I am so excited for you to listen to this episode. If I said the word mycology, would you even know what that means? I definitely didn't a few months ago. Today, I am interviewing my friend and colleague Andy Capetta.
He is the owner of Bloom Tap Naturals, which is a medicinal mushroom company, and they make two different kinds of mushrooms, lion's mane and reishi mushroom products that are powders and tinctures. He makes those for each of those mushrooms. And today, we talk about all things mycology.
We talk about the difference between mushrooms used in food and medicinal mushrooms, the way that those products are made, the way that they really should be made, in his opinion. And really, we talk a lot about why they are so beneficial and how you could use them in your life. Welcome back to the Harness Your Health podcast.
I am Kara Sederberg, and I'm so happy that you're here today. I am going to be talking to Andy Capetta, who is a recent Nutrition Therapy Institute graduate and also the owner of Bloom Tap Naturals, which is a mushroom store company. We'll have him talk about that a little bit more and tell us all about it.
I know mushrooms are such a hot topic. You see the products in the stores, you hear about them on social media, and we are going to get the real information about those products and how you could use them to support your own foundational house. So thank you, Andy, for being here.
Thanks, Kara. I appreciate you. Yeah.
So Andy and I know each other from Nutrition Therapy Institute. I am a former student there. I'm an instructor there.
Andy works there in the office. That is really how we met and had just gotten to know each other largely through my interest in the whole topic of mushrooms, but also in just kind of kindred spirits, I think. So it's been fun to get to know you and learn a little bit more about what you're up to.
So why don't you tell us a little bit about your background? Like how did you even get to NTI as a student? A little bit about your mycology business. So I found myself having a lot of health problems as a lot of individuals these days, depression, anxiety, especially digestive problems and lots of inflammation. So thankful I ended up going to Nutrition Therapy Institute.
I didn't realize how much digestive problems and inflammation I really had until I started going to NTI. So it really just opened up a whole new door of a new way to live for me. So then once I started going to Nutrition Therapy Institute, I decided I was going to start to instead of growing plants, which I kind of grew my whole life and didn't do so great at, I said, I'm going to jump into trying to use mushrooms in a way that I always heard they're beneficial.
And I just never found a product that really run with me. But I knew there was so many powerful constituents to them that I just decided to dive on in. I met this chef, met a program and he brought his own mushrooms in and started explaining to us and the rest of the individuals there how beneficial they were.
And it really just started to cross my mind as far as like, this is so interesting, I want to dive into it myself, you know, so I was very thankful to have met those individuals and have come across NTI. Yeah, that's so awesome. I think our personal experiences are such a powerful part of how we can help others as well.
So I mentioned the word mycology, maybe you can tell us really what that means. And you know, I'm a person who doesn't really like to eat like cooked mushrooms. So if you go to the grocery store and you buy like a shiitake mushroom, or a button mushroom or something like that, are those the kind of mushrooms we're talking about? Or what are we talking about exactly? So that's a great question.
Sometimes you'll find some lion's mane in stores like a natural grocers and such, but most of the mushrooms you'll find in a grocery store are more culinary find oysters and you'll find shiitakes, different varieties of oysters and such. Once you start getting into like the turkey tails, reishis and lion's mane, those become a little bit more of like a medicinal category just because they are so powerful. Not that the oysters aren't because they have their own benefits, but really, there's like multiple powerhouses in each of these mushrooms that we're going to dive into, especially the lion's mane and reishi.
Great. Okay, so the way to think about medicinal mushrooms is just that they have more of those really important compounds in them that we're going to dive into today. And that's why they're not really sold in the store.
Exactly. You'll find the medicinal mushrooms are a little bit more oriented towards supplements and such, but I do want to try to get individuals using more medicinal mushrooms like reishi and their soups and in foods and stuff like that. So let's not just think of them as supplements.
Let's start to think of them as like a great way to support yourself in a long way. I love that cooking class. Yeah, very fun.
Okay, so mycology is just the study of fungi, the way fungi interacts with one another, the way fungi interacts with its environment. There's certain terms like myco-remediation, where we're utilizing fungi to remediate certain, you know, like oil spills and such like that. They'll spread spores over it, especially of the oyster mushrooms.
And they'll find that these areas with oil spills, they'll start thriving with like life and plants again. And then, you know, animal life can then move back in and feed off the plants. So it's amazing how useful in different ways these, you know, the different mushrooms really are.
Yeah, that's so cool. I had no idea. Yeah, Paul Stemitz dives deep into myco-remediation and how we're using mushrooms to really help out the earth, you know, in certain ways.
Okay, very cool. So I know there are a lot of different types of these medicinal mushrooms, and we are really just going to focus on two types today, just to make it simpler, but also to show kind of showcase your business and what you do. And I am a avid user of Andy's products.
