Can Fungi Save Us? with Aishwarya Veerabahu

Mariann Sullivan: I'm not really, I, I wanna be like, I have mushroom, mushroom visions of my future.

Jasmin Singer: Well this week's guest is the wonderful Aishwarya Veerabahu. Welcome to Our Hen House, Aishwarya. I'm so excited you're here.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah. I'm super excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Jasmin Singer: I got to interview you, as we were talking about earlier, uh, for WXXI's Environmental Connections. I always try and slip in that I'm vegan. And then you slipped in that you were vegan and I was like, huh! I always get so excited because uh, I know that you're here to tell us everything that vegans need to know about fungi, which is quite a lot it turns out.

But I'm gonna start with a totally off the wall question, which is, as someone who cares about like environmentalism and the climate, why aren't...

Mariann Sullivan: Someone I, you didn't even mention that Aishwarya is a fungal ecologist. She does

Jasmin Singer: Yes, I was gonna, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna mention all that, all of the fancy stuff. But I do wanna know why more environmentalists, why don't more people care about being vegan from the environmental side of things?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: I mean, I guess it's something I've been asking myself quite a lot, you know, like I, I love the people that I work with definitely, but I don't know if I have the answer to that myself. I will say that maybe there is a, a consciousness catching on and, and gaining, and I would say like the majority of people in departments like mine, right, where we are all very well aware of like the environmental toll, the absolutely atrocious conditions that come with factory farming.

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Almost everybody I know in my life is cutting down on their meat intake, which, um, yeah, which, you know, I'm always happy to hear about and, and I support and I try and help. You know, I let people know what's been my experience being vegan, cooking vegan things that make it easier. I think it's going in the right direction.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. that's always good to hear. And

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: I don't know why Jasmin expected you to be able to answer that question since we ask that question every single week, and we could never answer it!

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I know, but I think, but I think it's because I originally connected with Aishwarya not even knowing she was vegan and through like my environmental platform. And that's why I always sneak in that I'm vegan because I like, I'm determined to get it into every episode if I can. Uh, yeah, I know that'll do it, but it's very rare that someone is like, oh yeah, me too.

So as, as Mariann mentioned, Aishwarya is a fungal ecologist doing her PhD at the University of Wisconsin Madison. And when, when she's not doing research or looking for mushrooms, she's drumming for her band, Big Slide. What's the band Big Slide? That's so cool.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah. Um, it is, it is my lovely band with, um, our singer Madeline, um, our bassist Russ and our guitarist David. We just, the four of us came together here in Madison and we've been playing kind of like, dream pop, um, shoegaze, alternative rock types of types of genres, and it, it's been the ride of my life.

We, we just played a show last week and it was amazing.

Jasmin Singer: That's so cool.

Mariann Sullivan: I

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah, yeah,

Mariann Sullivan: were there. Like I was there years ago. It was such a great town.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: And, and the other bands that we've been playing with at these shows, like Yeah, just the other bands here in Madison are so excellent. You know, I, I, it was one of the best nights of music I had ever attended.

Jasmin Singer: Mm. That's amazing.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: yeah. Yeah, it was

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, we were speaking at the, the Mad City Vegan Fest, like I think this was back in 2011 or something. And the, uh, the city had city bikes and it was before we were living in New York City at the time, and it was before New York City had city bikes. And I remember being like, there's there're bikes that like anyone could get on and, and I'd like rented one to ride around the block, I think. It was a very exciting going around the Blockness, so that's super cool that

Aishwarya Veerabahu: a super,

Jasmin Singer: so,

Mariann Sullivan: just met great people there too. They were really, it was really

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah, it's a super bikeable city. And I, yes. I also love all the people here.

Jasmin Singer: With the, with a huge, amazing farmer's market. Like I remember that farmer's market in the middle of town was phenomenal. Um, I just wanna say for our listeners, uh, that I horribly offended you before we hit record by making fun of your bagel that you ate this morning. 'cause I said, you know, when we do the sound test, I say like, what did you eat for breakfast?

I learn a lot about our guests that way. And you said a bagel. And I said, I kind of was like, like a fake bagel or, or a New York bagel. I'm So, I just wanna say I'm sorry to everyone

Mariann Sullivan: in front of everybody?

Jasmin Singer: because I, I feel like my Jewish guilt is kicking in and I'm an oversharer, so.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: reliving the moment.

