Healing Mushrooms: Tero Isokauppila On The Magical, Mysterious, Health Promoting Properties Of Fungi

We tend to think of mushrooms as a pizza topping. Something we toss in a salad. Or a psychedelic to alter consciousness. But that's pretty much where the inquiry ends. However, mushrooms are so much more. In fact, they comprise an entire kingdom. Invisibly surrounding us, they underpin the very foundation of our ecology, impacting us in ways far beyond our appreciation. It may surprise you to learn that mushrooms account for an astonishing 25% of the Earth's total biomass. 92% of all plants are dependent upon mushrooms for their survival. 40% of all pharmaceuticals contain some form of mushroom. And, quite incredibly, 85% of human RNA and 50% of human DNA is shared with fungi. Mushrooms are also woefully under-appreciated when it comes to promoting health, fighting illness, buttressing longevity, enhancing memory and even boosting libido. Indeed, when properly understood and utilized, mushrooms hold the capacity to change your life in an immediate, powerful, and exponentially beneficial manner. To walk us through the magical and mysterious world of mushrooms, I sat down with my long-time friend Tero Isokauppila, the original fun-guy himself. (behind the scenes of my podcast with Tero) A life-long student of nutrition and expert on natural health hailing from Finland, Tero is the co-founder, president and marketing director of Four Sigmatic, the company behind a wide variety of very popular (and globally available) medicinal mushroom coffees, hot cacaos and elixir products that has successfully begun to introduce the health-promoting benefits of mushrooms to the mainstream. I’m not talking about mind-bending psychedelics. And I’m not talking about garden variety portobellos or even gourmet truffles. I’m talking about adaptogenic, superfood varieties most people have never previously heard of or know little to nothing about. I'm talking about less-understood immunity, longevity, and energy boosting fungi like reishi, chaga, lion’s mane, and my all-time favorite, cordyceps. Tero has been a featured speaker at events like Summit Series and Wanderlust, was chosen as one of the world's Top 50 Food Activists by the Academy of Culinary Nutrition and both he and the work of Four Sigmatic have been profiled everywhere, including Vogue, Time, Forbes, W Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, BuzzFeed, Bon Appétit, Goop, Well+Good, and MindBodyGreen. In addition, Tero is also the author of Healing Mushrooms: A Practical and Culinary Guide to Using Adaptogenic Mushrooms For Whole Body Health*, which hits bookstores everywhere Oct. 10. If today's conversation sparks deeper interest, I highly suggest picking it up. Not only is it highly instructive, it include 50+ recipes sure to expand your culinary horizon. This is a phenomenal conversation that tracks Tero's unique path from a kid foraging mushrooms in a 13th generation Finnish farming family to the entrepreneurial success he is today. It’s also fascinating deep dive into this mysterious mushroom kingdom and how these fungi can support human health. More specifically, we get granular on the individual adaptogenic properties of the most prominent superfood varieties and how incorporating them into your daily routine can take your health, longevity and performance to the next level. Enjoy! Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  They're a kingdom that is part of the planet. The planet doesn't survive without them. We probably will benefit using them for our health and wellness. Doesn't mean that all mushrooms are good, and it doesn't mean that mushrooms are better than good bacteria or good plants. They're just part of a holistic, smart lifestyle. They're just very overlooked. And there's these immediate benefits and immediate clear things that you can get by just incorporating a little bit of them to your diet. So that's probably gonna help you live a life that you more wanna live, a healthier life.

• 1:35Rich Roll?

  That's Taro Isocapilla... Isocapella? Isocapilla? Taro Isocapilla. I think that's right. This week, on the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:57Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey people, how you guys doing? What's happening? Are you feeling alright? Are you feeling good? I hope so. Thanks for dropping by. My name's Rich Roll. It's just two syllables, far fewer than today's guest. And I'm your host, and this is it, man. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. Thanks for dropping in on the show, or each and every week for the last five years. I go deep, I get intimate with the most compelling and brightest minds in wellness, fitness, nutrition, sports, tech, entrepreneurship, basically the coolest people I can find to continue my learning curve, people who personally inspire me to be better, and hopefully all of you guys as well. So today, I sit down with my buddy, Tero Isokauppila, who is a longtime friend, he's

• 2:40Rich Roll?

  an awesome dude, and an expert on the health, medicinal, and healing properties of mushrooms. This is a guy who is doing a lot to bring the ancient mushroom wisdom to the mainstream. And this is the subject of today's conversation. It's amazing. I think it's gonna blow some minds out there, and I'm excited to present it to you guys in a few minutes. But before I get into it, really quick, I wanted to take a moment to express a few thoughts on what went down in Las Vegas a couple days ago. I'm heartbroken. I'm really, really devastated. And without words on how to express this sense of devastation that I feel, I can't

• 3:23Rich Roll?

  imagine those of you who are listening, who perhaps were impacted either directly or indirectly by what has transpired. And if you're listening, and that is you, my heart goes out to you. I just, I hope that you can find some peace, and some sense of seeing your way through what I can only imagine is perhaps the most devastating thing you could possibly imagine. And it creates a sense of powerlessness, a hopelessness, that this is what it has come to, that this is what is going on in our culture. And I can feel that pessimism percolate up inside myself, and I don't like it. I don't like it.

• 4:04Rich Roll?

  I choose to remain optimistic that we will find solutions, that we will organize to get the gun control we so desperately need. And the mental health services that are really fundamentally required to properly treat

• 4:20Rich Roll?

  All of those out there who suffer, those who are in such a dark place that even the idea of doing something like this occurs to them. And I can't change what happened. I wish I could, but I can't. But I can, and we can still focus on things that we can control to make the world a little bit better. So if you listen to the most recent podcast that I did with Colin Houdon, then you know that I'm using my upcoming 51st birthday, which is on October 20th, to try to do a little good by raising money for my buddy, Scott Harrison, who is an awesome podcast guest, for his foundation Charity Water to build clean water projects for those in need. We take clean water for granted, but 663

• 5:04Rich Roll?

  million people live without it. That's nearly one out of every 10 people worldwide. And every day, about 1,400 kids die from diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. Every day, which is insane. And even more insane is that although this problem is admittedly huge, it's totally solvable through some pretty basic, simple solutions like drilled wells, spring protections and filters. And this is something that nobody does better than Charity Water. So my goal, which I think is totally doable, is to raise $51,000. And to reach it, I'm asking you guys to dig into your pockets and pledge 51 bucks, $1 for each year that I have enjoyed clean water, 100% of which will be directly deployed to

• 5:47Rich Roll?

  build these clean water projects, which will impact over 1,500 people if we reach our goal. And that's an act that will change their lives tremendously and those of generations to come, which is just so powerful and incredible. And what's really cool is that when the water projects are complete, Charity Water will send us tons of photos and GPS coordinates so we can see up close and personal the impact and the exact community that we helped, which is amazing. So to learn more and to donate, visit my fundraising page at my.charitywater.org/richroll. I'll put that in the show notes as well. And I should say that if $51 is too much, donate whatever you can. And if you're feeling generous, more, of course, is even better.

• 6:31Rich Roll?

  Your generosity isn't just appreciated, it's needed, and it's needed now more than ever. And perhaps this can even serve as a good, healthy outlet for whatever frustration or consternation that you're experiencing or feeling in the wake of the Vegas shooting. And I really think that together, we can make a huge difference in so many people's lives. So, thank you.

• 7:00Rich Roll?