So I use the tincture, which we're going to talk about and the powder. And so maybe you can just dive into that. Like why did you choose these two types of mushrooms? What's the focus there? So the focus for me, I used to grow culinary mushrooms extensively, a lot of oyster mushrooms, I tried shiitake and such.
And I realized there's only a seven to 10 day gap where those mushrooms are as fresh as they can be. And they're the best shelf life, you can eat them, they're great. But then otherwise, you have to dehydrate them.
So I found individuals who are buying the dehydrated, they just weren't as stoked. So I was like, which mushrooms will work out best for my operation? Which ones can I grow most effectively? Which ones are set and forget? Which ones do I enjoy growing the most? So Reishi and Lion's Mane were those two contestants that I just found, they grow quite easily. They weren't so picky.
They were more terrible to the conditions that I gave them, you know, because I don't have a huge warehouse to create a fruiting chamber. So I use these little monotubs where it's basically creating their own little micro environments, they'll just spray around the mushroom. And it's kind of like a moist den for it, if you will, you know, so yeah, so smart for you to do that with what you have, right.
So like, yeah, I think that's a big pushback when people are thinking about things, it's like, Oh, I have to have a warehouse or I have to have some big building or apparatus. So that's super cool. And so I love the dichotomy between the two mushrooms too, right? So the Lion's Mane and the Reishi are very different from each other.
We can talk about that. Like what is Lion's Mane? What are the beneficial compounds? Who do you, who's the kind of person that uses that? Sure. So Lion's Mane, let's dive on in.
The beneficial compounds are beta-glucans, especially, and that's what is traditionally noticed in the Chinese medicine was the beta glucans. And you'll find a lot of the products these days, they don't have a high beta-glucan content. Well, that gets into something we'll discuss later about how there's mycelium that's diluting a final product.
So beta-glucans are the main traditional Chinese medicine constituent that is, you know, measured and standardized. It's not as standardized as I wish it was, but at least we're finally starting to come across to seeing lab tests based on beta-glucan content, which is super important. There's also two compounds that are more alcohol soluble.
The beta-glucans are more water soluble polysaccharides that act as antioxidants. Sorry for jumping the gun. And the beta-glucans interact with the immune system in a way.
From the Lion's Mane, they interact with the immune system in like a mild, like a more mildly modulating sort of mechanism. And then you get these more alcohol constituents that are Arenicenes and Aricinones. Big words.
I know it's a mouthful, but really what they do is they help to promote the nervous system, the nerve growth factor, the way that neuroplasticity occurs in the body. It's the way that the neurons can repair themselves. They can create new channels.
So between the nerve growth factor enhancements, it can also just enhance the cognitive capabilities. So Lion's Mane is so good for the brain. It's great for the nervous system.
And then you'll find that it's also amazing for the gut brain access, because when we consume this Lion's Mane, there's a lot of the nervous system around the gut. And we call that the gut associated lymphatic tissue or payers patches. And it starts to allow the body to train, you know, what's coming into the digestive tract.
It can help to train it. So these these Lion's mains, beta-glucans, these constituents, they will bind to receptors on the immune cells, specifically macrophages, dendritic cells and neutrophils, if I'm not mistaken, and they can help the body to recognize foreign invaders. Now Reishi is a lot more of a multitasker when it comes to that immune benefit.
So I really like to say that Lion's Mane is a mild modulator of the immune system, and it's great for cognitive purposes in the nervous system support. Now jumping into the Reishi, it's a pretty totally different category, as you mentioned, because then you're getting into more of this very powerful multitasker out of an immune system modulator where it can, you know, recognize those foreign invaders that seem to get behind the immune system and not go notice. Reishi is great at allowing the immune system to recognize those foreign invaders.
There's definitely some anti-carcinergic compounds, according to research that's been done by doctors in the Reishi. And then we have these triterpenes, and triterpenes are those alcohol soluble components to Reishi. And what they do is they will help to modulate the HPA axis.
So HPA axis is between the brain and the adrenal glands and the way the cortisol is releasing and signaling through the body. And we'll find that it helps to, if the cortisol is overproducing, it will help to down regulate that overproduction of cortisol. And if it's underproducing, it will help to upregulate the production of cortisol, because we know that most cells in the body have a receptor that can interact with cortisol.
So it's very important to be able to modulate that as mushrooms do. So I know I just dove into all the constituents of both mushrooms. I was probably a lot, but I'll take it from there.
So now I have a lot of questions. So I love that. And so I love one of the terms use the immune modulation, because one thing I hear a lot and get asked a lot is what can I do to like boost my immune system? I'm not sure that that's really what we want to do.
You know, there's really two parts of your immune system. There's the part that is like reactive to something that's in your body that needs to be attended to right away. And then you have the memory part of your immune system, which is really important, obviously, too.