Jasmin Singer: No, I know. Well, all right, ba bagels aside.

Let's talk about mushrooms. And I think to do that, we need to start at the beginning and set some definitions. So what are fungi and what are mushrooms?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: So fungi are their own separate kingdom of life. So just like how there's the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom, there is the fungal kingdom. And, um, the, kind of the traits that define this kingdom is that they don't produce their own energy like plants do. So they do have to like eat other food and digest other food similar to us, which is why animals and fungi are more closely related than plants and fungi are. But the way that they eat their food is they kind of like secrete some juices that, you know, that dissolve whatever nutrients they need in the environment. And then they slowly osmosis Jones that food back up into their bodies. And so it's kind of almost like vomiting their stomach up and then reabsorbing it. Um,

Mariann Sullivan: It's

Jasmin Singer: My,

Mariann Sullivan: way

Jasmin Singer: my, my dogs do that sometimes. I admit it.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: it's, it's efficient for

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Then, uh, another one of these main traits is they have chitin, uh, this type of structure called chitin in their cell walls. and so those are pretty much the two main differences. And, and you know, although they look incredibly different than us, one of the kind of complicated things is that because fungi and animals are so closely related, um, it can be sometimes kind of hard to target fungal infections in the human body.

That's actually how similar and related we are.

Mariann Sullivan: Wow.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Um, but you know, I think science has, has come a good long way. So they've, they've gotten better at, um. of targeting that. So that's what fungi are, right? This, this entire kingdom, so many different shapes and colors, uh, fall under that. Not all fungi form mushrooms.

And so mushrooms are a type of sexual structure, that come from the fungal body. And so kind of like how an apple grows off of an apple tree, the mushroom is like the apple to the rest of the fungal body. And so it is a specific type of sexual structure that certain fungi have evolved.

Mariann Sullivan: So I, I know that you've said that there, if there were no fungi or fungi or, or fungi,

Aishwarya Veerabahu: You can say it all of those ways. All are correct.

Mariann Sullivan: Word in, in the English language that you can pronounce however the hell you want. Um,

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: if, but if there were none there, there wouldn't be life on Earth. Uh, so apparently there're pretty important, like what did you mean when you said that?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah, I think they're incredibly important and, and I, I stick, I staked my claim on that because, there is some evidence to show that fungi and plants probably came onto land at the same time. And like, the kind of really interesting thing, I, I like developed a lecture when I was teaching a botany class about like, paleomycology one time. I found out that the very first fungi, uh, like associating with plants. They definitely probably were eating them. So this was happening like in the water. Classic, you know, everybody has to eat, everybody, I guess. Um, but once they moved on to land, fungi were actually in the, in the plant leaves.

so the ground.

Was extremely hard to break into.

And so at first, fungi were getting nutrients from the air and shuttling them into the plant, but up on the leaves, which is so different than how we think of that relationship now. Nowadays, the whole stress is on fungi associating with plants at their root interface down in the soil. But I learned that they first kind of did this up in the air

Jasmin Singer: Wow.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: were.

Mariann Sullivan: I actually think of them as as, I mean like, I think I saw this, somebody say this once on TV or whatever, that like, like if, if there weren't fungi, like dead things would just accumulate forever. I mean, and, and just pile up and pile up and, and, and pretty soon there'd be nothing but dead stuff all around it.

It's absolutely crucial that they're there to break everything down. Is that right?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah, that is,

Mariann Sullivan: way of saying it?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: I think that's a super good saying way of saying it. I also wanna give credit to my, to my bacteria buddies and my insect buddies where, it's due. Um, they also both break down a lot of things, but fungi definitely a hundred percent. They have a lot of specialized niches where they are the most efficient ones at breaking down certain types of dead material. So

Jasmin Singer: Wow.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: there's every chance we would be up to our knees in, in dead leaf litter, which wouldn't be so bad. It kind of sounds nice actually.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, it, it, it sounds better than going to those bars where the whole floor is peanut shells. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yes,

Mariann Sullivan: They need some fungi,

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. That, that would be a twist on it. Uh, but let's talk about mushroom agriculture a little bit more, and then we'll get into some of the issues with wild fungi. What is the current status of, of mushroom farming?