  Okay, Tero. Tero is such an interesting, fascinating guy. Hailing from Finland originally, Tero is a lifelong student of nutrition and its impact on the human body. Now, he is the president and marketing director of a company called Four Sigmatic. That's the company behind a wide variety of very popular medicinal mushroom coffees, hot cacao's, and elixir products, which now sells in over 25 countries. I'm not talking about psychedelics, people, calm down. And I'm also not talking about your garden variety portobellos, or even things like truffles either. I'm talking about immunity, longevity, and energy boosting mushrooms, adaptogenic superfood varieties, most people have never even heard of, or

• 7:44Rich Roll?

  maybe only know a little bit about, or nothing at all, things like reishi, chaga, lion's mane, and my personal favorite, cordyceps. Tero is an expert on this stuff. He's an expert on superfoods and natural health. He's been a featured speaker at all kinds of cool events like Summit Series, and Wanderlust, and Soho House. And he was chosen as one of the world's top 50 food activists by the Academy of Culinary Nutrition. In addition, both he and Four Sigmatic have been profiled everywhere, including Vogue, Time, Forbes, W Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, BuzzFeed, Bon Appetit, Goop, Well and Good, Mind Body Green, and many, many others. He is also the author of a great new book entitled Healing Mushrooms: A Practical and Culinary Guide to Using Adaptogenic Mushrooms for Whole

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  Body Health, which hits bookstores everywhere, October 10th. It's a great read. It even includes a whole bunch of recipes, I think 50 recipes all told, and you guys should all pick it up. So, this is a great conversation that tracks Tero's unique path, growing up on a farm in Finland as a 13th generation farmer, learning to forage mushrooms as a kid, to the entrepreneurial success he is today. It's also a fascinating deep dive into this mysterious mushroom kingdom, and how these... Fungi provide a foundation for gut health and overall health. And we also get very specific on the individual adaptogenic properties of the most prominent superfood varieties and how incorporating them into your daily routine can take your health and

• 9:13Rich Roll?

  your vitality to the next level. Finally, make sure you stick around to the end because Tero has a pretty cool giveaway I'm going to tell you about called 120 Days on Shrooms, just for you guys, for listeners of the show. Full disclosure, Four Sigmatic has been a sponsor of the podcast in the past, and I hope they will be a sponsor in the future because I love the company and I support their mission. But this episode is not some kind of paid sponsorship thing. Like I said, Tero and I go way back. I sought him out for this conversation because I really wanted to share his wisdom with you guys. And I received nothing in return for this, other than knowing you guys will benefit from listening. So that's it. Okay, let's talk fungi.

• 10:00Rich Roll?

  I'm sitting here with the original fungi himself to talk about the magical and mysterious medicinal properties of the mycelium, the mushroom, right?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, the fungi.

• 10:13Rich Roll?

  I know. We're going to unpack all of this. It's really cool. Thank you for coming up here.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 10:19Rich Roll?

  Thank you for bringing some of your products. We're drinking some lion's mane tea.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 10:24Rich Roll?

  Coffee. Do you call it, it's called, you call it coffee?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  No, we call it elixir.

• 10:27Rich Roll?

  Elixir, right?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Is when it doesn't have coffee. We used to call it tea, but then when we started, we really didn't know much about like the regulation of starting a company or anything like that.

• 10:39Rich Roll?

  If you use certain words.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Like if you say tea, you have to have the tea leave in it because it's a plant.

• 10:45Rich Roll?

  So. But coffee doesn't have that same.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  This one doesn't have tea or coffee. So we call it an elixir. You could call it a potion, or you could call it a drink mix, but we just call it an elixir. I just think. I kind of love the sound of that.

• 11:02Rich Roll?

  It's nice, man. And it tastes good. And we're going to talk about the, uh, the properties of all of these mushrooms. But I think maybe a good way to kind of launch into it is just to establish, or at least kind of expand people's awareness of this crazy mushroom kingdom. Because we don't really think about mu- we think about mushrooms in the context of like mushrooms on our pizza. And it kind of ends there. But, you know, mushrooms are in 40% of pharmaceuticals. Uh, 92% of plants are dependent on mushrooms. 25% of the earth's biomass is, is, uh, is mushroom-based, fungi-based. And I think I read, uh,

• 11:47Rich Roll?

  in your stuff, like 85% of our RNA and half of our DNA is shared with mushrooms.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:55Rich Roll?

  That's insane.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  It is pretty insane.

• 11:56Rich Roll?

  We don't even think about it. It's like this invisible reality that surrounds us and informs our world. But it's not part of our like daily consciousness or awareness. I mean, I know you're working to change that.

• 12:10Rich Roll?

  But that's the truth, right?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. It is like, um, it's often looked at as this like, sub-subgroup of vegetables that you put on your pizza or a topping. It's like, do you, do you want like bell peppers or mushrooms on your pizza? Or do you want, you know what I mean? It's like,

• 12:28Rich Roll?

  It's like saying, do you want a plant? Or do you want, you know, it's like you could mean anything.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  It's a kingdom. So, um, as much as plants are the foundation of good health, bacteria is a kingdom and good bacteria is a foundation of good health. And fungi is a kingdom and it's a foundation of good health, I think. And, and when something is a kingdom, there's something that will heal you and there's something that will hurt you. And, um, even though as much as you're all about the plant-powered way, there's certain plants that if you go into forest and you pick them wild, they're lethal, right?

• 13:00Rich Roll?

  It's not gonna be good.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, uh, so the same with mushrooms. Some of them are bad. There's bad mushrooms out there, but then there's these really healing ones. But, um, to your point is that When something is a kingdom, it's needed in this ecosystem. And plants actually need these fungi, this mycelium mass to collect water and nutrients. They like spread out, they're like an extended root system and they help collect water or, and they help break down organic and inorganic matter in the forest. So they are essentially like the vacuum cleaners and the decomposting machine of the forest and, and Mother Nature.

• 13:39Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  And they can even break down radiation and these inorganic things like even oil, diesel, you can, they can go.

• 13:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  And now the latest discovery a few years ago is that they can eat plastic.

• 13:51Rich Roll?

  That's a huge discovery.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  That's, they're trying to figure out, people, I guess, much smarter than I am, try to figure out applications on how this mushroom that was discovered in the Amazon a few years ago, how it can be used to just break down plastic. But the kicker is that now they're saying it's totally safe and good for you to eat as well after it's composted.

• 14:12Rich Roll?

  After it's, so essentially you're eating, you're eating decomposed plastic.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know.

• 14:19Rich Roll?

  Processed through fungi.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  I need to, I haven't tried it yet, so I can't say if it's, if it's good or not, but.

• 14:26Rich Roll?

  But it's fascinating that, that really the, the core essence of fungi is, is the mycelium that you don't see, like the root system that's under, under the ground. We think of the mushroom cap, but that's just the flower.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's as much, if you see that traditional mushroom shape that is like iconic in its own way, that is called the fruiting body. And that's as much as you see an apple from an apple tree. And then the apple tree itself is, is called mycelium or hyphae. And that is underground and that is, like you said, about 25% of the earth's biomass is fungi. And the funniest or the most amazing one is actually in Oregon and it's a honey mushroom that is size of about 20,000 basketball courts and it's one mushroom.

• 15:17Rich Roll?

  Whoa.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  And it's basically in this natural park and some people say it's 2,000 years old. Some people say it's 4,000 years old, but it's. To our knowledge, the oldest and largest living organism in planet Earth.

• 15:32Rich Roll?

  That's amazing. How did they even discover that? Or how do you calculate the size of it?

• 15:39Speaker 01

  It is basically like, it's actually munching on trees. It's eating trees. So actually fungi and

• 15:47Speaker 01

  animals share this one thing is that we cannot produce our own food. Cause plants can. Plants can produce their own food, but we need external food sources. And same with mushrooms. And that mushrooms can like also create vitamin D from the sun the same way as we can, but that's another conversation. Point being is that they're going to munch these trees and and and they like to eat this national park slowly and and decompost it into soil and topsoil and so. But yeah, there's some clever people who've dedicated their whole life to just like a few different types of mushrooms and they love to geek out and very specifically, I try to look at the bigger picture, but there's people that are just dedicated on looking at this honey mushroom particularly.