But most people have heard of autoimmunity, they know what, you know, autoimmunity means, or they at least understand the concept. And so the way I see these products being used is to help the immune system to do its job properly. And so this is like what I just preach all the time is you're not taking supplements to do a specific thing or to promote a certain thing, you're doing it to give support to the body, what the body needs, and the body knows what to do, we need to get out of the way.
So that's a great point. A lot of people, like you said, they just focus on things that stimulate the immune system. And it's really like, what about an individual with an overactive immune system, autoimmunity? Great, great example.
And we want to modulate that we don't want to just boost their immune system, their T helper cells will just boost and then it's just like more chaos, you know, we need those balanced out and such like that. So that's a really good point. Yeah, so I just love that part of that.
And I guess I didn't really realize that lion's mane is a nervous system support, too, because I think I've shared with you and I'll just tell my story about you using lion's mane and using your lion's mane is it started with the tincture and then I started using the powder also. And really during 2020, my caffeine consumption just got kind of out of control. I think I rocketed partially stress, I was home all the time, my kids were home from school.
And so I just found myself drinking a lot of caffeine and having a really hard time stopping that or down to drinking less. And so I love the lion's mane, I put it in my coffee, I drink decaf coffee in my coffee. And it really helps me so much with like focus.
And so the way I would describe it is it's kind of an alertness without feeling like over caffeinated also a focus in like I can think clearly, even if my desk is a mess, or if I have a lot of things in my mind, I just am able to like focus a little bit better. And so I love that I always have a million balls in the air. And even though I try and compartmentalize, it's hard, you know, and so if I have to sit down and work on some work for an hour or work on something for my kids or my family or something, I need to be able to focus on that.
So you know, I talk a lot in this podcast about the nervous system and how I love that you talked about the connection with the gut and everything. It is so integrated with the gut more than almost any other systems connection in the body. And really, we have to remember that the whole body is intimately connected together.
And so not to get overwhelmed, but just to think again, we're like supporting the body, we're giving the body things it needs and can use. And then the body will take it from there and knows what to do. So if you use products like this, I always recommend being consistent.
You mentioned before we started recording that people often notice something with lion's mane pretty early. And they start using it. And I will definitely attest to that, too.
I think when I started using the tincture when you gave me the tincture, you just drop it right on your tongue or under your tongue. And so it doesn't go through your digestive tract. It's like absorbed in your mucus membranes pretty quick, quick in your stomach.
Yeah, definitely right in the bloodstream in the brain. So very quick. Yeah.
But if you don't necessarily notice that to, you know, be consistent and just use it every morning, or if you're doing Rishi, maybe using it in the evenings to see how your body responds because everybody's body is a little bit different. There definitely are things that could be potentially in the way, you know, like taking something through the gut and your gut is a little bit of a mess and a sthiosis or different things. I could see how that could happen.
But just don't give up on that because I think the value of taking these products is just you just can't even beat it. It's just I was just sitting here thinking, like, could we make treats like brownies with them or other? You know, that's an awesome question. And what we need with this lion's mane is to heat it with water somehow.
I even looked into it and my buddy was like, can I just take in a capsule and I looked into can you just heat it in the oven because everybody has an oven, right? And it's like, no, you really need the water to break down this chitinous chitinous. It's the same compound as like what crustaceous shells are made from kind of amazing because you can chew on a mushroom. You can't really chew on a shell of a crab, right? So in order to break that chitinous down, you need hot water.
So that's why with the lion's mane, I recommend to do a hot water extraction, add a little bit of fat and you'll also get some of those more alcohol fat soluble compounds. But if you just consume this in like a smoothie, it might be a little rough on digestion because these powders are also prebiotic fibers. They'll feed the gut bugs and that will create the short chain fatty acids like butyrate that are so good for the brain.
They're so good for the gut lining and epithelial repair of the stomach and such. So making sure you consume it in the correct way is also important. So definitely send you a PDF.
So individuals who purchase now on, I'll just, you know, put it in their box and that way they know, oh, cool. Lion's mane powder heated up all tinctures. You can put in anything.
Reishi powder also heated up. Okay. So that's a great point because, you know, I was going to ask you what is the different, I mean, obviously the difference between the tincture and the powder is obvious, but like, why would someone choose one or the other? So let's say someone has a known gut infection or is dealing with that has SIBO maybe or something like that or knows that they don't tolerate maybe FODMAP foods or something.
Sure, exactly. And that they do the tincture instead. I would recommend the tincture and it really just depends one offs.
I just had a buddy. He said I've got some digestive problems. Well, if it's not like an active infection and it's just like a lousy digestive system, you know, a lack of hydrochloric acid, lack of enzymes and bile release, I think you'll find that the tincture is a lot easier to absorb in the body and that this powder might be a little bit more difficult if it was somebody who had like SIBO, you know what I mean? Because then again, they're fermenting these fibers and fermenting fibers and an individual who has SIBO that can be very dangerous and, you know, very complicated.
