing now are growing birch forests. If you want to become a chaga farmer, you grow a birch forest.

[01:04:23] Luke: Wow. Can they inoculate the birch trees, or is it just something that happens naturally on its own?

[01:04:29] Julian: It happens naturally on its own. But at the same time, you can transplant as well. You can transplant some birch trees with chaga into the forest, and then you'll see the mycelium grow.  Because it's not like a normal mushroom where there's spores being released. It's all mycelium colonization that's taking place.

[01:04:47] Luke: So is the chaga putting its mycelium down inside the tree and going into the soil?

[01:04:53] Julian: This is what we have to assume. Yes.

[01:04:55] Luke: That's wild, dude.  Because they'll grow super high up too.

[01:04:59] Julian: Yeah, yeah. So they've made their way up.

[01:05:01] Luke: And I go, "Oh man, I wish I had an axe and a really tall ladder." So for many years now I've been buying, I don't know where, on Etsy and shit. I go on or eBay, I think is where I used to get them actually. And I go buy, I don't know, 10 pounds of just broken chaga, which you have to be really careful  because sometimes they're moldy. I learned that the hard way.

[01:05:23] So you want to make sure the vendor is sun drying them and not letting them mold. And so I just have a tea kettle, a glass tea kettle on the stove all the time. It was the basis of my coffee, and any drink, I just use chaga all the time. And I've gotten lazy and stopped doing it.

[01:05:38] But I was doing that for many years and I probably interviewed someone or a friend of mine told me, that's great that you're doing that, but you're only getting half the medicine out of the chaga because you need to get the dual extraction, as you mentioned.

[01:05:50] So in other words, I'm throwing away what I think is used up, but meanwhile I'm throwing away all the fat-soluble nutrients in the chaga. I'm assuming there's still some benefit to just doing the water extract. You get a really dark, chocolatey brown extract water out of it. But how much is missing if you're not doing the alcohol extraction?

[01:06:13] Julian: It's great that you're doing that, and it's amazing that you can do that with the chaga.

[01:06:17] Luke: I'm going to get back in the habit because sometimes I'd forget it on the stove and then it would get moldy. You got to keep it going every day.

[01:06:23] Julian: Yeah, this is where the beauty of convenience comes in handy because--

[01:06:27] Luke: You are going to take your freaking product and not worry about it.

[01:06:29] Julian: But if you're hardcore, for sure, go for it with the chaga on the stove top. But the main one you're missing without a fat-soluble extraction and ethanol extraction of the chaga is betulinic acid. And betulinic acid is the powerhouse. It's what supports the natural high you get from chaga.

[01:06:50] Like cordyceps, it's supporting the ATP synthesis, not to the point where you're getting this lift in energy, surge, but it's a smoother energy that the betulinic acid is providing through the cascade of events of, again, supporting the micronutrients. Because also, within the chaga, when you're getting that betulinic acid, you're getting the magnesium, the selenium, which are other important minerals to be taking.

[01:07:13] So yes, you're getting the water extract with the beta-glucans and the polysaccharides. Great for immunity. You won't get the betulinic acid, which helps support natural energy and natural drive. So chaga is great to have as a substitute for coffee for that energy level.

[01:07:30] Luke: It tastes amazing too. Even just the water extract, it's just really good. I would put shilajit in there, tiny bit because you put too much, it tastes like-- a little shilajit and then grass-fed butter and just make myself chaga lattes. It's quite good.

[01:07:46] Julian: It's a delicious mushroom.

[01:07:47] Luke: Do you know anything about the-- and I don't know if this is true. This is going way back that I heard this and just took it at face value that chaga has melanin in it. Is that true?

[01:07:57] Julian: Yeah. It helps support melanin content. So it's another one a bit like the shiitake. Shiitake, chaga you should have before you get in front of a red light or before you go out in the morning sun or get some sun to really just amplify the melanin, help amplify the vitamin D with the shiitake.

[01:08:13] So again, biohacking, bio stacking. How do we get best bang for buck? Amplifying those. If you are throwing in methylene blue in there, throwing off some shilajit in there because then you're getting the amplification and the shuttle into the cells. This is where we've gotten to with our own innovation and products, is around how do we combine and compound the mushrooms with the super nutrients with the activity?