Like, how big an industry is it?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: It's a pretty big industry at this point. I wish I could have like the numbers at, at the tip of my tongue here, but it's a multimillion dollar industry. It's international at this point. I think there is even a chance we're starting to break towards the billions of dollars. Mushrooms are produced all around the world. Um, they are gaining in popularity. They've also kind of, um, been around for quite a bit, like even just like mushrooms on pizza, right? That's the grocery store button mushrooms, the portobellos, they've been there for a bit, but that has only just exponentially exploded from there.

Mariann Sullivan: Are mushrooms eaten in most cultures? Is this something that people have always said, oh, that looks tasty. I'm gonna put that in my mouth? Is are they like a standard food source or are there just certain cultures that have developed mushroom cuisine.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: You know, I'm gonna say that I think it's more certain cultures that have developed mu mushroom cuisine. I, I would love to learn more about this myself. You know, I hope over the course of my life to like travel and, and learn more about each of the cultures and, and all their different types of food and whether they include mushrooms or not.

But if I can even just take, uh, like South Indian cuisine, there's like no mushrooms anywhere, anywhere in that. I've tried to ask my mom before, ma, ma, did you grow up seeing mushrooms anywhere? And she was like, I saw the white ones on the tree. And I was like, okay, soup. Thank you. I can definitely identify it from that description. So,

Jasmin Singer: That's so funny. That's so funny.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: I have a sense that they are hidden in certain parts of the world to the general culture, you know, in, in the same way that we've kind of had a renaissance. It has to have its renaissance. You know, in, in all the cultures around the world. Um, but definitely I would say definitely cultures that have environments that are well-suited for fungal growth, I would bet my money that they have more mushroom involved in, in their cuisine.

Jasmin Singer: Is there protein in them? Because I know that we're having a real protein moment with, you know, just the mainstream media always likes to latch on to some kind of quote unquote dietary trend and protein is the current one. So is there protein?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yes, there's absolutely protein in them. There's protein in just about everything. It drives me crazy when, when people cite protein as a thing or just even the idea that protein is having a moment. When first kind of, uh, graduated from my bachelor's degree, I, I started actually a PhD in biochemistry, and the professor that I started that with, um, he taught a nutrition class.

And so my husband is also really well versed in nutrition, biochemistry, and molecular biology. And it, you what almost anybody, any average person for the average activities they are doing in their day-to-day life, you, you're probably getting enough protein.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Are you, are you some type of like Olympic bodybuilder who is, you know, who is in very intentionally trying to build massive amounts of muscle? Then maybe worry about protein.

But it is kind of crazy to me to think that anybody needs to try and that the average person, you know, even whether you're going to the gym or not, that you would need to obsess about protein. If you're eating a well balanced diet, you're getting enough protein. Um, yes. Mushrooms absolutely do have protein. I think that's one of the reasons they tend to be like lauded as a good meat substitute is because you can really pack a little bit extra in there.

Mariann Sullivan: So you, you had mentioned portobellos and button, white button mushrooms, but you know, if you go to any kind of fancy grocery store these days, like there's a lot of different kinds and if you look online, there's a lot more different kinds and there's like really intense health claims made for some of them. So what kinds of mushrooms are people farming that are popular and what kind do you like and what kind are you interested in? What are some of the health benefits? Are they overblown or is it really true that these things are really good for you?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: So a lot of the health claims that are being made, I think should be taken with a bit of a grain of salt. They, a, a lot of fungi have been found, um, to have therapeutic compounds. Things that can help with like, let's say, anti-inflammatory properties, or like, maybe it's like antioxidative, things like that, right?

These are kind of words that get thrown around. Essentially, right, they're things that help deal with your body's natural stress processes, um, that are always going to happen. But yeah, it's just, it's just one of the things and our body makes natural compounds to help deal with that. And apparently some of these types of compounds have been found in edible mushrooms, but I think the research still needs to go a lot farther to be able to show that they are actually having that benefit in humans. You know, like, it's one thing to find the compound and know that it is classified as, let's say, an antioxidant, but another thing to know how it's actually biologically reacting in our body. So I take it with the grain of salt. The other grain of salt to keep in mind is, it really depends on how, how you are consuming the mushroom. So, um, one thing, uh, that I have kind of done a bit of a deep dive into is if you just have like, let's just say a mushroom tea, you, you can't guarantee that you're getting this compound because like any other chemical, sometimes there needs to be a specific extraction process. Maybe that takes one part alcohol, one part water, maybe it takes other types of solvents, or you know, basically it's a process to try and draw the exact chemical you want out of a plant or a mushroom. And so, um, I, I would also take with, with a grain of salt and not just like shovel mushroom powder into your mouth because there's a chance that it's not biologically active or doing anything. And so in shorthand, I think one word that is very well-defined by the FDA is if something is bioactive, which means that the research behind it has shown that it is, is actually doing something in your body and having that effect.