Yeah, exactly. You're just not going to feel very good. You don't want to feed those bugs until you've like dealt with that whole process.
Let's feed the good lean bugs. Let's avoid feeding the bad, more obesogenic bugs, right? Yeah, exactly. So I guess if you're, so you're trying to decide on which product, I would say just pick the tincture.
And then if you know that you have your digestion is good and it's, you're not really having a lot of bloating or different kinds of digestive complaints, then you could try the powder too. I seem to do fine powder. Amazing.
I haven't met a lot of people who don't do well with the powder or the tincture. So I think it's really just like, there might be a few people out there. If they have IBD or certain, you know, IBS conditions, I might say, let's re analyze the situation and start with the tincture and then, you know, maybe work towards powders later.
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, let's shift to talking about Rishi a little bit because you already mentioned it and we talked about how it's different than Lion's Mane and I talked about using Lion's Mane like in the morning when you're trying to be alert in a week or even like, and you could use it maybe in the afternoon, right? Is there like a ride off with Lion's Mane for time? The daytime, I think you'll find some individuals are more sensitive. I wouldn't take it right before bed.
Lion's Mane because it'll just make your dreams feel a little bit more like active or like you're kind of doing tasks, you know. So I would just avoid that. But the Rishi is amazing for the evenings.
I also take Rishi in the daytime too. I don't get tired from it. So I mean, individuals, they find it can make them a little bit more tired, feel like a marshmallow is a quote I heard.
So they're just like relaxed and couchlocked, if you will. But I don't find that myself. I'm able to drink Rishi and Lion's Mane during the day.
Yeah. So in my mind, what I'm thinking about, I think a lot of moms can relate to this as you and I have teenagers, but even if you have younger kids, it's the same kind of problem. You are supposed to have a high cortisol in the morning, like to get you up and get you going.
That's what's normal. And then over the course of the day, if you look at the graph, it's supposed to gradually go down. And then by the time the sun goes down, it's bedtime.
Your cortisol is supposed to be low so that your melatonin can be high so that you can go to sleep. Unfortunately, with our normal society and the way that we live our lives, like that does always happen. Right.
Also, people's like screen use, screen use. Yes, definitely. Those melatonin production.
For sure. But for moms and dads too, I'm sure. But like anyone who's taking care of kids, littler kids tend to get kind of wound up at night a lot of times.
And so I remember when my boys were little, you were just like, get them in bed, get them in bed, get them in bed. And then I need like a glass of wine or two or more. Back then, I was doing a lot more of that.
I hardly drink now, but I switched when I stopped drinking alcohol for that reason. Basically, I switched to CBD, which is great down regulator. Again, of your nervous system.
It just feels very calming and relaxing. It gives you kind of that same feeling as a glass of wine, but it doesn't disrupt your sleep. And so I'm thinking about the Rishi for that.
And then as a teen mom, my boys, it's like, well, not my younger son, because he goes about early, but my older one, it's like 9am or I'm sorry, 9.30pm, 9pm. He wants to talk about his day. He wants to talk about what's going on, which is great.
I want to be there for him and listen to everything. But my body, I have a very strong circadian clock. Part of that is just myself that also I've trained it to on purpose.
I'm picturing the Rishi in like a mug of something warm and whatever. So maybe you can talk about that. Like how are people using the Rishi for that kind of purpose? And I know you said you could use it later in the day.
I guess it could be for anything, right? Someone is going into a potentially stressful situation. You could have some Rishi. I find when I'm a little bit extra stress in the day or the week, I'll do a few extra rounds of Rishi.
You know, I'll make myself a super strong batch. Um, and you don't need a lot. Like what, like we said, more isn't always better.
A few of my friends started taking, you know, five scoops of lion's mane. I said, that is not going to help you. You just need little amounts, right? Like it's, it's supposed to do slow long-term work, not like explosive, you know, hard, quick work.
So I think there's a bit of confusion as far as how to take mushrooms in that aspect. Right. More is necessarily better.
Yeah, exactly. So back to your question on how to use Rishi, I make this mix with, uh, with like a monk fruit and Rishi. And it's got like a few other herbs in it and almost tastes like a hot chocolate.
And I, I don't really do chocolate anymore, but it's, it's just like a few ingredients and it always comes out kind of similar to like a hot chocolate taste. So that's how I like to consume it. It's like nice and comforting.
It kind of reminds me of being a kid, like during the holidays or something like that, you know, Halloween and mom's making hot cocoa and stuff like that. But yeah, I'd say that, uh, you can just put it in a French press is a great way to do the Rishi hot water. I'll usually take boiling water and just pour it right onto the French press in the Rishi and you can leave it for 10 minutes, steep that long.