• 16:29Rich Roll?

  Right. That's amazing. So how did this whole thing begin? I mean, you come from a long line of farmers, right? You grew up on a farm, like 13th generation, like your family farm dates back to like the 1600s or something like that?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, that's funny because you just got back from Sweden, but Finland was like 600 years part of Sweden and it's still our second language, Swedish and official language. And we don't really know how old the farm is, but we know at least then. And yeah, that's where it kind of started. And mom taking me and my older brother out foraging for mushrooms and berries and leaves and shoots. So it's not just mushrooms, but it was like, it was not a foreign concept of going to the forest and picking out something and having dinner from that the same day.

• 17:17Rich Roll?

  Right. So you learned at a very young age, what's an edible mushroom, what's not, how to pick?

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, the basic ones. We've, obviously, we were forging, we were forging like chanterelles and boleties, which are more of your culinary mushrooms. And obviously now, my passion is in these healing functional mushrooms. But, um, um, yeah, that was where we started is like chanterelles, which is such a posh food now. It's like, you're like, like Michelin star for quality food, but in there, it's like just everywhere. They're all over the place.

• 17:50Rich Roll?

  And were you, were you growing produce on the farm too?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, oats.

• 17:55Rich Roll?

  Animals and things like that?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, oats was the core. So when I was young, the farm was actually really big. In today's world, it's actually really tiny because the farm sizes have just incre- it's both in, in farming grains or, or, you know, staples, but also in animals. Like, we had 50 of these, like, heirloom cows. And, and now, if you go to, like, I mean, you're beyond familiar with it, there's, there could be like 20,000, you know? It's in, it's just like the size, like, I would know most of their names.

• 18:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Um, today's world, if you just, what's that, the gnarliest place? Cowlinga, when you drive to San Francisco.

• 18:37Rich Roll?

  It's the worst.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  It's, you smell it like, as you're driving in, it's, you smell, and it's just like the saddest sight. But when I was a kid, and this might be different in the US, but in Finland, like, we had a big farm. And then now, it's like, barely survives. So a lot of the income is based on tourism, and we have these cottages by these beautiful lakes, and then, uh, forest, um, just, you know, uh, it's a renewable energy source, but also like, it, money grows on trees in a way, so, um, but yeah, oats. Um, I'm sure, having, did you notice when you go to Sweden, like, oat milk is like, it's a thing? There's a brand called Oatly, who's now also in the US, that instead of almond milk, we use a lot of oat milk?

• 19:19Rich Roll?

  I didn't see that, I don't recall that specific brand, but I did go to a couple, uh, grocery stores, and I know, I did notice oat milk being a thing.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, oatmeal is like Scandinavian staple breakfast.

• 19:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  And then oat milk is a thing as well, so, a lot of people, even though they don't approach it from a, like- Like super, super health conscious, but there's a lot of like lactose intolerance.

• 19:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  So almost every household is familiar with the concept of like offering something like an oat milk or like a lactose intolerant option, you know?

• 19:53Rich Roll?

  I found the, the community in Stockholm to be super forward thinking and health conscious. There were tons of really healthy restaurants and vegan restaurants and, and gourmet supermarkets that have, you know, amazing fare. Like it was, it was great. Like I felt like, you know, they're, they're totally, you know, on the page. Is it like that in Finland as well?

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think Finland and maybe Norway are the most forward thinking. I think at one point Finnish people ate more superfoods than any other nation in the world. But I think compared to especially LA, it's more about, you know, the staples versus exotic superfoods. It's more like, you know, the berries and, you know, having clean local food. So I think there's, it's less about being like a trend or it's more about a lifestyle choice.

• 20:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  It's like generally like clean food and good quality food is just appreciated in general.

• 20:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. I definitely, I definitely got that there. So beautiful there, man. What a magical part of the world.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  It is.

• 21:05Rich Roll?

  It's incredible. We took this ferry out from Stockholm to the archipelago, to the outer reaches of it. And it's like a two hour ride and you just have these islands that you go through and, and just, you know, the extended outreaches of Stockholm that, you know, it's just literally like all these beautiful homes on the water, everywhere you look and it's just.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's a huge thing is even if you're not like health conscious or particularly connected to nature, pretty much all Scandinavian Nordic people will in the summertime, because the summer is so short.

• 21:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  It's when we take a break.

• 21:39Rich Roll?

  They go crazy. There's so many people that were super tan.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:42Rich Roll?

  I'm like, oh, like when the sun comes out.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  It's full on. It's full on. It's, and if, if you, if you ever go to like, I don't know, Thailand or Miami and you meet Nordic people, they're always like a little sunburned because they're like, once they see it, they're so at it.

• 21:58Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And. Point being is like then people would go in these summers and they go into these cottages or the countryside kind of dwelling and and that's when you like preferably don't even have running water and and you're just living kind of for that month or two really in nature without a lot of the modern things and

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  So it's a big part of the culture for sure.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  So you're foraging for mushrooms with your mom and you're learning about this world. But but it wasn't it wasn't like the plan was to turn this into a profession, right? You go to school, but there's a there's a cool story about this contest that you that you enter when you're in college, right? That kind of flipped the light switch for you?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I joke often that I work for mushrooms and then that mushroom chose me and not the other way around because I feel like there's been so few times in my life like, you know, like, is it the universe or just random chance or whatever the reason is like certain things click and even though I've grown up foraging for mushrooms, but I also was equally excited about berries and other things like that. And as almost as a joke, me and my college friend entered this innovation contest in in the Nordic countries, the government really like supports and it's it's a little socialist, like there's certain like benefits, like you can't really be homeless, for example, there and there's all these things. And one of the things is they try to encourage innovation. It's like

• 23:20Speaker 01

  a huge thing. And we were bored on our first year of college and we're just like bored and didn't know what to do. So and we came from this area where which was identical to the Hokkaido island and the northern main island in Japan. And we'd already talked about like, like the similarities and and then one evening, me and my friend basically like discovered that there's this mushroom that is like a nugget. It's like the truffle for the Japanese also grows in Finland in where we grew up. And we didn't much think of it, but we thought, oh, we'll just as it was we were bored, we'll just

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Submit this idea of building a foraging network because we were already finished. People were already foraging for these bolini's, these like culinary mushrooms to Italy and sending them to Italian restaurants. So why not do that to Japan with this mushroom that was just discovered? And passed the idea and then we won.

• 24:23Rich Roll?

  And these mushrooms are in crazy demand in Japan, right? Like the market price is insane.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's what I would just say is a chuffle for the Japanese. So it's like incredible price because there's such a small demand, a small supply. And I don't know if this is anymore true, but 10 at that time Tokyo had more Michelin star restaurants than London and Paris combined. So when they do something, they do it really seriously. And there's a lot of like really good restaurants, obviously a lot of people as well. And these restaurants love this one mushroom.

• 24:56Rich Roll?

  Right. So you win the contest and that's sort of wind in your sails or sort of a nod from the universe like, hey, maybe there's something here to explore.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Unfortunately, I was never like passionate about and still I am not serving the 1%. And even though it was cool, we got money from the government, they were ready to support our launch of this brand. Me or my friend were neither like gung ho about like figuring out a system to serve Michelin star restaurants in Japan, you know, it's not like. So when I ended up donating the business idea to that, but I mean, just through that process, I learned so much more about like, how can a like a little piece of a mushroom be worth like 500 bucks? And what is, at that time, especially in my life, I was thinking about value. Like what is, how you value things? Like it's paper, it's money is a paper,

• 25:46Speaker 01

  but you exchange it for things. And for some, how for some people, something is worth this and for some other people, it's worth 10,000 times more. And but I just wanted to travel around the world, see and explore different cultures. And that was not my calling at that point, but it left this like planted a seed that then a few years later like blossomed into like becoming totally obsessed with mushrooms. But at this point, it was like, I was not kind of ready for it.