Jasmin Singer: I'm suddenly craving mushrooms with grains of salt, just so you know.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: it's

Jasmin Singer: admit.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: It's one of the best way to prepare them. Um,

Mariann Sullivan: that brings up the fact that that regardless of some of these overblown health benefits, or maybe not overblown, but just not certain, they're delicious and it's really, and they're good for you. I mean, they're basically good for you.

Jasmin Singer: But

Mariann Sullivan: nutrients in them, so that's another good reason to eat them.

Jasmin Singer: Mariann aren't, aren't you, like, aren't, aren't you allergic to a random mushroom, like one random mushroom?

Mariann Sullivan: I am allergic to lobster

mushrooms, which I'm told are not completely mushrooms, that they're mushrooms with a different kind of fungus that grows on them. I'm like

Jasmin Singer: Oh,

Mariann Sullivan: allergic to them, and I'm

not allergic to any other, and I guess it's this funk, this particular fungus that I'm, that, uh, makes me really

sick. won't go into details.

Jasmin Singer: Please don't.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: That, that's kind of, that's fascinating though. Yeah, it is. Right. Lobster mush.

Mariann Sullivan: I do. I have that in Googling it. This is like, I'm the only personthis isn't something that's common.

Jasmin Singer: Nobody

Mariann Sullivan: else is like, oh my god, lobster mushrooms. I

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Right.

Mariann Sullivan: and say in, in restaurants, you know, no oyster mushrooms, which are, I'm, I'm fine eating and are very common. And lobster mushrooms are super expensive and you, you hardly ever find them in restaurants.

So, uh, oh. That's my, that's my great burden in the mushroom, the

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Well, it,

Mariann Sullivan: mushrooms, I absolutely love.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: That's kind of a good PSA to have though, because, um, you bringing up the fact that even, even if you are coming across an edible mushroom every one of us has a different bodily constitution. Right? And so even if it's edible, try a little bit of it first and see how your body reacts. Like for example, my landlord, he has a bad reaction to golden oyster mushrooms and like most other people can eat them and they're known as a edible species.

So, yeah.

Jasmin Singer: I, I am, I'm also sort of fascinated by the fact that you know that about your landlord. Like I, all I knew about previous landlords I've had is how to give them the monthly check, but that's kind of awesome. I love that for you, Aishwarya, that you're like, Hey, here's rent. What's your relationship with mushrooms, dude?

So, all right. I, something that I'm really interested in that I know our listeners will be too, is, is this, this kind of trend. I trend feels dismissive, so hopefully it's not a trend, but this, this new, new sort of thing of using mushrooms as meat substitutes. So tell, tell us a little bit about the current relationship between mushrooms and meat and what is the future there?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: I think right now the relationship is that the mushrooms are serving as a really good textural substitute for meat, you know? And so you know, people are using whatever types of substitutes, alternatives, right, for, for meat. Let's say Beyond, or tempeh or anything like that. I guess the mushrooms are just forming that kind of chewy texture that most, that most people associate with eating meat. And, uh, another thing is that because fungi are easily manipulated, and, and by that I guess, I mean you can research them kind of pretty well, and food scientists can work with them in, in a reasonable scale of time and they can also scale up their production of, of mushrooms or, or fungi. I think that is why it's kind of coming out as a pretty strong meat alternative. Obviously there is no animal suffering or death involved. They're able to scale it up. They're able to kind of work with it and maybe alter it, um, as they're continuing to work on their product and it's achieving this texture that I guess their customers are probably looking for.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, that that actually, there's that, that which I've never had. There's a, some bacon that they make outta mushrooms that's supposed to be outstanding. But I think that the texture that, that does really make sense. It has that kind of chewiness. Uh, aside from food, it also seems like we're making pretty much every, or somebody is making almost anything you can name out of mushrooms.