[01:08:38] Because we're all short on time and we all want the best bang for buck, and we don't want expensive pee. And so that's sort of where we've got to with the liposomal single serve sachets, where there's a five in one. The five in one being the lion's mane liposomal, the liposomal cordyceps, the liposomal shilajit. Chaga as well. And then also the vitamin C 200 milligrams. So that's our version of trying to compress time and energy.

[01:09:04] Luke: That's what these new boxes are.

[01:09:06] Julian: Yeah, that's the Rest & Sleep.

[01:09:07] Luke: Which at the time of recording is not out yet but will be by the time we publish this.

[01:09:12] Julian: Yes. So we've been working on this one for a couple of years.

[01:09:14] Luke: I'm sure some people are familiar with the concept of liposomal but break it down for those that don't know what we're talking about and how that impacts actually getting it into the cell.

[01:09:24] Julian: The quickest metaphor is, with most nutrients, as we've spoken about many times about expensive pee, the body is non-discriminatory. And so it's here to absorb some things and throw some other things out. And it's in a bit of a busy state where with powders and capsules, we know that our absorption is between 20 and 40% less compared to liquid.

[01:09:47] Sublingual is the best way to take things, as well as liposomal, where in a liposomal encapsulation, you're getting a fat lipid layer around the vitamin C or the shilajit or the cordyceps. So this fat layer around it protects it because the body and the bloodstream and the nutrient stream is very much a signaling mailing system where when there's a signal that accepts the molecule, it lets it in, like the blood-brain barrier.

[01:10:16] The lion's mane knocks on the door of the blood-brain barrier, says, "Yeah, you can come in. You can't." And so when it comes to absorption, when things are wrapped in a liposomal case, it can get into the bloodstream and into the cell. It's picked up versus being told, no, you can't come in or being told you are going to get digested in the stomach, in a very acidic environment and get broken down.

[01:10:40] And so you're peeing out or you're getting broken up in the liver 10 to 20 to 30, 40% of what you consumed or paid for. And so liposomal encapsulation, a phospholipid layer, a fat layer, a security guard that makes sure that Luke gets to the place Luke wants to get to.

[01:10:58] Luke: I love the way you break that down. That's a Flintstonian version. I can understand that. You know what I mean? I just think of--

[01:11:08] Julian: Because otherwise, hey, you're not getting the VIP treatment. You're just going into the gut, and shit is a party going on down there and it's wild. And you are over here. You're going to the liver or you're getting broken down in the stomach. And so it's that targeted delivery to the place that you want to get to, which is the cell.

[01:11:27] Luke: What is it called? Lipophilic, like your cells like fat, versus lipophobic.

[01:11:33] Julian: And as a society, we've been fatphobic for so long. The food pyramid has a lot to answer for with being fatphobic. And that keep telling us for decades to take lots of carbs and lots of processed foods and lots of sugars and leave fat alone. But our brain runs off of fat.

[01:11:55] And the Nobel Prize was won for this to show that cholesterol is such a critical signaling molecule when it's not damaged. But when cholesterol is damaged by a sugar molecule, the cholesterol knocks on the door. The guy says, "No, you're not coming in." Because the guy doesn't recognize the cholesterol molecule because it's been damaged by sugar.

[01:12:15] This is what won a Nobel Peace Prize. And so cholesterol has been copying it for decades, but healthy cholesterol is well and good. Healthy cholesterol is what helps men produce testosterone. It's what helps females have healthy sex hormones as well. And so that signaling molecules that take place is super important, and the liposomal is a way to help, I guess, go on that journey, which is just working with nature. Nature understands what it needs and what it doesn't need.

[01:12:46] Luke: Epic. Tell me about the one you made with shilajit  because that's really interesting.  Shilajit on its own is a really good shuttle for nutrients, which I've learned the hard way on a couple occasions that I was telling you. Beware. Don't mix shilajit  with psychedelics unless you want to really amplify their effect.

[01:13:06] Also, I take these BEAM Minerals, this fulvic and humic acids, is a liquid type of shilajit  product, and they really do amplify everything. So I found it interesting when you showed up and you're like, "Yeah, cool. We mix shilajit , but we also made the shilajit liposomal." I'm like, That's next level. That's a cool innovation.