• 26:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. So you, I mean, you've lived in, I think you said before we started the podcast, you've lived in 10 countries. So you traveled quite a bit after that?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was picking up odd jobs here and there. I worked for a university in Vancouver, Canada. And, you know, I was spending time in the Philippines and Hong Kong and Paris and whatever. And that kind of also gave me perspective because Nordic countries, certain things are really good. But it's also very like a small society. So then going out in the world and also seeing how agriculture is in different parts of the world and also exploring each country's own best superfoods and their like sacred things that not only have nutrient density, but they have a cultural meaning, like same way as in Finland, like

• 27:01Speaker 01

  chaga mushroom or nettle root or rhodiola root are things that are like big things in our society or sea buckthorn. When I would go to Philippines, I would figure out moringa leaf or something is a thing.

• 27:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's like their version.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's also like fun to see how around the world, certain other things are like holy or sacred for that society and that region.

• 27:23Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, at the same time, when you, when you're in Asia, it's, it's impossible to not notice these sort of holistic traditions that date back thousands of years that have been healing, you know, people and been kind of, you know, part and parcel of their kind of medical, you know, industrial complex, you know?

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:45Rich Roll?

  Herbal remedies, you know, traditional Chinese medicine. These practices have been harnessing and leveraging the power of, you know, herbs and of course mushrooms for quite a long time. But that is a foreign concept, to say the least, to, you know, the Western mind.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember when I lived in Hong Kong, I would go. There was this plant-based restaurant in the heart of Hong Kong has this main area is the Hong Kong Island where the British originally came and in the heart of the Hong Kong Island, at the center of the center of the center is this area called Central and there's these world's largest escalators going up and up and down and I would go to this plant-based restaurant with my friends and right next door to it at the absolute heart of it, it's this little corner Chinese medicine store that would sell for like, I think it's something like 50 cents in US dollars or something like that, this little cup of 24 bitters and it's the most like this bitter nasty drink, but I would see people in suits going

• 28:48Speaker 01

  into big banks and then they were just on their way, they would stop for this little cup of like bitters and they would just chug it every day and it was like fascinating to see is that it was not a big deal, it's not, it's not going to the Awan and like, it was just like, it's almost like they're Starbucks in a way, their own like traditional Starbucks, you chug it, go to work.

• 29:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and you're like, what is that?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we would always stop by there and have this little cup of bitters and you get addicted to it after like a week or two of drinking these extreme bitters, you start craving for it, you're like, if you skip a day, you're like, I kinda need bitters right now.

• 29:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you, well, it's probably, you know, planting your microbiome with, you know, that population of, of microbes that start to crave that kind of thing.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally agree.

• 29:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. So, so when does the idea, you know, occur to you to create this business out of mushrooms? Like, where does that come from?

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, so at one point I was like, A, I had seen is that like the knowledge I learned growing up in Finland was not commonly available, like it was one, it was just understanding is that like a lot of people, even a lot of like successful people have no clue on a lot of the kind of what I consider to be somewhat basic knowledge in nutrition and I saw them, the stress levels and just their life quality being pretty low and so that was one thing. The other thing is like, I, you know, I just, I was, me personally was excited about it and I was ordering like random capsules and pills of various superfoods, including, you know, mushrooms from.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Shady websites and like trying to like put them in my smoothies and I thought this must be

• 30:32Rich Roll?

  The dark web.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, this must be made easier. Like, I couldn't convince a lot of my friends to do it because it was so shady. It's like, even if the ingredients are good, if they're not presented in a way that it's like less, you know, scary, that's really important. So.

• 30:47Rich Roll?

  Right, like while processing and bioavailability also, right?

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 30:51Rich Roll?

  Which we're gonna get into, but.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so like I would be just like combining, formulating my own things and opening these capsules and pills. And I was like, oh, this needs to be made easier. But the original plan, even at that point, was that we'll do like a bunch of stuff. I wanted to make a pine pollen product. That was the first product we started working on. So I partnered up with a bunch of my older roommates from different countries and it's like a group of friends, originally from Finland, though. And we started working on these, all these products. And every time we tried to make a decision, we came back to mushrooms. And it was like, it was like all this, like, I tried to run away from it, but it just kept coming back.

• 31:31Rich Roll?

  Why do you, why is that? Like, why did you keep coming back to that? Because you felt like that was underserved in the market or there was a lack of understanding or?

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Well, for me, first of all, it was like, I was obviously first a believer, but I was like an equal believer on some other stuff. But then second is when I tried to convince of these other stuff, like, let's say bilberries. So bilberries are like wild blueberries that grow in Finland. If I would put them in my friend who was an athlete into his smoothie, he's like, oh, it's good, tastes good. But he wouldn't notice anything. That's why I think coffee is pretty popular around the world is it gives you a noticeable result. You know, it's like.

• 32:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's pretty immediate.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  It's like, okay, or Adderall. It's like, okay, I take it, I feel it. And that's what happened with especially cordyceps.

• 32:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, because you were a really fast runner, right? Like you're.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know fast.

• 32:20Rich Roll?

  Well, you know, you were a good runner and you had this kind of epiphany moment with cordyceps.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's actually funny, like, two years after, as we're launching a product, somebody emailed me, is like. Have you heard of this guy Rich Roll? That was at the time that you had this post with Tim Ferriss's blog?

• 32:36Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  This was, must be before Finding Ultra.

• 32:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he let me, well, no, what happened was, uh, Tim was gracious enough to let me do a guest post on his blog that it, that, that, that would come out sort of at the same time as my book came out. And so-

• 32:51Speaker 01

  At this point, I had not heard of the book yet. And it was like, I think that was the first time I discovered you as well.

• 32:56Rich Roll?

  So it was like, yeah, 10, it was like uncommon superfoods from-

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and cordyceps is one of them.

• 33:01Rich Roll?

  Cordyceps is one of them. And it was something that, that, do you know Compton Rom? Do you know Compton?

• 33:06Speaker 01

  No, I don't.

• 33:07Rich Roll?

  He's since moved, but he's, he's moved to Utah, but he was like my, my sort of mentor and shepherd into the world of superfoods and kind of, um, uh, you know, bizarre, uncommon-

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:20Rich Roll?

  foods that could boost performance.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:22Rich Roll?

  And he's a PhD in microbiology and he taught me about the microbiome and he would create these, he would craft these insane elixirs at his house. He has a company called Ascended Health and he was developing different product lines and he would call me and he'd say, I just came up with this thing. Like you gotta come over here and try it. And it would be like the foulest tasting, you know, thing. Everybody, it would be like bubbling up like-

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:45Rich Roll?

  out of Frankenstein's laboratory or something. But it was incredible, the impact that this was having on my training and my recovery. And cordyceps was a key part of that.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, clearly he had an impact, but what got you fully into like, go into the kind of the uncommon and uncharted territories? Was it just your personality of like, if you do it, you want to do it the best you can? Or, or what got you drawn into like things like cordyceps, which at that point probably nobody had really heard of?

• 34:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think what happened was I had had such a, a profound experience in changing my diet and how that impacted my life. And that got me interested in, um, human potential and performance. And, and my interest in ultra endurance was kind of- Triggered by that impulse, like which became an obsession because that world of ultra endurance is a beautiful template to test these things, right? And when I went plant based, it was it was an extraordinary thing. And I was like, okay, well, what? Okay, so that's, that's great. But like, what's next? And if I want to perform as an athlete, there's this whole world of other stuff here that I probably never would have explored without

• 34:58Rich Roll?