There's leather, there's plastic, there's construction materials like every, every time you turn around, like they're making something new out of mushrooms, pineapples too. Anyway, why is this? Is this an important part of the future? Is there real potential here for, for turning mushrooms into all sorts of things?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: I think that there is real potential. A huge reason why this is, is because like that foundational material of the fungus. So when I was making the analogy between the apple tree and this fungus's main body, the fungus's main body is known as like hyphae or mycelium, and they are these like thin white threads like that's what they are individually.

But once you have enough thin white threads put together, you actually have a pretty fibrous, strong thing that is also malleable. You can shape it into whatever you want. And so I think that's why it's taking so many different forms. I think the reason why I'm excited about it and, and really thinking that this might go somewhere is because like, I wanna say it, it's Porsche or another one of the luxury car companies, they like struck a deal with a myco products based company, to make their leather seats out of mycelial leather. And so

Jasmin Singer: What

Aishwarya Veerabahu: in a luxury end car, like

Jasmin Singer: Wow.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: it's, I think it's getting up there.

Jasmin Singer: That.

Mariann Sullivan: It must be good stuff

Jasmin Singer: That's

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yes.

Mariann Sullivan: really

Aishwarya Veerabahu: And yeah, and I think Balenciaga also has a mycelium

leather based outfit

and so we've got some brand name awareness coming up here.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. That's wild. And speaking of wild,

Mariann Sullivan: No. Can I just,

Jasmin Singer: You just stepped on my best transition in Our Hen House history.

Mariann Sullivan: Right, but I, I have another question.

Jasmin Singer: No, it's fine. I don't need to.

Mariann Sullivan: I just wanted to, just the difference between what a mushroom is and mycelium. You know, we, we talked before, but there's mushrooms and they're like, sort of like the fruit and then there's fungi, which you can pronounce any way you want, but so is the mycelium part of the, the fungi that's like, and is that all underground and it's just that the, the mushrooms for some fungi not all, uh, come, come above ground.

And so where would do they grow this mycelium and is it hard to grow? It must be easy to grow if they're thinking of, scaling it.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah, I would say it is pretty easy to grow and, um, the mycelium purely out of the fact that sometimes it can be in, in wood or, you know, thing, things that are above ground. It's not always below ground like. I know, right, we have, we have an intuition to think of like fungi and mycelia as being underground in the soil, but remember that they can be on, on every surface. On every surface. Um, their spores are flying around in the air and when their spores, um, land somewhere and they, they are in the proper conditions to germinate, those white threads will start growing from the spore. And so, yeah, I would say it is pretty easy to grow.

Mariann Sullivan: That's

Aishwarya Veerabahu: People have probably done it unintentionally in their bathroom or something.

Jasmin Singer: totally.

Mariann Sullivan: about it.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I'll try it again. That's wild. And speaking of wild, it was good, right? I sold that. So with, with cultivated mushrooms, it is easy to know which mushroom you're getting, but wild mushrooms kind of terrify me. They're pretty well known as being a really scary wild card. So do you personally mushroom hunt, and what would you say are the risks and and benefits?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: I do absolutely mushroom hunt. And also I didn't get to answer earlier, but my favorite mushrooms to eat are chanterelles and morels. Um, easily. Those are my, those are my top two.

Jasmin Singer: Hmm.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: pro actually probably also like, um, king bow letes, like porcini mushrooms. They're also like really nice. Um, I, I think the only, the risk, I don't listen, I don't want to undersell the risk of it.

You should definitely only eat a mushroom if you are a hundred percent sure what it is. And if you've maybe gotten somebody else who is more confident than, than you to confirm that that is an edible species. But it's actually not that. It's not that dangerous if you just learn what the mushrooms you're looking for look like.

So, right. Like it can feel really overwhelming to be like, oh my God, how am I gonna know? I can't identify every fungus out there. That's okay. You don't have to learn how to identify every fungus out there. Just focus on correctly identifying the ones that you're interested in finding and eating. Honestly, as far as the risk goes, there are only a few mushrooms that will actually kill you. the rest will probably give you some amount of gastrointestinal distress. So it's like not the end of the world. Um, but gen generally, I'd say just try and learn the ones that you want to know and you're gonna be okay. It's not as scary as you think. Try it out.

