Seedling: Unveiling the Power of Turkey Tail

Different plants, different voices, and different ways of having conversations.

It's time to get personal with plant medicine. Welcome to Getting Personal with Plant Medicine. I'm your host, Diana. And I'm the co-host, JR. Why do you say I'm the co-host instead of I'm your co-host? Because last time I said I'm your co-host, you said you're my co-host, sir. You said you're not their co-host, and it was like this. Okay. I was like, all right. So now I'm just saying I'm the co-host. All right. All right. All right. So, like I said, this is getting personal with plant medicine.

And if this is your first time listening, this is one of our seedling episodes where we just talk a little bit about something that we definitely plan on going into deeper in the future. And we give a little bit of our own personal experience with it. Mm-hmm.

So, yeah. All right. We're going to talk today about turkey tail, which if you take any hikes out in nature, you may have seen. Most likely you have. Yeah. I was going to say, I mean, even if you don't take walks out, even if you just like live somewhere with a tree nearby. You may have seen these really cool looking mushrooms that grow off the side of the tree. Well, on the tree. They grow on the tree. Mm-hmm. They can grow in other places, too. But anyway. They're most prevalent on hardwood.

All right. Well, turkey tail has a lot of benefit, right? Yes, it does. For instance, it has a lot of gut health benefit, right? It has prebiotics, which support the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut microbiome, which can aid in digestion, and it can help with things like gut function, and it also overall improves the body's immune response. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's very jam-packed with, you know, immune-boosting, you know, whatever, effects.

A big one is actually with respiratory health so essentially is because of its if it is high immune boosting therapies taking it when you're sick or have a cold or like a viral infection it kind of limits that especially when it comes to like upper respiratory infections you know when i first saw that it was good for for lung health and stuff like that and respiratory health I did get excited because I am asthmatic, but it is important to note that it's not like.

Dilator. It's not a bronchodilator. So it's not like your emergency inhaler, which is actually going to open up those pathways, something that things like piney and actually help in.

So it doesn't necessarily force those open, but because of its immune boosting and also anti-inflammatory properties, what it does is it kind of helps relieve a lot of that inflammation and stress created around the pathways of your respiratory system when you are sick, kind of allows them to open up a little bit in that aspect, not pulling them open like a bronchodilator, but just kind of easing that inflammation

along the area to allow an easier breathing and to kind of help that viral infection from doing things like dripping into your lungs with a post-nasal drip, causing like a bronchitis. People with asthmat, a lot of times when they get it can easily turn into like a bronchitis situation because of that post-nasal drip and that restriction of the airways.

So while it doesn't necessarily force you to breathe better, it kind of eases the area to kind of keep it from getting worse and for you to breathe a little bit better. Well, like you just said, you have asthma. Mm-hmm.

And I have Crohn's disease, which is an autoimmune disease that is caused by chronic inflammation. And turkey tail is linked to anti-inflammatory effects. And it also inhibits pro-inflammatory molecules, which can help reduce inflammation in the body and promote overall wellness. And I will say personally, when I decided to make the conscious effort to drink the turkey tail cappuccino before... Cappuccino.

I don't know what you call it. It's a turkey tail tea, but they say you can drink it in the morning because it also is a natural energy booster. So I was like, well, let me drink this before my coffee. And now I only did it the one day because, you know, neuro spicy. But I'm going to try and make more of a concerted effort to do it every day, even if I don't take it before my coffee.

But what I noticed was that before I drank, if I drank it before my cold brew, I didn't get the usual, you know, stomach reaction that I get in the morning. So I really think that, you know, I really think that that works. I think it does. I also noticed that I'm not as bloated when I drink turkey tail. So, you know, my stomach, I mean, because I also have endometriosis. So my stomach's always bloated pretty much. And I think that this is the only thing I've drank that has like a visible...

Change you know yeah immediately pretty much yeah i mean yet again and you touched on it there for a second with the drinking in the morning because it can build energy you know because primarily it's thought of as more of a of an immune boosting mushroom and really great for for things like health and stuff like that there are properties that kind of do give you a little bit more energy You know, so with things like cancer,

they've done studies with cancer trials where people that were using it in conjunction with their chemotherapy actually had a five-year longer life expectancy than if they were just doing the chemotherapy on its own. It's important to note that with the chemotherapy, you know, with the whole stuff going on with the apple cider vinegar, I don't want people to replace their chemotherapy with turkey tail mushroom.

Yeah, this is not the podcast. Exactly. Just really quickly to make sure that we make this very clear, we are not telling you to use this in lieu of any pharmaceuticals or life-saving medications. It's just something that is interesting. It's supplements. It's your choice to add it if you would like. Primarily what they found with the cancer itself, not necessarily the life expectancy, that's a big part, but it was actually how people were basically their...

How they were living during their chemotherapy, their quality of life. You know, they found that people that were taking these mushrooms had a little bit more energy, were a little bit more easily bouncing back from things because of the turkey tail. So it's really, it's... Yeah, not to cut you off again, but I think that that's what I love about plant medicine, honestly. It's that, yeah, you need life-saving pharmaceuticals, right?

Like, we're not, like, again, we're not saying don't take those. But if you're someone who's skeptical, who's had a lot of bad experiences like I have and have had some really bad reactions to pharmaceuticals, I really love the fact that you can supplement with things like turkey tail and other forms of plant medicine like THC. Because when you brought up chemo, I'm thinking, you know, how many people had a much better quality of life during treatment when they had access to THC?