[01:13:26] Julian: It's balancing convenience with science, and that science element being that shilajit  is an amazing electron transport carrier. So with the electricity and electrons within it, it attaches and it shuttles things into the cell, as you know. With the BEAM Minerals, it does the same thing.

[01:13:47] Luke: And also has the ability to open the cell wall and draw toxins out, which is crazy. It's a two-way street. It's the most phenomenal substance ever.

[01:13:53] Julian: Fulvic acid, shilajit  is a dream in that sense for where we're up to in society right now. We need to get more stuff in and we need to get the bad stuff out. And so combining it with the lion's mane and the cordyceps to amplify those benefits to make it in a form that isn't as sticky. You've got to be committed to have the sticky resin for sure.

[01:14:14] It doesn't transport well. We're traveling now. The shilajit's always like sticky jar, hard, so it's great to keep it home but not good to travel with. But again, of course, that element of taste. I love the taste of shilajit. It brings back some memories of Mongolia for me. So it's nice. But for many people, that's not the case.

[01:14:30] Shilajit hasn't reached the heights that it can reach for humanity because of that application. So wrapping it up, hiding it in a cinnamon maple flavor with the lion's mane cordyceps, the chaga, as we mentioned, all those benefits that the chaga has. It's the king of mushrooms for a reason. And the vitamin C is a staple forever and always.

[01:14:49] And so that's our five in one combination. And then wrapping that up all in a liposomal is what we've been working on for two years. And it'll be out in a couple of weeks.

[01:14:59] Luke: I'm stoked, dude. I'm stoked. Just the alcohol extracts, the tinctures are great. But this is a whole other level. And on that note, I want to, before I forget, let people know that want to try this, lukestorey.com/lifecykel, L-I-F-E-C-Y-K-E-L, is the link. And I'll put this in the show description, so you can just click on it. And LUKE15 gets you a 15% off. Thank you for that. lukestorey.com/lifecykel.

[01:15:30] Julian: We've been on your website since the first podcast, so I appreciate. Because there's a great list of products and tools on there. So we've made it to the Luke Storey list.

[01:15:39] Luke: Well, I do go through the web store at lukestorey.com/store, which is an easy place for me to just host everything that I use on a regular basis.  Because I get so many questions. What's the best thing for this and that? And I just go, "Go to my site. If it's on there, that's the one I think is the best."

[01:15:57] Or if sometimes there's multiple in the category, like hydrogen water. I have my Holy Hydrogen machine that's great just to sit on the counter in the kitchen, but I don't want to haul it back and forth to my office, so I have the other one in there and I can-- you know what I mean. So if it's on there though, I've used it. I use it. It's vetted.

[01:16:15] Julian: The real test will be, does Alyson take these?

[01:16:18] Luke: Yeah. That's the real test.

[01:16:19] Julian: That's the real test. That's the where the rubber hits the road because it's for the people that maybe wouldn't take the shilajit normally, or there's too many bottles. Put it in the smoothie, cinnamon maple flavor, and you've just had five amazing supplement nutrient products in liposomal.

[01:16:35] Luke: You nailed it. She has a good test because even if something's really good for you, she probably won't take it if it tastes super shitty. So she is a good standardized test subject in that regard. What was I going to say? We talked about the liposomal.

[01:16:53] Julian: The rest & sleep. The other one is the-- you took that before. How do you feel?

[01:16:57] Luke: I took it right before we recorded because I was pretty hyped. I was very amped this morning and was not ready to sit down and have a calm conversation. So it definitely calmed me down, and I wasn't even trying to sleep. That's funny.

[01:17:09] Julian: Yeah. And that's the adaptogenic element.

[01:17:11] Luke: Rest and sleep.

[01:17:12] Julian: Yeah.

[01:17:13] Luke: I definitely am not sleepy, but I'm much more calm than I was when we started.

[01:17:16] Julian: Because the bright lights and the environment we're in. But if you were getting ready for bed and winding down, then those adaptogenic properties of the mushrooms of the other herbs would allow you to do that. Whereas melatonin and these ones are pretty straight and narrow.