Mariann Sullivan: I, I have this app for plants, which is truly amazing. I

mean just point it

at a leaf and it tells you what plant it is. Are there such things for, um, for mushrooms, and, I mean, would you wanna stick your life on it being right all the time?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Um, there are such things for mushrooms. I will say that iNaturalist's algorithm is pretty good. It's, it is definitely getting it really up there. Um, I haven't checked out some of the other like mushroom identification apps that are dedicated to just, you know, just mushroom id. Um, lately. I imagine they have probably gotten better in like the two, three years time since I last checked it out.

But I would not stake my life on

Mariann Sullivan: yeah,

Aishwarya Veerabahu: algorithm identifying it. Ever.

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: It could be a, an aid, but, uh,

Aishwarya Veerabahu: It could, right?

Mariann Sullivan: a reli. A totally considered, a totally reliable source.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yes,

Jasmin Singer: I consider, I consider you a reliable source, Aishwarya, and I know, thanks. Yeah, I, I had my, uh, V eight this morning. Uh, but I, so I know, and I actually dunno why I know this, but I know that there's a part of you that's really concerned and that's really struggling with how pollution and land use change our threatening fungal networks.

So, can you speak a little bit about how, how they are and what you're concerned about?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah. Um, really just that undisturbed areas, old growth, forest old growth ecosystems are the most special things there are on this earth. And those ecosystems have been comprised of a number of organisms evolving together over the course of thousands, millions of years. Right? And when we go and disturb that land, clear cut it, raze it down for agriculture, which the majority of land is used towards animal agriculture.

You know, either growing feed for animals or animal grazing directly. It, it destroys those ecosystems. And it, it does make me really sad actually. Um, and it's not even all just about mycelial networks in the soil, right? Like, yes, there are, there are mycorrhizal fungi in the soil that help out plants and all of that is great.

Um, I, I will just briefly plug the fact that the wood wide web is not a totally proven thing. It's, it is an emerging thing of research, but no one has shown that forests are all connected by mycelial networks. And so I know that that's like a really fun, cool thing to imagine. And I hope we do get to discover that someday.

But for now, we don't know that to be the case anywhere. Um, that said, whether it's fungi that grow on dead wood, whether it's even pathogens on plants, um, and I mention pathogens specifically because you might be interested to know. Fungal pathogens are one of the drivers of plant diversity in tropical ecosystems

Jasmin Singer: Wow.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Because as you can imagine, a pathogen exerts this natural selection that, that causes plants to kind of be crafty and, and develop different, evolve different ways, adapt in different ways, to try and constantly outrun that arms race, uh, with fungal pathogens.

And what that leads to is an incredible, beautiful diversity of both plants and fungi.

Jasmin Singer: Hmm.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Um, and so. They deserve to exist just because they exist, not because they do any sort of service for us, which they do. They do tons of ecosystem services for us. They carbon capture, they mediate nutrient cycling of nitrogen, phosphorus, like so many things.

They, yes, they do so many things, but also they've been here for millions of years, and millions longer than we have, and I think that's one of the ways that it kind of ties into my veganism is if we can at least agree on the fact that fungal diversity is beautiful and deserves to exist, then it begets the fact that certainly animals deserve to exist and not be subjected to suffering and dominion.

Jasmin Singer: Ah..

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I that, that's a really interesting point because I hear so many people coming at the whole issue of animal protection from issues like, you know, talking about kind of animals who are really on the edge. I mean, obviously there's the insects issue. A lot of people talking about insects and even like the octopus issue that people are so passionate about octopuses.

And, I sometimes think, well, if you can't even care about a cow, how can you care about, uh, an insect? But on the other hand, sometimes people's minds are open and, and they very well may be to the survival of fungi. Um, you know, like, like all of these life sources that they've never thought about and that can, rather than, you know, something that they're very, very psychologically defended against, like worrying about cows.

So I think opening up people to the, just the unbelievable diversity and fascinating facts about, about life and I think fungi are part of that. Can we go back a second also to the wood wide web? Because I hadn't thought about asking you about that, but now that you brought it up. I mean that that is a thing that people think, you know, a forest is a single entity or whatever, but there is some kind of linkage among trees and plants that exists in fungal networks, isn't there?

Or is that completely unproven? I mean, is there some research that actually has established like how plants might be communicating with each other or trees might be communicating with each other through fungus?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: So the main reason why I know about this is because my best friend and lab mate here at the university, Cecilia Stokes, she did a deep dive into this and like taught, taught it as a lecture, um, at one of the fungal courses we have here. She looked into all of the research. I mean, she spent weeks and weeks looking at every paper that looked at this.