You can leave it for longer if you'd like. The great part about Rishi is like, there's so much kite into it that you can continue to resteep and resteep and resteep. Not that everybody's going to do that, but just to let you know that like you could steep the Rishi for about eight hours.
If you wanted to get all the beta glucan content out of it, that's a little excessive. That's a little bit more like Chinese approach when you're doing, you know, practicing medicine and such like that. But it's just good to know that it can be used in that sort of more vigorous environment.
So you're almost like you're making a tea out of it. Exactly. Exactly.
So how does it, what does it taste like? So the Rishi is a little bit more bitter. It's got earthy taste. It's not so it doesn't shine in the taste.
I'll tell you that right now. My, my father tried it and he's like, I don't get it. Why are people drinking this? And it's like, it's not for the taste.
It's for the benefits. Right. So I think he was quick to conclude that it is a very bitter taste.
You can sometimes mask that taste up with like a little bit of sweetener. I'm trying to think of other things that really mask it well. And about putting it in tea.
Like if you had like a non-caffeinated tea or something. A good mix. Exactly.
Exactly. Um, I think you'll find that like some of those more like lemon balms, they're a little bit like easier to mix with other herbs, uh, milk thistle and such, not a super strong taste. You can mix it with other things.
It's a good, it's a good mix with Rishi. So you just get like a little bitter, a little sweet, but it's not like, whoa, that's a, that's a shot of andrographis or, you know what I mean? It's like wakes you up. You feel it.
So maybe experiment with that a little bit. You're doing tea or something. And so is it important to also mix that with hot water to the hot water? Both the powders we want to mix with the hot waters.
The lion's mane, you can consume it in your cup. You can actually consume the powder itself. The Rishi I suggest to steep strain and then enjoy it.
Okay. But then you also have Rishi tincture too, right? Correct. Yes.
If you don't want to deal with the drink and you don't want it, you can just put it on your tongue. I mean, it doesn't taste pretty bad. Um, it's not the best taste in the world, but I've also heard individuals say it doesn't taste bad.
I thought of adding other things to it. I've tried adding a little bit of cinnamon and CBD ice slit into mine to see how it would change the taste. And I realized it like it was better, you know, but it didn't like create a product where I was like, Oh, this is, this is what I wanted as far as like adding monk fruit and cinnamon to this, to this tincture.
So I figured I'll just keep this as simple as possible. I thought about adding like, you know, Himalayan sea salt too, just to get up a little bit of electrolytes. And I was like, just keep it simple.
It's just reverse osmosis water, a very pure organic sugarcane derived alcohol that I get from lab alley. It's quite expensive, but it's very effective at pulling you know, some of those more alcohol constituents out. And then, and then the mushroom powder, just the mushroom fruiting body itself.
So this is a great segue to the mushroom fruiting body. And you mentioned the mycelium already, we need to talk. So I was doing a little research for someone that I know recently, and we were looking at different products on the market.
Like, I think the Om OM mushroom product that you can find in like a lot of stores, mud water is another one. There's a lot of these different products out there. So let's talk about the difference between your products, what they're made of and other products.
So bloom cap products, I only use the mushroom fruiting body. And we can see right here, this is a an example of reishi. So this bottom part is the the log itself, really, it's basically just like a log, a hardwood log.
And you can see it's white, it's not it's not brown like a log because that is the mycelium that has grown. That's the actual culture that has grown over the log. So after this block, this log is completely colonized, what we'll find is then the mushrooms will start to grow themselves.
And until it's completely colonized, they usually won't start to mushroom out. There are some petitions being sent back and forth as far as what we can call an actual mushroom. Some individuals like host defense, own mug water, they're considering the mycelium as part of the mushroom.
Well, I call the mushroom the actual fruit itself. So there's that there's that fine line of, of what I'd say disagreement between, you know, the mushroom industry as far as a lot of individuals are using a, they're then breaking this mycelium down, which has not only mycelium in it, it's probably about 20% mycelium, but it's got hardwood fuel pellets, this log, it's got soybean hulls, it's got corn, millet or rye, depending on what grain you use. And then you're then extracting from all of that.
So you're not left with a pure product where we're extracting from mushroom fruiting bodies, where we find most of these beneficial constituents. You're left with all this extra lignocellulose and all these different constituents that our body doesn't recognize. It doesn't know how to process.
It's the piece of the log. So that's where a fine line needs to be drawn, that there is a way to extract from mycelium, but you can't do it in this form. You'd have to do it in a liquid form.
So it would look more like, you know, water and you'd have like a floating jellyfish in there. And that would be your liquid mycelium. You'd extract from that and that would be very potent, undiluted mycelium extract.