  Compton, because he was like, let me take you in and I'm going to teach you about all these things.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  At that point, had you heard of the myth and lore of cordyceps and the running, especially in the endurance world?

• 35:07Rich Roll?

  There was a, was it the Chinese female?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, 93.

• 35:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they won all these gold medals out of the blue and

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Everybody was doping.

• 35:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, everybody.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  I mean, look, honestly, you could have still been doping, who knows? But they never got caught. And then they were asked, like, how did you break? I just remember that I think that one of the ladies broke 30 minutes on 10K, I think, the first woman in the world ever.

• 35:31Rich Roll?

  It was like 1933 or something like that, right? When this happened?

• 35:34Speaker 01

  93 Stuttgart, early 90s, early 90s. And that was groundbreaking, you know, going under 30 minutes. I've never, I've never gone under 30 minutes, though. So

• 35:49Rich Roll?

  And they were saying, yes.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  There was like tons of cordyceps.

• 35:51Rich Roll?

  And this is this, and they're like, we didn't invent this. This has been, this goes back thousands of years with Chinese medicine.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  And since then, like Stanford, which you're familiar with, has studied cordyceps. And there's like, then after that, I feel like the Western world. But that's why I feel like that's, that one usually cordyceps is popular among people who are in like endurance sports or

• 36:11Rich Roll?

  Right. It's an easy sell. Like, this is a performance enhancer. Like, it's different when you say, oh, this will relax you, this will help you fall asleep, this will improve your mental clarity. But like, if you're like, you're going to be an athlete, you know, like, you're going to immediately attract, you know, a large group of people.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  And there's this one study that gets quoted a lot, which is that the VO2 max improvement up to 15%, which is, it's on untrained individuals, you know, it's, it's not going to be if you're on a new peak performance. But if you're in peak performance, you want 2% Um, two percent more millimoles in your VO2 max. It's like mind blowing, you know, that alone.

• 36:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think.

• 36:48Rich Roll?

  And it has something to do, you can speak to this more intelligently than I, but it has something to do with improving your, uh, your body's ability to uptake and utilize oxygen more efficiently.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Correct. So, um, so kind of going back, cordyceps is, is an odd mushroom. Most mushrooms, the top mushrooms grow on trees. Cordyceps is a really random, random, it's actually a paras-

• 37:13Rich Roll?

  It's like a fungus that grows on the back of some beetle or something like that, right?

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It's a parasitic one. Commercially made ones are vegan. There's no animals.

• 37:21Rich Roll?

  You can grow it in a lab. Is that how it works?

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, correct. Or, yeah, you, basically you can, you can, there's two ways. You can grow the mycelium or the fruiting body and there's few different strains that are safe for humans and they're all, actually they're all safe for humans. And I'm saying this because somebody had might have seen this documentary of BBC with cordyceps taking over these killer ants.

• 37:41Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  And, uh, it's Richard Edinburgh, like poetically explains how, how cordyceps takes over, uh, um, ants. And, uh, but yeah, it's an odd, like this mythical mushroom. It's in the fungi family and it was discovered by the Sherpas in the high, like Tibet, Himalayas. They, they were like the yaks, which are like these big local bulls, domesticated, big mammals that would carry heavy things up the mountain. And they were all tired and then they started grazing on this mushroom and they just got this, like this jolt of energy. And they're like, the Sherpas, like, what's going on? And they, they started eating it

• 38:22Speaker 01

  and it became a thing 2000 years ago. And, uh, and it was used for like, for respiratory issues, for lungs, for like, people might've had asthma and then lower back, which is funny, that's where your adrenal glands are. So they, like, one thing that cordyceps does is this like an adaptogen. So it helps your body to adapt to stress and that happens usually through the glands and then the whole HBA axis, you know, how your adrenals and hypothalamus and those like produce hormones. Cordyceps is really kind of supporting of your jing or you're supporting of your adrenals. And then the other one is what you just said is- It helps with kind of energy utilization and like both on how ATP production is made. So how energy is made in your cells.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  So everything in your body is made out of cells and every cell is like a factory of energy.

• 39:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  And that's why like, like a lot of people, I think also report such an energy boost of going plant-based is partly, I think, because of that energy production just gets better in ATP and all that stuff. But yeah, and then energy utilization, like how, how good your body like moves oxygen in your lungs. And it's not that the cordyceps makes you a better athlete or gives you energy. It just helps your own body to get more oxygen and oxygen is life. Like it's better than any cup of coffee, you know?

• 39:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And it's not a jolt like a cup of coffee. It's just, I mean, my experience with it is that, I mean, it's a noticeable difference, but it's just a feeling of, of sustained energy and this feeling that you can go a little bit longer and a little bit harder than you could otherwise before you kind of cap out and run out of steam. And Chris and I, my, my teammate at

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Eutel.

• 40:10Rich Roll?

  Did I say it right?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Eutel. Eutel.

• 40:13Rich Roll?

  Eutel. We both, we both had our four-sigmatic cordyceps in the morning before the race.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:19Rich Roll?

  Yes, I want you to know that.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  I'm happy to hear that.

• 40:22Rich Roll?

  It fueled us through the day, so thank you for that.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Any help is needed on that race.

• 40:27Rich Roll?

  Ah, yeah, I could have used a little more help.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:31Rich Roll?

  But it was good. But anyway, yeah, and I've been using, I've been using cordyceps for years, ever since Compton introduced me to it. And this was your first, this was kind of your first product, was it not?

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was cordyceps and then Rishi. Rishi is like also adaptogen and, but that's more of like helping you relax and sleep better. So yeah, generally speaking, it's an easier sell to tell someone is like, hey, this will like give you energy and sport performance.

• 41:02Rich Roll?

  Is it your best seller today? What which product?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  It changes, you know, it's like Sweden, it's a different best seller than it is in the US, or it's a different best seller in Australia than it is in in France, but um, it's incredibly popular, but lately, the one that people have been loving, which is funny, because for the first, we started 2012, so the first four years, this mushroom was by far the least prop, least popular, and almost, we were like, should we stop selling it? Because nobody was buying it, but we loved it ourselves, so we just kept going, and in the last year or so, it just blew up, and it's called Lion's Mane.

• 41:38Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  And

• 41:39Rich Roll?

  Which is what we're having

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's not

• 41:42Rich Roll?

  So tell me what that does.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  And first of all, it's not the mane of a lion, it's not the hair. We actually get a customer service inquiries, like, is, is, are the lions free range? And it's not, no

• 41:54Rich Roll?

  Are you serious?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not kidding.

• 41:56Rich Roll?

  Hello, we're a mushroom company.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's another mushroom called Turkey Tail, and people are always like, that is not a good thing for the turkeys.

• 42:05Rich Roll?

  You know, I mean, just to like, for, as a quick aside, the mushroom kingdom is fucking fascinating, because these mushrooms come in so many crazy shapes and forms, and Julie is delivering her next cookbook tomorrow, and so, over the last, you know, six months, like, this kitchen has been a laboratory of her experimenting, and trying to come up with plant-based Italian dishes.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:30Rich Roll?

  And just yesterday, I told her to save it, I don't know, I think it probably got eaten, but she had, she created this, this dish out of the chicken mushroom.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Chicken of the woods?

• 42:41Rich Roll?

  I think that's what it is, and it only blooms like, once a year, like, it's very seasonal, and she created this delicious dish with this sauce on it, and you slice it, like, like chicken, and you chew it, and it has that fibrous texture.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 42:55Rich Roll?

