Mushrooms + Bioremediation

People often seem to be baffled by my enthusiasm about mushrooms. That, or assume I'm super into psychedelics.

Although the magic of psilocybin is a more than good enough reason to love mushrooms, there is so much more.

I get to talk about the medicinal values a lot because of my naturopathic practice, but there are also many biotechnological (farming, packaging, surfboards) and bioremediation applications as well.

Bioremediation is a process that returns a contaminated environment to its original condition, using biological agents (natural living things). For example, the use of fungi to clean up oil or chemical spills.

As fungi cannot produce its own food like plants, it gets nutrients by breaking down other living things and absorbing the byproducts. This can allow for toxins to be absorbed alongside, transforming a wide variety of hazardous chemicals in the process and restoring damaged eco-systems to healthier states.

One of the major environmental problems of today is contamination of our soil, water, and air by toxic chemicals as a result of industrialization. Treatment of the resulting condition must have less impact on the natural environmental than other processes, such as incineration.

The use of fungi to degrade and process these toxins is a process that is efficient, economical, and does no harm.

Good reason to appreciate fungi, right?

Dr. Cristina Allen ND