Reviewed by: Debbie Viess, Cofounder, Bay Area Mycological Society
With clever turns of phrase and a deep understanding of the biological processes involved, Nik Money introduces us to the myriad ways in which humans interact with the omnipresent fungal world. Nik was first introduced to the dark side of fungi as a child, when he suffered a life-threatening asthma attack, one that he is convinced was caused by an over-abundance of fungal spores in the Thames Valley of southern England, where he grew up. But rather than this traumatic experience creating a life-long aversion to fungi, instead, he became fascinated by fungi, particularly spores, and he has been working with fungi and fungal spores professionally for most of his career. He refers to fungi as both the beauty and the beast, recognizing, on a deep personal level, their dual characters.
The book is broken into ten chapters. The first four chapters deal with our intimate relations with fungi, or our personal mycobiome: the molds and yeasts that live unremarked upon us and within us, and the gruesome ways in which our fungal immune system balance can go awry. The next six chapters discuss our extended relationships with fungi, from fermented food and drink, to the production of life saving medicines, to deadly and disabling toxins produced by fungi. The historical uses of Psilocybe and other fungal entheogens by shamans and priests are covered as well as promising current research on using Psilocybe to help intractable mental conditions like severe depression. Finally, Money concludes with the ways that fungi make a more livable world, in their roles as the great recyclers.
As Money amiably and ably relates, fungi work invisibly within our guts and upon our bodies, in mostly benign ways, with bad behavior kept in check by our healthy immune systems. Although bacteria outnumber fungi in our microbiome, fungal mass outweighs them. Despite this, our fungal partners are seldom considered, either by ourselves or the physicians that treat us. When that delicate balance is broken, fungi can wreak havoc upon and within our bodies. Introducing fungi into the bloodstream or into organ systems other than within the gut can result in very serious consequences. I was surprised to learn that medical mycoses kill 1.5 million people each year!
Some of these fungi gone bad are described in gruesome detail, thankfully without illustrations. It is fortunate that humans are not a preferred fungal food source. Money relishes recounting how, on rare occasions, living humans are treated as food by fungi. Most are aware of the blood/brain barrier that prevents access of toxins and the like to our brains. But fungal cells can cross the blood/brain barrier while hiding, unharmed, within the feeding vacuoles of macrophages. Once passed through to the brain interior, they escape their “trojan horse” through a process called vomocytosis, and are deposited into a rich field of unprotected protein. Money, most disconcertingly, favorably compares the amount of available protein in a human brain to that found in a large cooked chicken. Take that, omnivores!
Most of the fungi with which humans interact, in various symbioses, are yeasts and molds, rather than the mushrooms that normally take center stage in the lives of us mushroom hunters. This is true for the fungi that live upon our skin, the largest organ in our bodies, and within our guts. Malassezia is a common yeast that lives happily upon our scalps, feeding harmlessly upon sebum. Only when our mycobiomes become disarrayed do they have an overgrowth that results in the annoying condition of dandruff. I was taken aback to learn that the closest relative to this basidiomycete scalp yeast is Ustilago maydis, or corn smut. Urgh. Hold the huitlacoche and please pass the guacamole!
Fungi in the form of yeasts and molds are widely utilized to preserve food, create intoxicating beverages and enhance flavors, with the foods and beverages varying widely from culture to culture and continent to continent, but the fungi concerned stay rather the same. Money provides a nice history of early food uses of yeasts and molds by humans, and some amusing descriptions of awful tasting perishable foods given long shelf lives via the magic of fermentation, like the Icelandic hákarl, a sort of fermented shark (toxic when raw). He conjectures starvation as stimulus for creating this food, which has the “enticing” odor of cat urine.
Money, who is a vegetarian, also waxes eloquent over the making of cheese, one of the earliest uses of fungal microbes. He calls a cheese wedge “one of the wonders of the microbial world.” As a former ovo-lacto vegetarian myself, I can relate. The meat substitute called “Quorn” is derived from a species of Fusarium. This mold, discovered in 1968, is able to convert starches into protein. Its discovery was a game-changer for creating alternative protein sources. Although protein rich, delicious and vegetarian friendly, Money claims that its manufacture is also highly energy intensive, at least by the time it is made into “false chicken nuggets of the woods.” Still, it’s a better choice for the environment than eating animals. Regardless of your diet, this chapter will resonate with those of us who enjoy good food and differing cuisines, and/or eating weird new foods. It’s a fine peek beneath the skirts of fungally enhanced foodstuffs.