  And consistency of, it was shocking, you know, how much it felt like eating chicken, even though it was a big giant mushroom.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:02Rich Roll?

  And also, she does a lobster risotto with the lobster mushroom, which is orange, and not only does it have the color palette of a lobster, it has the taste and consistency of a lobster, it's just bizarre.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  And it's not made in a lab, it is as natural as it comes.

• 43:18Rich Roll?

  Rose in nature.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it's a fascinating one, isn't it? And it's actually if you go to like, for example, when I lived in Hong Kong, or you visit a Buddhist temple somewhere and get this vegetarian meal, it's such a common like a meat substitute, actually, some of the, including lion's mane as well. And, and, but they are beautiful. They're, they're like, they're almost like art. They kind of look like it.

• 43:44Rich Roll?

  But there's a mental barrier that you kind of have to overcome because we just kind of grow up perceiving these things as like, you know, something to avoid. You know, with the opposed, you know, with the exception of the, the condiment like mushrooms, like, you know, like that's, that doesn't taste good.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Or mold.

• 44:02Rich Roll?

  Like, yeah, it's like, cause yeah, you associate it with mold and something that's unhealthy.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, trust me, I've.

• 44:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, this is your burden. This is your marketing burden, right?

• 44:10Speaker 01

  It's the two things. One is the concept of psychedelic mushrooms. And the other one is the concept of like molds and bad mushrooms. And that's the conversation we're having and kind of back to where we started. If something is a kingdom, it comes in many colors, many shapes, many flavors, many consistencies. So if you just think of the butter mushroom and say, I don't like the flavor or I don't like the texture. Um, that's a, that's a fairly small limitation of what they can do. And for example, this lion's mane, it looks like, almost like a cheerleader's pom pom that grows on a, um, on a tree. And it is actually such a yummy meat substitute as well for a lot of people.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  So, um, another cool way how you can get a heavy meat eater to get excited of something like an alternative. And, um, I've never been like a big fan of like Satan or like mixes of stuff. So I think that's why especially like I've had this another love for mushrooms as well.

• 45:17Rich Roll?

  So let's go through it. You know, the more popular medicinal sort of adaptogenic mushrooms that you kind of are involved in are not just lion's mane, but we've got shaga, we've got reishi, we talked about cordyceps a little bit. I mean, those are kind of the main ones, right?

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, those are the

• 45:35Rich Roll?

  Let's parse those and like, what do these do?

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Those are main ones.

• 45:38Rich Roll?

  And like, why should we be including these in our diet?

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yes. So those are the most kind of researched and most differentiated. And if you're in the health circles, you might've heard of reishi. But if you're just tuning in and you

• 45:50Rich Roll?

  Is it reishi or reishi?

• 45:51Speaker 01

  There's neither way. It's a Japanese word and you can say either way. But if you're tuning in and you're like, hey, what are these? Like, I've never heard of any of them. They sound so exotic. I just want to, before we dive into what do all of those do, is just know that there are more familiar mushrooms that offer similar and equally good functional benefits. The shiitake, the maitake, the enoki, the oyster mushroom. So not all of them are exotic as cordyceps. But to just to kind of frame it, reishi or reishi is the queen of all mushrooms. So it's

• 46:32Speaker 01

  the most studied of them for their health benefits. It's really like this motherly, calming, nurturing mushroom, especially good if you're highly stressed or if you need to improve your sleep quality. But all of these top mushrooms help with your gut health, your gut biome.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Reishi is great for that. They help with usually blood sugar, you know, and just managing. But yeah, gut health and immunity, they're moderating your immune system. But reishi particularly is this nurturing, motherly, calming mushroom. And then there's pretty fascinating studies on how it could improve sleep quality. So you can go into a deeper sleep. And then cordyceps is, even though neither of them are like sedative or stimulant, it's like somewhat the opposite. It's like, it's like fire, energy, go, go, go, like get more out of your workout.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Used for more of the lungs and the respiratory issues, but also sports and performance. Actually, in my upcoming book, there's a recipe called Cordyceps on the Beach, because it was used as an aphrodisiac for a long time. So as a kind of a playful, fun way of making a mocktail and using cordyceps as the booster. But so that's like fire, energy, go, performance.

• 47:50Rich Roll?

  One question I have about that is, I use it not on a daily basis, but kind of pick and choose. Like, okay, I have a really big workout on Thursday, so I'll have it that morning. But I don't do it every day. But I don't know, like, is it okay to do it every day? Or do you develop like, not an immunity, but a tolerance to it? Like, is it something that is, should be for daily use? Or is it something that you should just use periodically?

• 48:17Speaker 01

  So this adaptogen, this concept of these 10 to 20 of the most studied powerful herbs and fungi in the world that balance our body. So the word adaptogen comes from it being helpful to adapt you to stress and difficult situation from exercise to just your normal daily life of being a mother to and to children or whatever.

• 48:39Rich Roll?

  Right. And just sorry to interrupt, but like in an Ayurvedic sense, it kind of reads your body and understands what's out of balance and sort of naturally knows how to address that.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  That's exactly the point. So in order to be an adaptogen, or as Darjeeling, they often like Rasayana, or an emperor herb in China, or you have to be safe and non-habit forming. So if it causes you an addiction, or if it's not safe daily, it cannot be an adaptogen. Second is what you just said, is it restores balance. So it's not really healing you of anything. It just restores balance, whatever the homeostasis and balance it is for your case. So the same thing for someone might be a lot of energy and for the other person, it might be a lot of calming, depending where you are on the spectrum. And then third one is that it's non-specific. So it works the body like a symphony versus

• 49:30Speaker 01

  an individual instrument. So those are things. And so, yeah, cordyceps is safe every day, to answer your question. That being said, all of these adaptogens, I think they're better if you, if you. Play with them seasonally and rotate them a little bit. That being said, the mushrooms have, and actually oats in, but in much smaller capacity, have these, one of the most studied compounds in the world called polysaccharides, these many sugars. And even if you're on a ketogenic diet, they're not going to impact your blood sugar. But especially these betaclugans are among the most studied compounds for human health.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  And those betaclugans are kind of like the chlorophyll plants in a way, the same ways that you, you don't have to eat spinach every day. You don't have to eat kale every day. But it's probably in your best interest to have chlorophyll in some capacity on a daily basis, on a regular basis. The same way is probably good to have betaclugans and polysaccharides every day. But one day it can come from a shiitake, one day it can come from cordyceps, and then one day it can come from goji berries or oats. But, um, so it's safe every day, but you're probably doing it the right way by just kind of rotating them a little bit.

• 50:50Rich Roll?

  I think that's an important point that has a macro application to how we live our lives and, and think about, you know, what we put in our bodies. Because we have a tendency as human beings to, uh, you know, to wanna just zero in on one thing and think that's the, you know, that is the, that's the thing that's gonna make the difference. And those things tend to vacillate depending upon cultural trends. So for a while it's kale, you know, and then it's this, and then it's like, that's the answer, that's the thing. And it's like, it's not, you know? We, as human beings and, and part of this greater ecosystem, we are as cyclical as the plants that grow out of the, the ground. And I think we need to pay more attention to those circadian rhythms and modulate our,

• 51:33Rich Roll?

  our behavior patterns and our eating habits accordingly.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  And I think that's a really important point. So even though I'm... You know, gallivanting around the world, talking and yelling about mushrooms and, and I'm trying to be like a PR firm for this kingdom.

• 51:49Rich Roll?

  You're doing a good job.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Thank you. At any point, I don't want somebody to think that mushrooms are better than another kingdom, or that mushrooms are like the ultimate superfood. No, they're just overlooked.

• 52:02Rich Roll?

  That doesn't get clicks. You know what I mean?

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:05Rich Roll?