[01:17:32] And what we like about reishi and the magnesium and a little dash of lion's mane for REM sleep, as well as the valerian in there, is that it just doesn't give you that hangover feeling the next day where melatonin can do that too much. It's a hard and fast.

[01:17:47] It'll get you to sleep, but you can have a melatonin fog, and it has a place for sure. I like melatonin when I'm traveling with jet lag or trying to sleep on a plane and whatnot. But again, going back to that harmonious homeostatic element without the drawbacks the next day.

[01:18:03] Take a pre-workout, take heaps of caffeine, you're going to pay for that tomorrow or the next day or the day after. Whereas when we work with the mushrooms and the adaptogens with that potency and the shilajit, you're not paying for anything later. You are working with your body. You're working with your physiology.

[01:18:19] Luke: Absolutely. I know what I was going to ask you. Over these years, how did you suss out-- I'm always interested in how things work. I want to go to the factory where your stuff is made and just geek out, which I've had the opportunity to do with a couple of companies. It's super fun just seeing all these big vats boiling. I just love stuff like that. But I remember when we met, I think you were manufacturing in Australia still in the beginning.

[01:18:43] Julian: Yeah, yeah.

[01:18:43] Luke: So tell me just as a business owner and someone who has such stringent quality control standards, as I can tell you obviously do-- you're really into making the best possible product. How do you go through the process of just building a factory or finding one and getting the staff and the right technicians to do the work? What does that look like?

[01:19:07] Julian: I think it's the right people arrive at the right time when you're in your own flow with your own team and your own life. And so as we've built this company, the right people have come in, the right scientists. Tom [Inaudible] was our first scientist. And even Dustin, our head of QA at the moment, is just an absolute whiz.

[01:19:26] And so the right team will help do that. And that's where we're up to as a company now. It's like, how do we continue to grow and continue to move into the next evolution of the brand?  Because we're reaching 10 years this year. So the next decade, 10 to 20, how is the company going to look?

[01:19:41] Well, it's going to look dependent on the team. The team will reflect the external success and capabilities. And so we were at Green Bay last week. Our site manager there, our technical manager, Laura, she's a mother of five. She runs her own farm, and she runs our site with 20 staff, and she's just an absolute weapon.

[01:20:01] And so we've been blessed that she's come into our life. And so it's very much around those type of personalities. Laura, Dustin, Cam, Juan, who heads up her NPD. There's many names I could shout out. And I'm excited for the next cohort of team members that come in that add their flavor to it.

[01:20:22] Luke: How did you end up in Wisconsin, the home of cheese making of all places?

[01:20:27] Julian: Yeah, it's is the home--

[01:20:28] Luke: Did you adopt an old cheese factory and convert it into a mushroom factory?

[01:20:32] Julian: We tried some cheese there last week. It's good. I think France probably comes second to Wisconsin now maybe. I'm not sure. But that was just, I guess, a spiritual element of just like the right place, right time.

[01:20:45] And we connected with Joe and Mary Ellen, who were actually USDA organic first ever functional mushroom growers in the US 25-plus years ago. So they had the first USDA organic mushroom farm 25 years ago just outside of Green Bay. And so we started working with them in their facility, and then now we're outgrowing that space and we're just moving to an even bigger facility now.

[01:21:11] And so mushrooms teach us about collaboration and mycelium teach us in the forest about collaboration between trees and between species, and communication. And so embodying that within the company, that's why we chose to set up there, because we got along with them. We feel and treat them like family.

[01:21:28] Likewise, they feel like grandparents to us/mentors and mushroom wizards who've been doing it-- they were there very early days. They were those weird people in the '70s and '80s with a mushroom farm and everyone in Green Bay was like, "Oh, there's those mushroom people." That was them.

[01:21:43] But just growing lion's mane and cordyceps and reishi and all of these mushrooms. And so because they were there, we set up there, I guess. And it's a bit like an ecosystem effect. When you think of Silicon Valley, if you're a tech company, you need to be in Silicon Valley. And so your ecosystem, really, is important as to who you're around. They led the space for three decades. And so why would we not team up?

[01:22:07] Luke: Wow. Beautiful man. What a blessing. What a blessing. So where do you see the mushroom industry going as a whole, for your company and just likewise I've heard of people developing different strains of mushrooms that eat garbage, and there seems to be a lot of-- and I'm not that in the know, but I do hear things in the periphery of mushrooms are going to save the world.