Nobody does that. Japanese, there's a company in Japan that does it and there's a company in Canada that does it, but you need very expensive equipment. It's not easy to get in that market.
So a lot of individuals cut corners and they will take this bottom substrate, they'll grind it down and they say, there's research being released on mycelium and its benefits. Well, yeah, there's enzymes in mycelium. There's so many metabolites, but it doesn't mean our body can break it down or our gut bugs can break it down and use it.
So that mycelium marketing strategy is taking over the mushroom industry. And it's a good thing to be aware of when you're purchasing mushroom products. So mud water, they use mycelium.
Ohm uses mycelium. And I'm not saying these products don't taste great. They taste great.
And I've tried some of them. Ohm, I didn't feel great. I felt some inflammation.
They just didn't make me feel quite right. It was a little like jitter, like almost like caffeine and mud water, I thought tasted amazing. But then when I found out that they were using mycelium, I called and asked for a COA and there was just this huge email thread about how beneficial mycelium is.
And they couldn't, they couldn't answer any of my questions. It was just beating around the bush, really. I only use the fruiting bodies myself, because that's where the most, the most concentrated beneficial constituents are, whether it's beta-glucans, because we find, we find alpha-glucans in the mycelium, but that's not the same as beta-glucans in the mushrooms.
The alpha-glucans are starch. And when you actually take iodine and put it into an ohm or a mud water, you'll find it goes black because this, it creates some complex where the iodine is mixing with the starch and it creates a blackness. So you can actually test products you get off the market with the drop of iodine.
You put in a cup, put your tincture in the cup and then you drop some iodine in there. If it doesn't turn colors, that means you're left with the fruiting body product. That's what you want.
If it does turn black, that means there's a lot of starch and starches from the corn, starches from the soybean hulls that's getting into your final product. And you're really being misled because they say there's a high polysaccharide content, but it's the alpha-glucans, not the beta-glucans. So it's a huge beat around the bush as far as the way the mushroom industry is going these days.
There's a company out there called Real Mushrooms and they're trying to petition, you know, what we can consider an actual mushroom fruiting body from, you know, the rest of the substrate from the rest of the culture itself. And there's just so much confusion behind that. So me, I like to test my product for beta glucans because you'll find that these products online, whether it's mud water or own, they don't test for the beta-glucans because it's so diluted that they probably have like a percent or two of mushroom fruiting body in their entire mix, you know, and it's just like I use 150 dried grams of lion's mane for a big tincture.
So it's a lot of fruiting body, a lot of beneficial constituents. And I find that's the way that I can make sure, you know, to be as transparent as possible and have the best quality product because I don't want to, I don't want to provide somebody something that I think that the research says is good, but I know it's hurting them. You know, we need to like take this all into consideration.
Like it's not only just take this tincture and feel better, it's like a lifestyle change. Like what's your diet like? What's the toxin intake? How's your sleep? This can help that. But without, you know, the right lifestyle of mine, I think some individuals could start to be a little bit deterred from, you know, just taking mushrooms because it might not fix it all, but it's like a good way to get you going in the right direction.
Yeah, it's kind of back to the support that we were talking about before, right? It's going to support you and these very complex ways that we don't need to like intervene with necessarily. We're just giving the body support. The body is doing what it needs to with this and then you see the overall benefit in your health.
I preach that to just like having a plan and knowing what you're doing, not just taking random things, but you know, to kind of recap, we were talking about someone who needs more alertness and focus may use lion's mane. Someone who needs more downregulation might use the ratio. Right? Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. And so if you're thinking about it in your own life, like how would I use that? Those are two very simple places to start. And what I love about, you know, I would say, I don't know, more than like the last five or 10 years, I just personally love supporting like small businesses, you know, up and coming businesses.
And so of course, we know each other. So I want to support you, but there's really no reason not to like you're using and making these products that are of the highest quality that you can find. And it's not more expensive.
It's this price basically, I've found it. And so there's no real reason not to do it. You know, I ordered from you, you shipped it to me, I got it in a day or two.
Like that's a big difference than ordering something from Amazon. I mean, that's a whole nother story, but like Amazon or even another big, huge company that's making these products in like mass quantities. Of course, they are looking at the bottom line, which I'm sure you are too.
But like, maybe sometimes as you get bigger, you lose touch a little bit with like, what the whole point. That is exactly it. Once you start to scale, you lose touch with the whole process.
And that's where I like to keep it very small batch and focus is I oversee the whole process, right? Not even another set of hands touches any part of my process. So I make sure I grow the best mushrooms I can, I make sure I dehydrate, make sure I grow the best mushrooms I can with the right clean substrates, organic substrates. I make sure I dehydrate them at a lower temperature.
