Farmlab Public SalonPaul StametsFriday, April 13 @ 7:30pmFree-of-Charge

"How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World"

Also Friday, April 13: Special Double Feature, with Kat Steele of the Urban Permaculture Guild, at 5pm

JUST ADDED: FOOD AVAILABLE FOR SALE - MORE INFO

About Paul Stamet's Salon

As we are now well engaged in the 6th Major Extinction (“6 X”) on planet Earth, our biosphere is quickly changing, eroding the life support systems that have allowed humans to ascend. Unless we put into action policies and technologies that can cause a course correction in the very near future, species diversity will continue to plummet, with humans not only being the primarily cause, but one of the victims. What can we do? I think fungi, particularly mushrooms, offer some powerful, practical solutions, that can be put into practice now.

Paul Stamets will discuss the evolution of mushrooms in ecosystems and how fungi can help heal environments. As environmental health and human health are inextricably interconnected, fungi offer unique opportunities that capitalize on mycelium’s diverse properties. Forest dwelling mushroom mycelium can achieve the greatest mass of any living organism – this characteristic is a testimonial to its inherent biological power.

Mushroom mycelium can replace chemical pesticides, break down toxic wastes, including petroleum-based products such as diesel, dioxins, and numerous other toxins into non-toxic forms. Understanding mycelium’s production of antibiotics is useful not only to compete with bacteria in nature but has also proven useful for treating animal diseases. Since bacterial can be vectors for viruses, interesting strategies emerge for supporting ecological health using mycelium as ecological medicine.

About a dozen species of medicinal mushrooms will be explored from a historical perspective leading to the clinical studies in which Paul is participating. Moreover, he will discuss his work with the U.S. Departments’ Bioshield BioDefense program, wherein his extracts were the first natural products from hundreds of thousands of samples tested found to be potent inhibitors of pox and other viruses. The field of mushroom-based medicines is rapidly expanding and this talk will show how mycomedicines can be incorporated in daily living to improve the quality of life while protecting the biosphere.




About Paul Stamets

Paul Stamets has written six mushroom-related books. Several are used as textbooks around the world by the gourmet and medicinal mushroom industries. He is the author of many scholarly papers in peer-reviewed journals (The International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms; Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (eCAM, Oxford University Press); Herbalgram, and others).

He has written more than twenty patents. He started a mushroom wholesale and retail sales business, Fungi Perfecti, LLC, in 1980. (See www.fungi.com.) The business has four laboratories, 10,000 sq. ft. of clean rooms, and is equipped with 20+ laminar flow benches for doing in vitro propagation work. Paul has received several environmental awards. He is an advisor to the Program of Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Medical School, Tucson; on the Editorial Board of The International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms, and was appointed to the G.A.P./G.M.P. Board of the U.S. Pharmacopoeia. Dr. Andrew recommends his products. Stamets is the supplier and co-investigator of the first two NIH funded clinical studies using medicinal mushrooms in the United States. His strain collection is extensive and unique, with many of the strains coming from old growth forests. He is involved in several other research trials ongoing and pending. Married to Dusty Yao, whose shares a passion for fungi, and their love of the Old Growth forests.

Farmlab Location

Farmlab / Under Spring, 1745 N. Spring Street #4, LA, CA 90012
Across the street from the site of the Not A Cornfield project, in a warehouse colocated at Baker Street and N. Spring Street

Salons are always free-of-charge, all ages welcome.
Refreshments will be served.