Fungal medicines are described and discussed, from unequivocal ones like penicillin and cyclosporin, derived from yeasts and molds, to unproven remedies drawn from the fruiting bodies of fungi. Shiitake, Cordyceps, turkey tails, etc., are all examined for real efficacy and the evidence mostly dismissed. Although Money rejects most of the hype and nonsense around so-called medicinal mushrooms, he does allow for the fact that there has been some promising research with Hericium and brain health, although he believes that should result in more research, not marketing. Money is a skeptic after my own heart.
Although Money also discusses the gathering of wild mushrooms for food, he places the topic under the chapter headed “Poisoning!” Methinks a certain British fungal bias is showing! His suggestions for avoiding poisonings are sound, however, and he also allows that those who deeply study fungi are likely to be able safely to forage them as well. But he would rather most stick to just a few readily identifiable species like morels and chanterelles and the like. His discussions of just how amanitins harm us after eating a death cap are thorough and lucid. He even mentions the odd rhabdomyolysis (muscle melting) poisoning caused by massive over-indulgences of Tricholoma equestre in Europe, and reasonably concludes that an occasional meal of these fine tasting fungi is unlikely to cause any harm. When warning about the dangers of eating the wrong Cortinarius species, he claimed that there are 30 species that contain the kidney-destroying toxin orellanine. I could only come up with 4, and this is practically the only point in his book on which I disagree. Mycotoxins can also appear in our various farmed foods, like ergot on rye and aflatoxins on corn, peanuts, etc. Any moldy stored grain can form mycotoxins. He talks about case studies of these sorts of poisonings throughout human history, and even conjectures about why fungi might be poisonous at all.
Money opens his chapter on “Dreaming” with this lovely phrase: “Magic mushrooms light up the brain like fireflies in a meadow.” He goes on to discuss the history of humans and entheogenic fungi, and how they may have led to religions, why we are affected by the chemicals in these fungi (we share brain chemistry, aka serotonin receptors, with flies and other insects, for whom these compounds were no doubt meant), what the physical and mental effects in humans are, the toxic effects and dangers of eating them (usually transient and mostly over-emphasized) and the interesting and perhaps life-changing modern usage of psilocybin to treat various intractable mental conditions, like severe depression and PTSD. Money provides a very balanced portrayal of Psilocybe use by humans, and the societal reactions to this use, which are changing rapidly.
Money’s final chapter is titled “Recycling, The Global Mycobiome.” He expands beyond the direct effects that fungi have upon us, and the ways in which we utilize them to our benefit, and looks at their larger picture upon Earth’s ecosystems, even hypothesizing that other habitable watery planets far beyond our solar system might end up evolving something much like fungi. He believes this to be so due to the many and necessary roles that they perform, and for the simplicity and efficiency of their forms: filamentous molds and budding yeasts. Money calls them “agents of entropy,” transforming energy frozen into one form of life, then breaking them down into the building blocks to create life anew. He describes fungal/plant symbioses, and emphasizes that these are not always benign processes. Regarding ectomycorrhizal fungi, Money describes the well known, benign trope of mycorrhizal fungi: that fungi extend mycelia into the ground, coat the roots of trees and provide water and dissolved nutrients to their plant partners – an equal partnership, if you will – but then adds, “There is nothing charitable about this: clamped to the roots, the fungus drains as much sugar from the plant as it allows.” Although some believe that trees are able to deliberately provide nutrients to other trees via the so called “wood-wide web,” Money is skeptical and finds it more likely that the fungi themselves are the beneficiaries of this dispersed sugar. Hooray for critical thinking. Arbuscular fungi, which are the mycorrhizal partners of our most important grain crops, are also mentioned, as is the growing agricultural trend of no-till farmland. Who needs harmful chemical fertilizers if we just allow the arbuscular fungi, already found in untilled soil, to provide those necessary nutrients?
And then it’s on to the necrobiome: the cooperative art of eating dead things. Fungi are specialists in eating plant matter, but they have their place in the decay of animals, too. Partnered with worms, beetles and bacteria, both yeasts and filamentous fungi help to break down all parts of a human body, with different fungi dominating at different stages of decay. I will leave you to read his descriptions for the gruesome details. As an amusing aside: the so-called “Mushroom Death Suit,” popularized in a 2016 TED talk, will never work, since the fungi involved, oysters and shiitake, are white-rot fungi that dissolve only cellulose. Money allows that were a one-legged pirate to be shrouded in one, it would at least decay his wooden leg!
Nik Money’s book is engaging and informative, and I am now privy to some fascinating details that I cannot wait to share with others. No matter how well versed you may be in our passion for mycology, there are sure to be many surprises in store for you as well. Money has provided for us an amusingly written opus on fungi, our beloved and hated, omnipresent, devils and angels of Spaceship Earth.
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