  In doing my research for today, it's like I look at the headlines of the press that you get.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:09Rich Roll?

  It's like, you know, mushroom coffee is the new kale. It's like, that's what gets people interested.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. And, you know, there's a value to that. If you get, it's like a conversation opener. It's the same way as like I said, like often on a daily basis, somebody comes to me and is like, ha, ha, ha, are these psychedelic? Or are these magic mushrooms?

• 52:26Rich Roll?

  I've never heard that joke.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so, I mean, if that gets the conversation going, let's roll with it. It's not, it's not a bad thing, you know?

• 52:35Speaker 01

  I'm sure you also don't want to be known as just this guy who does these ultra endurance feeds. It's, but it's, if that's a conversation starter to join you in a holistic.

• 52:48Rich Roll?

  Gets people interested in what else you have to say.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like the whole, the lifestyle and just who are you as a father and, and as a, as a family man? And, and, you know, holistic and just, you know, spirituality and all that other stuff that you have to offer. But that might be the conversation starter is like,

• 53:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  How many Ironmans? Or, you know, it's like, it's like, um, so the same with that is, is mushrooms is, is this kind of conversation starter. You know, I don't mind those headlines, but as long as you kind of very quickly move the conversation to, uh, what they actually are, is that they're a kingdom that is part of the planet. The planet doesn't survive without them. We probably will benefit that using them for our health and wellness. Doesn't mean that all mushrooms are good, and it doesn't mean that mushrooms are better than good bacteria or good plants. They're just part of a holistic, smart lifestyle. They're just very overlooked. And there's like these immediate benefits and immediate clear things that you can get by just incorporating a little bit of them to your diet.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  So that's probably going to help you live a life that you more want to live, you know, healthier life, more fulfilled life. But yeah, I do not want to say that they're better. And actually, even nutrition, sometimes I feel like it's like people put almost too much emphasis on nutrition. I think it's just like, that's the white belt of life. Though it's hard to build anything else if that foundation is not on point. But then you have movement and you have air quality and even water quality. And then you have your personal relationships and love and fulfillment and purpose. That are all like, it's the, the mental thing is the final frontier. That's like the black belt. But it's hard to get to the black belt if you haven't done the white belt stuff.

• 54:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  And

• 54:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's, uh, it kind of relates to my original point about humans being reductive, you know? So I see, you know, because I, I go to these veg fests and, and, you know, I go to places where, you know, I speak at places where like food is the subject, right? And, and that's great. And like you said, that is foundational and that is a portal to everything else that, that, that can come with that. Like you renew your vitality. Now the question or the conversation needs to turn to how are you going to channel that vitality to serve others and continue to grow for yourself in, in, in the other facets of your life? But I see a lot of people get stuck because, you know, whether it's mushrooms or kale or whatever it is,

• 55:16Rich Roll?

  like that's the answer and, and, and they kind of live there. And it's like, no, this, this has to continue further if you want to be fully expressed.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  I, I love to give in this anecdote because I learned it from my mom when I was, I think, like a five or six. And my mom was saying this rule of three is that you can be three weeks without eating any food. You can be three days without drinking water. And you can barely be three minutes without breathing. So that's why breath is more important than water, but water is more important than food. But then you could always go one step. When I was an adult, I thought I cannot even be three minutes, three seconds without thinking. So when I try to meditate, I'm like constantly like catching myself is like, okay, empty your mind, you know? So

• 56:00Rich Roll?

  Well, how long could you go without movement?

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Like it's hard to stay still.

• 56:06Rich Roll?

  You know, connecting to something greater than yourself.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  For sure. And I just like that as like, kind of like, was a one way to look at how they're all important, but like, some of them might have, like, it's a, it's a ladder that you're trying to, like, that actuali- self-actualization.

• 56:23Rich Roll?

  It is a massive mycelean underneath the ground, right? Connecting everything in this ecosystem. We're all connected, man.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  We actually are. It's kind of, it's kind of crazy.

• 56:35Rich Roll?

  Psychedelics in this lion's mane that I'm drinking right now?

• 56:37Speaker 01

  No, not, not yet, but I still, I like, I like to say that they're magical in their own way, but they're not hologenic. Just kind of the final note on that is like, I have a really good friend, his name is Andrew, and when I first met him, he was your average New York City, just like, going to work type of a guy. And, you know, partly with mushrooms and partly actually going, hearing your podcast and going plant-based, like, you're one of his biggest heroes. Maybe after, David Goggins is maybe his favorite.

• 57:09Rich Roll?

  Okay, I'll give him that.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  And, uh,

• 57:12Rich Roll?

  Mine too.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  But it's funny how he always talks about it, like, how those small changes of like, going plant-based for a week, or having a mushroom coffee, that then trickles into everything in life, and that goes through relationships, and how he just looks at everything in life. And even though, like, eating plant-based or drinking mushrooms is a good thing that he still does, he found like, that just to take to another conversation that was beyond food and beyond even movement. And it was, it was like, where he found more fulfillment as well.

• 57:45Rich Roll?

  Right, because he, he approached it as a portal. Or even if you don't know that, when you begin to like, you change these practices, it starts to open you up in different ways that, it's like, I didn't, this was not my intention to go down this road, but here's where I find myself now.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 58:00Rich Roll?

  Which is cool. All right, uh, chaga.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, so chaga is the, if Frishi's the queen, chaga's the king. And it is a fascinating mushroom that grows in the Perch tree, and I kind of said it's, it's in, you know, Finland and Sweden, it's one of our holy things. It, you know, um, was used as a coffee substitute, for example. So one of the ideas why we created this mushroom coffee that has become incredibly popular in the last year or so. Was the idea of the Finnish people drink more coffee than any other nation in the world. I think something like around three times what the Americans drink. And it but it's a different slightly different culture. I don't know if you noticed in Sweden, but they do this thing called Fika. F I K A. No, what is that?

• 58:44Speaker 01

  It's like it's actually social. It's connecting with another person. So you go and have a cup of coffee and some people have a cinnamon bun or whatever they do. But the other important part is also to diskutera, which is like you just have and connect with another human being. And it's almost like our siesta is like our break in the day when you have this conversation. That's beautiful. And but coffee has been drank and during Second World War, we were attacked both by the Germans and the Russians. And we didn't get coffee beans. So people started brewing this chaga. And after the war, they started like researching it in the University of Helsinki and they're like. Oh, my God, there's so many health benefits to this mushroom that has been part of our ecosystem and.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  And, you know, I think there's I think there's forty six drugs derived from chaga, isolated from this betalin betalinic acid found in chaga. And a full brew cup of this wild chaga equals to like thirty pounds of carrots and antioxidants. So it's quite this wellness mushroom that is like good when you travel or if you're like. Um, catching a cold or anything like that. It's like. Or recovering from a workout. Yeah. And that's also a thing I had to learn is is the recovery part is almost important because exercise, even though it's good stress, it's still stress. And and that and before you can catch the next workout, you have to recover if you or especially if you want to get a good quality workout.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  And so chaga is definitely like awesome for that. And it's actually really easy to catch a flu or a cold after a workout. Because your immune system is, you know, suppressed. You're compromised, for sure.

• 1:00:21Rich Roll?

  And people don't pay enough attention to that recovery process, thinking that the workout is what's making them better. But it's the workout is what is what triggers the physiological response that makes you better and stronger and faster. And you have to attend to that recovery process with the same intentionality that you approach the workout itself. To overlook that is to is to really, you know, hamstring.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  It actually makes you temporarily weaker.

• 1:00:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it breaks you down so that you can build up and be stronger.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Correct, yeah.

• 1:00:53Rich Roll?