So it preserves those aromatic and, you know, volatile compounds. I use a very pure sugarcane, organic derived alcohol to extract, which is 190 proof that pulls three to four times more effectively than a tincture that is more like a 60, 70% alcohol instead of 95%. So I decided I'm just going to use very expensive, but the potent, like solvents and such like that substrates.
And I just try to do every part of the process is as slow and as clean as possible. You know, it's like high quality. Exactly.
And I would definitely attest to that. Like, I've been using your products for a while. And I just noticed a huge difference.
So we talked a little bit before we started recording about people with high stress and using the machine. And you also mentioned that lion's mane. It's not going to be like stimulating, right? And you mentioned it is good for the nervous system.
So let's say you have a terrible night sleep or let's say you're dealing with like an aging parent or a sick loved one or something like that. And this is like day after day after day continuous stress. You are not looking for things like uppers in the morning, which usually help you and then downers at night.
Right. So like you can use these products to help with your modulation of your circadian rhythm, of your nervous system regulation, giving you the best resilience and the best ability to cope and manage with what you're dealing with. Because the fact of the matter is, is people have stress, like each of your life, a normal life with a family and a friends and a job, like everybody has stress.
Everybody's down to have stress and different stressors in life, whether they're physical, chemical or yeah, exactly. You know, thinking about how you might want to use this in your life. It's really just kind of a no brainer.
We also talked about athletes. So I talked to people a lot about the stress of training and over training. And so obviously if you're training for a specific endeavor, whether it's a bike race or a run, you know, marathon or whatever you need to train like your body.
I'm not saying don't train. I'm just seeing that a lot of people don't realize the stress that that is inflicting on themselves from this training. And so to me, adding in these types of compounds, it's just like a no brainer for helping with that I completely agree.
I think especially for, for, you know, high stress individuals and athletes, it just, it just brings a different set of resilience to the mind that I have experienced myself. I used to deal with anxiety and depression and I just feel like everything was more manageable. It didn't it didn't fix everything, but you know, you still need to have the lifestyle in place, but I just found I was, you know, focusing more sharply and especially under pressure too.
I feel like lion's mane really improved like my motor capabilities. So when I do lift weights, whether I'm doing heavy resistance or like a long distance run, I just find it just gives me a little bit more, a little bit more energy in some shape or form. And it's not helping to create more ATP like something like cordyceps might, but it still has its interaction with the nervous system, which is just so important for the stress, the high stress environment and athletes.
So it's a great point. That's so cool. I love it.
Is there anything else you want to touch on as far as like your products, use of them, anything like that you think it would be really helpful for people to know? Um, so I went ahead and covered the powders. You'll want to put those in hot waters, the lion's mane, you can consume it. Reishi, you want to steep that out.
Uh, the tinctures you can take straight, you can put them in water, you can put them in tea for individuals who are, uh, struggling or, you know, dealing with addiction and such, I found that these tinctures aren't even really triggering in a way. If you put them into a hot drink, the ethanol will evaporate off. That sugar cane derived alcohol will evaporate off and you're left with these beneficial constituents in a cup of, you know, hot tea.
So I found even individuals who are dealing with, you know, uh, like alcoholism and such, they can still do the tinctures. I would probably recommend the powders first, but the tinctures are still, um, a fine way to go as long as it's not triggering to them. Just as you brought that up because it is really important thing for us to think about.
I use alcohol based tinctures for other things in my practice and you can put them in some warm water, even opening them up will just allow alcohol to kind of dissipate. And then it's not like something that you should worry about. But again, if you're worried about it, just use the powder, right? Exactly.
Exactly. And you can also just, you can also just French press the lion's mane too. If you didn't want to consume the lion's mane in your coffee or in your matcha in the mornings, I've heard some individuals say, I don't really want powder in mine.
That's fine. You can steep it in the French press with your coffee grinds, you know, so great way to get the benefits from it. You might not get as many baby glue cans if you're not consuming the entire powder, but you still get a lot of those beneficial constituents.
Yeah. So the point here is decide what you want to try and then decide how you're going to use it. And then just try and be consistent so that you can see the effects on your own life and then go from there.
Right. And it's really just, I don't know, I just have really grown to love the lion's mane. The other morning I couldn't find it.
I was like, where's my lion's mane? My lion's mane. And so probably would have been okay without it, but I get ready for my lion's mane. So Andrew, where do you see all of this taking you? I mean, I don't know if you're like a big planner or you have a crystal ball.
Obviously none of us do, but like you've just graduated from holistic nutrition school. And yes, yes. Like where do you see all this going? Sure.
So ideally I would love to have a warehouse one day. There was just full of mushrooms. If I could devote all my attention to her, I'd be sold on it.
I love dealing with mushrooms. I think it's just taught me so much about discipline and how to like live my life a little better. Where do I see it going though? So somebody asked me the other day, are you going to scale this? And I said, I don't really know how to scale it and keep the quality where it is.
