Michael Beug; Medicinal and Culinary Mushrooms
April 9 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
This presentation is in two parts: Part 1 on psychotropic fungi and Part 2 on general medicinal/culinary fungi. Part 1 deals briefly with mushrooms in the Amanita muscaria, A. gemmata, and A. pantherinoides groups where the principle toxins are muscimol and ibotenic acid and then explores in depth the species containing psilocybin and psilocin as the main active compounds. Part 2 examines mushroom food value and nutrition and the vast range of potential functional food and medicinal uses of fungi. I also briefly examine evolving uses of fungi to grow homes, make recyclable materials to replace plastics as well as synthetic dyes and thus ease adverse human effects on the environment.
Michael Beug taught chemistry, mycology and organic farming at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington for 32 years. He is active in the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) and the Pacific Northwest Key Council; a group dedicated to writing macroscopic keys for the identification of fungi. In addition to this new book, he coauthored Ascomycete Fungi of North America, published in 2014. His photographs have appeared in over 80 publications. He regularly writes about mushrooms for McIlvainea: Journal of American Amateur Mycology, The Mycophile (NAMA newsletter), and Fungi Magazine. Michael received the 2006 NAMA Award for Contributions to Amateur Mycology and has prepared over two dozen presentations about mushrooms for the NAMA Education Committee. In 2017, mushroom expert Paul Stamets of Fungi Perfecti, created the Mike Beug Scholarship, in honor of the professor who helped shaped Stamets’ career as a mycologist.
Meetings are free and open to the public.