Fungi For the People: Mushrooms as Medicine, Food, and Economic Freedom

Mushrooms have been used for millennia in traditional medicine systems, such as in China, but Western medicine has only recently turned its attention to researching the compounds found in them. Chris Maynard from Myndful Mushrooms will be exploring the different types of medicinal mushrooms that can be found in the UK. Topics of discussion will include: How do these mushroom compounds work? Why is gut health in particular supported by mushrooms? What is a dual extract tincture? And what to look for in a mushroom supplement.

Mushrooms are quick to grow, nutritious, and Nature's advanced tech. So why not scale their growth and use to where they can be most impactful: refugee camps. In this talk, Ruth Andrade shares the story of how refugee-led mushroom growing can be a solution to malnutrition in settlements in Uganda and Kenya. You'll hear about what it takes to grow mushrooms in resource-scarce conditions, see the practitioners making it happen, the practical challenges they're solving, and a vision for a refugee-led Mushroom Consortium that builds nutrition, livelihoods, and peer-to-peer knowledge. A story of mycelium thinking in some of the world's most constrained places.