[01:22:30] And then you have, of course, the psychedelic realm of mushrooms, which is, I think, largely a positive impact on society. So where do you see the whole world of mushrooms going, and then what are your future plans? I know you spent two years in this new formulation with the liposomal and stuff, but I'd be curious what your biggest visions are even for your company as well.

[01:22:53] Julian: Yeah. Exactly. And I was one of those very early on and still am like mushrooms can save the world, and mushrooms can do plastic, and they can do oil spills, and they can help people with PTSD and soldiers and getting through traumas and all of these things.

[01:23:09] I guess for us it's like the Bruce Lee idea of one kick 10,000 times. Practicing one kick 10,000 times is our foundational element, which is functional mushrooms, which is the growing, the extracting process, and then the application. And so that's where we live and that's where we are focused on.

[01:23:28] But incorporating the super nutrients is important for that compounding effect. Seeing how they harmonize with shilajit and fulvic and lion's mane. And as a company, it's like we're just sticking over into 10 years now. When we chatted, we were in our fourth or fifth year and finding our way, and narrowing in on that.

[01:23:46] Because we've played around with oil spills. We've played around with mushrooms to replace plastic. And those things are all possible. But as we all know, where attention goes, focus goes, and energy goes. And we need to make sure that is focused. And when you look at greats throughout society, they've been pretty focused on one or two things.

[01:24:07] And so we want to leave a mark and just make sure that mushrooms have reached their pure potential and it's not just bypassed as a fad.  Because it's not a fad if it's done well. And it's not a fad if it's a pure extraction and the process is good and the people that are behind it truly believe in those benefits.

[01:24:27] So mushrooms is what we do, functional mushrooms in these applications. Will we be in tincture form in five years? Probably not. Will we be in liposomal form? Probably not. We'll be in in the next element of innovation in science. But the core foundation of how they're extracted, how they're growing, us doing that, trust, transparency.

[01:24:48] So it's a bit old-fashioned in that sense, I think. But, of course, staying adaptable because mycelium is very adaptable to its environment. It's very responsive. So that's important. As you become a bigger company, you get a bit stiff and maybe the wind changes and you get caught out because you're not adaptable enough.

[01:25:04] You've got a team of 50, 100, 200 people. And so that's also an element of, one, we need to be entrepreneurial and be like mycelium and be adaptable to the environment and ready to move around that. And at the same time, honoring the wisdom of the mushrooms that have been here for thousands of years.

[01:25:23] Luke: Fast forward five years and psychedelic mushrooms are just completely deregulated and legal everywhere. You can just buy them anywhere you want. Do you see in your future, if that were the case, integrating some element of your products into that realm?

[01:25:41] Julian: I think being adaptable, we will definitely look at that and Amanita muscaria. We've done a fair bit of research on that one, and there's elements there that are very exciting and a lot of great research out of Russia for a long time. That one, I'm not sure where it sits regulatory wise.

[01:25:57] Luke: It's legal. It's crazy.

[01:25:58] Julian: It's legal. Yeah, yeah. That's one's just bypassed. The psilocybin over here was like, "Hey, let us through." And somehow Amanita muscaria is off to the races and it's sold in Erewhon and the Whole Foods. I'm not sure if it's Whole Foods, but Erewhon and other places.

[01:26:12] So that's exciting. The mushroom space is so big that there's so much opportunity for many. There's not opportunity for many if they're cutting corners and they're putting starch in their product and they're the me-too products. And I guess going to Expo West a couple of weeks ago, it was like, didn't excite me for innovation.

[01:26:34] Powders, capsules, different branding, different story, but are we helping push humanity forward on a health level in a serious way, or are we playing the capitalistic algorithm? It was more that. If we think of tech and the innovation on tech and AI, it's out of control in a great way. But that's not happening at the moment. There's bubbles. I had methylene blue with you for the very first time on the podcast five years ago. It was when my tongue went blue, and now it's kicking off.

[01:27:04] Luke: Yeah, yeah.