And no, not yet, there's not any research showing that plants are communicating with each other, using fungal networks out in, out in the forests. You know what I mean? There's bits and pieces of this.

It gets also into one of the more complicated parts of science, which is that, um, sometimes the science is so in the weeds and like the part that makes us skeptical about a certain study is not something that any lay person would be able to pick out. You know, it's only because it's like a technique that we're familiar with and we're like, oh, wait a second. That technique has a certain drawback. You know, like, you can't make too much of an inference based on that methodology.

And so it, it's starting to get into that type of area. um, there has been a lot of cool research. They have shown that like, fungi can be connected to different species of trees at the same time. Have shown that carbon that has been taken in from one tree can go through a fungus and end up in another tree in a lab setting. So there's little pieces of this, you know, but it is very different than than just wrapping up and tying a bow on the whole thing and saying, forests are all connected and plants communicate to each other through fungal networks.

Mariann Sullivan: based on, based on, I mean, this just demonstrates, it's something that I think is so obvious every day that science communication is really hard and there are not enough people doing it. And you know, most of us, not everybody, we don't wanna know, wanna know, made up stories about how the world works.

We wanna somehow understand even at a minimal level how the world works. Like the real, the real truth. Uh, most of us would like, would like that kind of a book. Um, but it's

Aishwarya Veerabahu: yes.

Mariann Sullivan: it's hard to make that fun and entertaining. It's much more interesting to make up, um, uh, a little bit of a fantasy, but that's really interesting.

I'm glad to know that.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah. And and you know, like, I will just say that the possible over assumption of things like that obscures the really cool science that like plants, plants do communicate to each other. They release chemicals. Like they, they absolutely can communicate with each other. Many of them can, you know, um, and so it's, it's kind of forgetting the cool biology that actually does exist. And, and maybe wrapping up a bow before we have truly explored the cool science that might come to be.

Jasmin Singer: So let me ask you, I know what Mariann's answer is to this and she has a real good one. But given what you just said and given the fact that you are, I'm sure, a vegan among a lot of non-vegans, 'cause you exist in this world, uh, how do you answer it when people like, like to criticize your veganism by saying, but what about plants?

Don't you care about their feelings?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Uh, yeah, you know, I

Jasmin Singer: You just like

Aishwarya Veerabahu: I just,

Jasmin Singer: Throw, throw a mushroom at their, at their head?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah, kind

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Yeah.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: kind of, I, I am happy to say that I don't often get hit with that comment because I'm maybe just surrounded by, by good, reasonable people. And I'll say like, in, in general, that's maybe one of the things I'm really grateful for about Madison and my closer network is I have a lot of really supportive people around me.

Jasmin Singer: Good.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: You know, if I tell them I'm vegan, I don't often. I don't often get like random flack like that or whatever. But yeah, no plants, um, you know, they're, I'm, I'm concerned about monoculture. We can talk about monoculture, but we are not gonna waste our time talking about plants' feelings.

Jasmin Singer: Good.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: They don't exist.

Mariann Sullivan: Goes along with the whole wood wide web, you know, these like fantasies that, that plants also like have feelings. It's, it's like, it's like fantasies for which there's no good reason and, but people like to hear it and then they like to use it to excuse what they do to animals too. Uh, you know, we're, we're getting short on time and there was one more topic that I really wanted to get to, and that's this whole topic of mycoremediation, which seems to be like really a valuable and important idea. And, and the way in which I think more than anything, I think I always am saying mushrooms will save the world. I mean, maybe this isn't about mushrooms, exactly. It's more about fungi, but, uh, like it might save the world. Right?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Um, I am

Mariann Sullivan: All right.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: I

Mariann Sullivan: it again, aren't I?

Jasmin Singer: I swear. She's like, I'm a scientist. You have to, we have, I take things very literally.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah, Mariann. I'm just going to have to ask you to just sit on that statement and, and maybe consider it over the next couple weeks because the truth of it is that mushrooms and fungi are extremely vulnerable and they are not they're, they're not gonna save the world. Like humans are the, we are the only ones that can attempt to save the world because we are the ones destroying it.

Jasmin Singer: Hmm.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: And, yeah, I, I think that I actually mentioned this back on the Environmental Connections, uh, like talk as well. Yeah, just fungi are are just as vulnerable and, and we should treat them with that same respect and care and concern, um, because they are not impervious to everything that's happening.