I think it's a difference between trying to live out of my, you know, out of my expectations or just live a good life. And I think I can live a good life. If I were to be practicing nutrition, giving these individuals my hard and lovely made, you know, quality tinctures and powders.
So if I could start to practice and then start to incorporate them using the products that I make it bloom crap, I think that would be the best way for me to, to just share this, I feel like gift with the world. One of my friends, he was like, you'd be doing a disservice if you didn't get it out to the world. I was like, I like that.
I really like that. So I should get to think about it. Yeah.
You know, I think so many people who do that kind of work that we do are just really care about individuals having the information and the strategies and things so that they can make it their own. I love that. I think that's cool.
We'll have to maybe draw that on your vision board or something in the warehouse. Yeah, I think I heard someone say once that if you're looking to scale something, it happens when it happens or something like that, basically meaning that if it feels really stressful right now, it's because it's not you're not ready for that. Like, you're not quite there.
And just, you know, thinking it through and how you might be able to make it work, if it just seems impossible, just like table it for six or months or something. Right. And then you can I think if I, I think if I could find some individuals to like sponsor or endorse my product, I think that would just be an amazing way to get out there.
If it could be like a professional athlete, professional boxer, whatever, it might be a yoga fanatic. I've been going to more yoga classes and trying to get my products and practitioners hands and such. So it's really fun.
I'm really enjoying the journey and, and I'm just thankful that, you know, I found mushrooms and I found NTI as well. I know a whole new door for my life. So really cool.
I love to hear people's stories. So, so your website is bloom cap and naturals and you're on Instagram. People can learn a little bit more through Instagram.
But you know, the other thing I should mention is that I went to order something for someone through your website and you were out of the lion's mane powder. I told just a few months ago, I was a little tight on, I had a few individuals go ahead. Go ahead.
I was just going to say, so not as like, I think that that's a good thing because you're getting the absolute freshest batches that you can have, right? But if you sit on this and people are hearing this episode, who knows if there's going to be a lot of excess at that time, you might have to come back to it. So I would just encourage people to put their orders in and just give it a try because making these for us, like, as they're ready, as you speak to myself, I take them myself every day. So I'm doing it for friends, family and all the above, you know? Yeah, I know.
As I love, I love the little, um, the bag or the den, as you mentioned, for your mushrooms. Exactly. Yeah, a little like microclimate, you know, a lot of people just have one big fruiting chamber and they could put different mushrooms in it and keep it to like 80% humidity.
I just find I work a little bit better with the tubs personally, you know, if something gets, if something, uh, isn't quite grown, right, then you can increase the humidity, increase airflow. It's not like it's all in one big vessel. Then now that has some change together.
It's like, oh cool. I have, you know, a rainforest over here and a little bit more of like a, uh, a desert vibe over here. You know, not so cool.
Yeah. I mean, the science is just so cool. It's fascinating.
So the mushrooms, they actually breathe in oxygen and they release carbon dioxide like we do. So I try to keep some of my plants in the same room as where I'm growing my mushrooms. And I know that's like can be a hit or miss because of course, if, um, if they were like edible plants, cucumbers and such, you wouldn't want any spores from the mushrooms getting on the plants.
That would just be dangerous. But I keep, you know, things pretty separate in a great way. So cool.
Well, thank you so much for being here, Andrew and all of your expertise. It's just so fun to learn more about this. And, um, hopefully I will, I know that all the things you discuss people get a lot out of it.
Thanks so much. I appreciate you having new carrots. It's been such a pleasure and an honor to be here.
So thank you. Have a great day. You too.
Take care. That was such a fun conversation with Andy Cappetta. I hope that you can see the value of these products in supporting your body.
This is something I talk about over and over again. We need to support the body and give it some of these beneficial compounds and constituents that it can use to do the work. It knows how to do.
We don't need to always be intervening with this like heavy hand. We need to just support the body. So if you found this episode useful, supportive to you, I would love it.
If you would subscribe, write me a comment or a review, share it with someone. Any of those things is wonderful. And I so appreciate the one or two minutes it takes you to do that.
Creating this podcast has just been a dream of mine for years. And I've been having so much fun interviewing these very interesting and wonderful people who are in this holistic health space and can really support all of us on our journeys. If you're feeling like you want to learn a little bit more, I have created an assessment for you that can help you look at your own foundations for health.
It's called the Health Foundation's assessment and you can find it in the show notes. There will be a link there. Also it's on my website, which is prime to nourish.com. You can schedule a free call with me through my website or write me an email and give me any information about you and what you're struggling with.
And I'll do my best to help you. I hope that you have a wonderful day. Thank you for being here.
The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. I am not a medical doctor and this content is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any decisions related to your health, especially if you have a medical condition or are taking medications.