[01:27:06] Julian: That was innovation five years ago, and it's great that it's coming through now, but I think I'm just interested in how do we feel amazing? How do we sleep amazing? How do we help utilize these technology tools by our brain just being another level? And so, yeah, the compounds here have a role to play in that. The other mushrooms have a role to play in that. What would you like to see from us as a brand?

[01:27:31] Luke: You blew me away today with the new formulas. It's one of those like, why didn't I think of that? Liposomal mushrooms. Of course. Duh. And shilajit, like I said, that's crazy. I'm a huge fan of psychedelic mushrooms, microdosing, and very infrequently mega dosing with an intended purpose, of course.

[01:27:58] And sometimes that purpose is just go out in nature and integrate with that. It doesn't have to be some super serious ceremony. But I wouldn't do it and go to a party. But I am very interested in where the psychedelic mushroom potential expands too. If there's ways to do that safely.

[01:28:19] That's the thing. It's like if you guys created a product, it's has a tiny bit of psilocybin. It's liposomal, so it takes very little. It gets into the cell. So it has a great effect. But then your little kid drinks the whole bottle and all of a sudden they're in a mental hospital. So it's like I don't know what I would like to see, but I just know there's so much potential in that realm.

[01:28:42] You mentioned the Amanita. I've got a friend. He's got a company called Eons. He was on the show recently, and he created an incredible product with Amanita, and he managed to do so in a way that's very safe. It's very low dose in a similar liposomal delivery, so there's really no chance you could get high. But you get the benefits from it.

[01:29:01] So I'd like to see some innovation in that space if it can be done safely, so that people can get the benefits, but not necessarily the risks involved. Because there are definitely risks. If you're stretching your brain in those ways, if you don't know what you're doing, you can do yourself some harm.

[01:29:18] Julian: Yeah. And it's always a balance. You need the risk reward paradigm, but we can't stay where we are. We know that as a collective. We can't stay where we are across everything, actually. Everything's getting disrupted now. Every profession is getting disrupted with AI and tools, and so you can't get caught standing still right now.

[01:29:38] And you're not going to flourish if you're standing still. So I guess, from our silo, this is our space to make sure that the category is not standing still. Because I look at shelves in retail and I'm like, "It's not inspiring." And I would maybe walk past it and be gone with the mushroom fad unless it's able to reinvent itself from a powder, capsule space. Because it's sitting in the world of old tech.

[01:30:02] Luke: That brings us to a really fun part in the show, and I'm glad you just mentioned that  because I must forgot. So when we were downstairs, you were showing me a very simple test that people can do with their mushroom products to determine if they're paying for a bunch of useless starch, if they're actually getting the medicine.

[01:30:18] And so first explain this test, which anyone can do at home, and then we'll do a demo. We'll probably have to reset the camera so that we can really see what you're doing. But I think it's a really important tool for people to have because, like I said earlier, people hear a podcast like, oh, lion’s mane. Yeah, cool. I'm going to try that. They're at Whole Foods.

[01:30:37] The next day they buy a big bag of freaking rice powder for 50 bucks and it does absolutely nothing. And then they don't buy it anymore and therefore maybe that brand eventually fizzles out because their products suck.

[01:30:47] Julian: Or they keep going because--

[01:30:49] Luke: Yeah, because no one notices, no and now it's even worse. Yeah, they have great branding and some capital behind them, and all of a sudden, they're the biggest mushroom brand in the world and their product is garbage. I know you're very respectful and even when we were talking about doing this, you're like, "I'm not going to show the other brands." I know what they are.

[01:31:07] And funnily enough, the two brands you showed me just intuitively, I've never bought them  because I just, I don't know. It just didn't ring true to me. So good job on the intuition, Luke. I didn't waste my money on those or have them on the show, promoting their shitty products.

[01:31:23] So that said, we can anonymously test a couple of very popular, I might add mushroom brands. And if someone wants to message me privately on Instagram, I'll tell you what they are. But I'm not in the business of tearing someone's business down. They're trying to do something, so God bless them.

[01:31:37] Julian: It's a balance  because they've done a good job to be in the space, but it's like, hey, you're deceiving customers and you're not the mushrooms.

[01:31:44] Luke: Do you think these brands know that their products suck and have very little actual medicine in them?