And they can be part of cool solutions though. Um, some of the things that fungi can do that are really cool is basically accumulate heavy metals that could be toxic in soils, right? They could be toxic to plants, they could be toxic to like waterways and things like that. So, um, I actually work as I, I am the executive secretary and a board member of this nonprofit called Co Renewal. And it used to be called Amazon Myco Renewal because one of the first projects that they set out on was going, going down, um, to the Amazon Rainforest, uh, at like an oil spill site and trying to use fungi to, take up and or break down that petroleum. So like on this particular topic of fungi and oil, it's, related to when we, at the beginning of this podcast, we were talking about fungi breaking down kind of a carbon or, or types of complex, um, materials, right?

Petroleum and oil spills. They are also made up of those carbon chains, right? They are ultimately like a carbon based fossil fuel resource that came from years and years of organic matter that turned into petroleum or coal deposits or oil or whatever it is. And so because they are those same complex carbon molecules, fungi are already used to breaking them down in modern contexts like, well, sorry, this isn't modern. They've been doing this for a super long time, like wood decay, breaking down leaves, plant material, animal material. so that is why they can be used in those, uh, types of mycoremediation. My biggest hope and maybe, um, anticipation for where myco remediation needs to go to next is scaling up. That is the big thing because like, I, I, it's easier in a food context. It's easier in like a materials science context. So I hope it can be applied here, but like, if you need to try and gather toxins from water, well, how fast is that water flowing and how much mycelium do you need? How thick does that, does that filter need to be?

Does there need to be holes? You know, I, I just have a billion questions and most of it has to do with like scale and the, and the application of it. So those,

I

Mariann Sullivan: know you're trying to talk me down, but it still sounds magical to me. Like obviously there's a lot of work that humans would have to do to make it possible and to protect fungi and all of that, but just the fact that that this might be possible seems like a miracle really does.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah. Yeah, that's totally fair.

Jasmin Singer: I love it. Well, Aishwarya, I hope that you'll stick on for our bonus content for our flock. But this is so... this has been really fascinating. I said to you before we hit record, that this is, uh, a bit of a departure from the usual topics that we cover. And honestly, we just wanted to, every now and then, Mariann and I, you know, we've been doing this for nearly 16 years and, and every now and then we're like, how does this fit into Our Hen House?

And then we're like, oh, it's our fucking podcast. Like, we could talk about mushrooms if we want to.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yes.

Jasmin Singer: Uh, so I just, I.

Mariann Sullivan: Is, is that sometimes, you know, we wanna talk about something, but frequently a wildlife issue or whatever, and there's absolutely nobody vegan who's, you know, writing about it

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: it. And, and occasionally we will have such people on and just stick to the topic. But it's always such a pleasure.

I mean, to me. When somebody's vegan, it means they see things in a very big picture and, and just whatever they have to say on any topic is gonna be more interesting.

Jasmin Singer: Totally agree. So, can people follow you online and support your efforts? I know you're in the academic world, so it's probably a bit of a different question than some of the authors or influencers that we're interviewing. But to me, you are the real influencer. So how can people stay on top of your work?

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Yeah, you know, I have, um, a personal website. It's AishwaryaV.org. I am also on our lab website, which is pringlelab.github.io. I have been off of social media for years and years, um, but I, I think, I don't know, I love science communication and, um, though I'm in academia, I very much consider myself like one foot in community science, one foot in academic science, and so I maybe should consider getting a social media account.

Jasmin Singer: Gosh. That's so adorable. I love that so much.

Mariann Sullivan: I'm so sorry that we made you think

Jasmin Singer: No, it wasn't us.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, it, you do.

Jasmin Singer: It wasn't us. Alright, well, Aishwarya Veerabahu, thank you for all that you're doing to change the world for animals by way of changing the world through mushrooms and we can't thank you enough for she shedding light on this really complex subject.

And for those of you tuning in, thank you so much for tuning in. Please subscribe to Our Hen House on your favorite pod catcher. Or on YouTube. And on YouTube. We would love that. Uh, and make sure that you like this episode. And leave a comment. Uh, alright, well thank you so much and for the flock, you'll hear from Aishwarya for your bonus content. Talk to you next time.

Aishwarya Veerabahu: Thank you.