And now, you know, This is another thing to put in the tool belt, right? So long as you're making it clear to whoever is treating you that this is what you're using too because we don't want any, you know. Rogue people going out there and having bad situations happening.

One of the biggest things concerning this though, and a lot of times with like holistic medicine, is a lot of people kind of expect overnight results. When a lot of times these things are actually designed to kind of create more of a homeostasis, more of like a preventative situation.

And the biggest aspect of that that I found that was personal to me was when it came to stress because it can have what's believed as a stress-relieving effect, but it's a little bit different than like, oh, no, I'm in a stressful situation. Like if I'm in a very stressful situation, like I'm going to drink some kava to calm me down. Some people may take CBD or THC to help calm them down. Turkey towel is not going to give you that immediate calm down.

What it does is it kind of builds a tolerance on how you actually respond to stressful situations. So someone like me, my sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system is pretty much trashed. So the sympathetic nervous system is what's considered your fight or flight mode, where, you know, your body senses that you're in danger, your heart rate goes up, you become over alert, stuff like that happens. Your parasympathetic nervous system is your rest and digest.

What happens after you're safe or you are able to calm down, your heart rate kind of slows down. What happens with me is small things. They could be big things, but they could also be very small things, actually activate that stress response. So something very innocuous could happen and my body gets thrown into that fight or flight mode.

My heart rate starts to race. I get overly anxious, overly alert on things, and it'll kind of stretch on to a long period of time until I essentially almost my body can't take anymore. And I kind of fall into that rest and digest, which almost is very similar to a depressive episode. So with that, I spent a lot of time trying to find things to take the moment I could feel that response happening, that sympathetic nervous system, that stress response happening.

Is I'll try to hurry up and take something to counteract that. And then that would become a juggling act on its own because if I would take too much, it could throw me into that depressive episode even quicker. So what turkey tail does is actually kind of works to correct the response from the get. So it allows your body to kind of heal itself in those responses so that through time, stressful situations don't hit you as strong as they were prior to that.

But with that, because it's not something that is going to offer an immediate response, it's kind of something you need to take on a daily basis, drinking it in the tea in the morning or a supplement if you don't like tea.

But that's something that you're really going to find a lot with a lot of earth medicine Is it's not something that you're really designed to take immediately to give yourself that immediate fix It's something that's designed to kind of work in your body to kind of build that homeostasis To kind of allow you to fight things longer down the line and not just fight it immediately immediately. Yeah. I was going to say, I so agree, but, you know.

So we didn't mention that the reason why turkey tail is such a powerful immune boosting prop has such, you know. I was getting tripped up on that, too. I don't know why my brain's just not. So, well, this month, right? This month, am I right? February. I mean, by the time you listen. Take my February, please. By the time you listen to this, it may not be February anymore. I doubt it will be. But I imagine we could still use that because what's going on in the world right

now this month? Am I right? Anyway, so. Take my 2025, please. So anyway, I can't pronounce these compounds that exist in Turkey Tail. Maybe you can. I don't know. I'm not even good. Not after this year. I'm not going to try. Polysaccharopeptides, PSP, and polysaccharide K, PSK. So I'm mentioning that because I'm just going to end on a quick note from the Christopher Hobbs Medicinal Mushrooms, The Essential Guide, which truly is essential.

What to look for in commercial products. Look for products that contain both fruiting bodies and the mycelium, preferably organic. Commercial products and capsules that are derived from mycelium grown on rice may contain fewer beta-glucons and should be tested with iodine to make sure that they don't contain significant amounts of starch. Concentrated powder tea extracts are available in capsules or tablets.

PSK, which we just mentioned, or PSP extract is available in capsules or tablets, but they are quite expensive because they're patented medicines in Japan and China. So, yeah, good luck getting those anytime soon.

So anyway tinctures are generally inferior for immunological and anti-cancer antiviral effects because of the active beta-glucons are not alcohol soluble which i think is pretty interesting, so although the dried fruiting bodies are not typically available at regular retail outlets boxes of them can be found in chinese herb shops keep in mind though that these fruiting bodies may be of questionable quality.

They may have been fumigated to help preserve them from insect damage, which doesn't always work. And it's difficult to say where they were grown or how old they are by the time you purchased them. So this book recommends that you grow it on your own, which isn't always possible. But nowadays, there are a lot of kits out there. It's getting easier. There's a lot of kits and there's a lot of moisturizer containment to help with the humidity to help grow. That's true. We have one. We have one.

We'll use it and then we'll talk about it on this podcast. Maybe one day we will. We have ground lines, I mean, and oyster mushrooms. But anyway, harvesting these from the wild, though, is the best source because quality of fruiting bodies are so common in many habitats where dead or dying hardwoods are available. So do a little foraging if you can. If you can't, you know, tea.

There are some teas out there. There's some teas out there. The one that we have is, I'd say, pretty good because it does have the mycelium. So, yeah, just, you know, this is just a little primer, like I said, a little highlight reel, a little seedling, if you will. Yeah, going to sprout into something bigger. Yeah. So, thank you for listening. Bye. Your Highness Media, subscribe to our podcast. Why don't you subscribe to Your Highness Media? This podcast has been a product

of Your Highness Media. Each episode is written, produced, and edited by Your Highness Media. Thank you for listening.