[01:31:51] Julian: I think so, to an extent. It's hard to say. They have big teams. Maybe there's a lack of knowledge, maybe. Can't comment on that.

[01:32:02] Luke: So tell us how the test works.

[01:32:04] Julian: Yeah. So essentially, iodine, depending on what you put it on, it will come up with different colors. And so iodine, when mixed with starch, will show a purple-black color. So for instance, if you put iodine-- Lugol's iodine is the best one. It's the most purest. If you put that on to bread, it will turn purple-black immediately because of the starch content. If you do that to a potato, it would become purple black again as a starch content.

[01:32:32] Luke: And the iodine on its own, like Lugol iodine is a rust color. It's like a dark, reddish color.

[01:32:36] Julian: Exactly. So that's what it should--

[01:32:37] Luke: It should stay that.

[01:32:39] Julian: It should stay that color. And so on bread it goes purple-black. On potato, it goes purple black. Two things that are obviously 100% starch or very high in starch. You put it on some mushroom powders, it will become purple and black.

[01:32:51] And you're like, "Hang on a minute. I paid for mushrooms." And we've done third-party lab tests on different batches from different brands, from all brands, and these are two of the biggest offenders where you are looking at lion’s mane and you're getting up to 71% starch on a lab test over an average of three different batches, three different tests.

[01:33:10] And then another brand was around 45%, but it can go between 22% all the way up to 71 was the one fell off our chair the most. So this is us just trying to, I guess, help steward without causing any wars. It's like, hey, guys, we need to get back to purity and potency to honor the category and the customer so that when they actually take the product, they're not taking it from a placebo point of view.

[01:33:36] And they thought that they took it in their mushroom coffee or whatever, however they added it. They're taking it from a physiological point of view.  Because as we've gone through, lion’s mane will give you increased BDNF levels, will give you decreased neuroinflammation. But it's not going to do that if you've got 70% or 50% or 40% starch in your product.

[01:33:55] Luke: Right. Because even if you have 30% of the medicinal compound left in that after poor absorption, if you're only absorbing 20% of the 30%, you're left with 10% that you actually paid for.

[01:34:07] Julian: Keeps getting cut.

[01:34:08] Luke: Yeah, yeah.

[01:34:08] Julian: And for reference, ours is, and it's on our lab reports on our website, 0.5% starch at its highest all the way to non-detectable. But always less than 1%, always ideally less than 0.5%. And we keep refining that to get it down and down and down. And a lot of the time it's non-detectable versus a 40% or a 70%. And so we can just do a quick, tabletop science 101 mushroom purity test now if you want.

[01:34:34] Luke: Let's do it. Okay, so we've got all our gear set up here, and I love geeky science experiments, so I'm glad we're able to get this on camera. So those that are watching the video, I highly recommend that you at least, if you listen to this episode, go watch the video and fast forward almost to the very end and you'll get to see this experiment. And one more time, just explain what we're doing here.

[01:34:56] Julian: It's a mushroom purity test, but essentially a starch test. And so iodine once combined with starch, turns the liquids that's a rusty red-like color into purple-black. And that identifies high starch content, which as we mentioned in the podcast, is not what you want when you're buying mushrooms. And this is one of those areas that shouldn't be permitted in the mushroom space. I bought these products from Whole Foods just before it came here.

[01:35:25] Luke: Thanks for wasting all that money for the benefit of the audience.

[01:35:29] Julian: For the benefit of the education.

[01:35:30] Luke: Took one for the team.

[01:35:31] Julian: For the greater good.

[01:35:31] Luke: Very expensive too, even the big bags of [Inaudible].

[01:35:34] Julian: Yeah, yeah. It $100 for the mushroom powders.

[01:35:39] Luke: So just to clarify, anyone could do this at home too. If they have like mushroom capsules, they could just put them in a little shot glass like that, drop some iodine on it. And if there's a lot of starch, it's going to turn purple black.

[01:35:50] Julian: And this is where mycelium gets the bad wrap. It's like, oh, mycelium is not good. Both are amazing. Both are medicinal. Starch, grain, wheat, rice shouldn't be in the end product. Full stop.

[01:36:02] Luke: Okay, cool. And I'm glad you cleared that up because people do talk shit about mycelium a lot, and I thought it was just useless, and that's why they do that. But if you're extracting the medicine from the mycelium, it's great. And then you have the synergy, the entourage effect of the whole organism.

[01:36:19] Julian: Full spectrum. Yeah, exactly. So just as the demo, if we add the iodine to the bread, the starch obviously comes a black, purple color. This is the base. And if we add it to the potato, you'll see as well. It has that black. Just wait for it. It gets blacker. So you get that black color.

[01:36:49] Luke: Take that bread and point it up towards your camera right there so people watching can really see. That looks like you put methylene blue on it.

[01:36:57] Julian: That's a positive starch test.

[01:36:58] Luke: Like an ink pen.

[01:36:59] Julian: Yeah, it's ink pen. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now we'll do it with all three products. We'll do it with some popular powders. You can see there the black.

[01:37:16] Luke: It instantly turned black.

[01:37:18] Julian: Instantly black.

[01:37:18] Luke: Was that one the capsules or was both--

[01:37:21] Julian: Both powders, but you'll find selling in capsules as well, which is the same thing, just capsulated.

[01:37:28] Luke: Got it. A lot of people are going to be pissed off right now.

[01:37:35] Julian: What have I been buying for the last 10 years?

[01:37:38] Luke: They're just buying--

[01:37:40] Julian: You can see it straight away there as well.

[01:37:42] Luke: Wow. Yeah.

[01:37:46] Julian: They're all pretty similar.

[01:37:48] Luke: Yes.

[01:37:49] Julian: And then we will add of our liquid extract now. Make sure we have enough.

[01:37:58] Luke: Okay. This is your Life Cykel Lion's Mane Mushroom Extract.

[01:38:01] Julian: With the iodine.

[01:38:04] Luke: I'll be damned, dude.

[01:38:06] Julian: You get a red  iodine.

[01:38:08] Luke: Yes. It looks like diluted iodine. Wow.

[01:38:14] Julian: Yeah, that's one. You don't want to see that in an industry or a category. And as I said, we've done the lab tests to get the actual numbers. And this one sits around between 65 and 75% on average with an independent lab test in terms of starch content. And this one sits at around 45%.

[01:38:33] And so that's two of a couple of many others that have those levels. Not all powders are bad. There's some good powder brands out there for sure. But these ones that are sold in main retailers is not what you want to see.

[01:38:45] Luke: Dude, that's super shady. I'm so glad we got to myth bust that.

[01:38:49] Julian: Myth bust mushroom science 101.

[01:38:52] Luke: That's amazing, dude.

[01:38:53] Julian: Mushrooms are bullshit. Bullshit.

[01:38:55] Luke: One thing I wanted to ask you, the extracts with the alcohol, when you take it sublingually, does the actual alcohol content help with absorption at all too?

[01:39:07] Julian: As a preservative, ethanol is amazing, but it's also helpful for that extraction, that fat soluble element to it. They're the two elements as to why it's mostly beneficial, but the methodology of sublingual is always superior.

[01:39:20] Luke: Does the alcohol under the tongue help absorb it?

[01:39:23] Julian: It feels like it does subjectively.

[01:39:24] Luke: It feels like it does something.

[01:39:25] Julian: Yeah. But we know liquid absorption, as we said, 30 to 40% greater overall. A liquid versus any powder.

[01:39:33] Luke: Got it. Regardless of if it has ethanol in it.

[01:39:36] Julian: Yeah.

[01:39:36] Luke: Okay, got it. Because I always feel like that tingling, I'm like, "Ooh, it's working."

[01:39:40] Julian: It's a great one to test even further, but I can't give you any conclusive data on the ethanol opening the pores, opening the glands.

[01:39:47] Luke: Okay. I thought maybe it would increase circulation or something. All right. Epic, dude. Man, this has been incredible. I'm so happy. I haven't done a dedicated mushroom show in a very long time. You might've been the last one. If not, it's been many years. So I think it was a really important step forward for humankind here.

[01:40:06] It's such an integral part of our natural world and something that we can really harness to improve our lives. And the way you're doing it is fucking epic and full of integrity and efficacy. And so I'm very happy to platform people like you that are doing it right, man. So thank you so much.

[01:40:23] Julian: Thanks for having me.