  Right? So, so, yeah, so I'm always looking for an advantage to expedite the recovery process, whether it's through, you know, food or behavior. So that's good to know. So we have chaga for our post-workout. We have

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Cordyceps for

• 1:01:10Rich Roll?

  Cordyceps for performance during workout. We have reishi for calming yourself at night. But again, like it's, that's my reductive brain. So this is what these are for. And they have more adaptogenic, you know, broader implications. They can't be categorized so simplistically, right?

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  No, absolutely not. And that's, that's actually a thing I struggle with, you know, making products and, you know, talking is like, if somebody who doesn't know, if you make it too complicated.

• 1:01:37Rich Roll?

  You're like, it does this, it does this.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're like, ah.

• 1:01:39Rich Roll?

  Like, I heard that too. And I was like, what's the difference between chaga and reishi? Like, it took me forever to like, remember, because they have so many different qualities to them.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  And that's, you know, talk to their beauty, but that's also makes it pretty hard to explain to another person. So actually, in one of our boxes, it says, easy to use, hard to explain. Like, we, we don't even try to explain it. It's like, it is there. It's mushrooms. But, um, yeah, so those are one. And then the one we're having, the lion's mane is, is great for brain. It has these couple compounds that can penetrate the blood brain barrier and help rejuvenate your nerve growth factors. And before we started, we briefly talked about your recovery from Sweden. And I always found that if you do a tough raise and you push yourself to the limit, the recovery of the nervous system was always much, much harder than the recovery of the

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  actual muscles or the lungs. And even at some track, if you run track or something, you sometimes get yourself in really bad shape. And I think it's the nervous system. And so lion's mane is great for that. I use it when I have to study or write or focus. That's when I kind of use it.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  Cool. And so, and so what are some of the others? I know in the book you go through, I think you go through 10?

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, 10. I think the ones that people should like be on the lookout for is probably shiitake because it's so commonly available. And there's like amazing ways, like in the book I show how people to make shiitake bacon and just using a little bit like maple syrup and, you know, a little bit of oil and spices and you put it in the oven, you can make this crispy thing. And actually with mushrooms, applying heat and lipids actually makes them more bioavailable and better. So it's, it's, it's a food that even if you would otherwise prefer eating raw or whatever, it's actually better to cook those or apply heat and lipid to them. So.

• 1:03:32Speaker 02

  That's interesting. That's like the opposite of a lot of other plant foods.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's not a plant. That's the point. It's, it has this chitin structure, this cell structure that we can really process. Those are, by the way, great prebiotics. So they really help the good bacteria. Bacteria and fungi has always had this synergistic relationship. And one of my beliefs is, which is just my belief, and this could be never happen, is, is there will be a new kingdom discovered in my lifetime. And it's something about the symbiotic relationship, this barrier, like a kombucha is, the scoby is, you know, the symbiotic relationship of bacteria, yeast, and yeast is technically fungi as well. And this world of

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  bacteria and fungi, when they live together. Yeah. And I think, I don't know, this is my thought that in my lifetime, there will be a new kingdom discovered that we don't yet know about.

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  That's interesting. Yeah. I never really thought about that, but there's something there for sure. I think.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. But um, yeah. So shiitake is a good one. You can find it almost everywhere. Inoki.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Um, in the book I do enoki fries. So you, um, if you want comfort food and you want that like crunchy or a little greasy thing, you can always know that, okay, you're craving for it. How can you upgrade it? You know, either doing like sweet potato chips or, you know, doing enoki fries. It's like a way of like serving that craving, but in a like a mindful way.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  And so that enoki is up pretty easy to find. And then maitake, also known as Hen of the Woods is a thing. Actually, the taki, enoki taki, shi taki, maitake, it's Japanese and taki means otaki in more in an English way, means mushroom in Japanese. So a lot of this knowledge is, is based from like Russia and, um, Japan. And then in the TCM, the traditional Chinese medicine, they obviously really locked it in is like, how do these like key mushrooms like cordyceps and reishi affect our bodies?

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  Right, they've like institutionalized it.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, they obviously, because of that, they get a lot of attention in the herbal world, you know, traditional Chinese medicine. I think the real frontier is in somewhere in Amazon, but they never wrote it down. So, so the Chinese did a good job by documenting it.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  So that whole world there remains to be discovered in large part, right?

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  I mean, at, at, in general, like we've discovered like a fraction of all the estimated of one point, they, so they estimate there's 1.5 million different types of fungi in the world. So, and that's based on that, if that's true, which nobody knows, but if that is true, that means that there's six times more different types of fungi in the world than there is plants.

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  Right, that's so crazy.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  So just to, and there's so many plants, you know, just to give you the diversity. And, uh, and I think the ocean, both for plant life, but also for fungi is, is this, this, this uncharted territory that we'll find a lot of knowledge. And I mentioned the mushroom that can eat plastic, that was discovered in Amazon. And I think there's a lot of stuff that we'll, we'll be learning. So that's, I feel like I'm still like on first grade with learning everything from mushrooms. I'm just like scratching the surface after all these years.

• 1:06:59Rich Roll?

  One of the things you said at the outset of this conversation was that at a very early age, you knew that you weren't interested in creating a business that caters to the 1%, right?

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:10Rich Roll?

  And right now, we're in West Los Angeles. We're in the, we're at the epicenter of kind of, you know, wellness elitism.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  It's ground zero, for sure.

• 1:07:22Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Rich Roll?

  And, and it's fun to like, talk about exotic superfoods and, and, you know, artisanal kombucha and all this kind of bullshit, right? But where does that fall in the context of just the average person who's trying to do a little bit better and live a little bit better? And I think that, that these barriers have been erected that have led those types of people to think that this lifestyle is inaccessible, or, or, or perhaps they're even alienated by it because of the vernacular that surrounds it and the price tags that attach to it.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:08:01Rich Roll?

  So let's talk a little bit about like, how you think about wellness and how you conceptualized Four Sigmatic and how you, you run it because it is, you have created, you know, you have democratized the mushroom in a very large way because you haven't positioned or marketed your company to be this elitist thing, like they come in these individual packets. It's, it's affordable stuff. It's not like, you know, crazy price tags and you're, I can tell in your messaging and the way you conduct yourself, and we've known each other for years, that you really do want to be able to just share this message with, with everybody and change their perspective on how these things can improve people's lives.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know how is, is relatable, but my brain will sometimes works in like graphs and the things I look at visually and, and I had this six E's that I, before the company was started, I was looking like, how can you make lasting? Like actual lasting wide change in people's health and wellbeing. And I came with these six E's. And what we're doing now is we're focused on the education part of it, right? But that like that will get you to a certain point, but that will like not get you to the end. Cause like you said, it has to be economical, it needs to be easy to use. It needs to be easy to purchase, you know? It needs to be effective.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Like that's actually a huge one, that effective, like you feel it, you benefit from it. So my, my point being is you gotta work on all of them. And I mean, we have still a lot to go, but I feel like to touch a few things you said is, I feel really happy of all the years of not being able to pay first couple of years, any salary, like zero. And to be in a point that last year, the mushroom coffee has become on Amazon, the number one instant coffee and the number one coffee substitute. And the, the hot cocoa, the Rishi hot cocoa has become like number two or number three, hot cocoa, passing Swiss Miss and Nestle.

• 1:10:02Rich Roll?

  That's crazy.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  And Starbucks, Via, we, and just on Amazon. So it's still like, but it's, it's still like a place where middle America buys.

• 1:10:11Rich Roll?

  That's a mainstream audience of people.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's not.

• 1:10:14Rich Roll?

  Was there a tipping point? Did something happen like where, how did, you know, cause you know, I remember the early days, right? And you were just, you know, we'd be at the food products expo west, you know, whatever it is like, and in our world, like everybody was using your stuff and you were, but like, it was clear like there, you know, like, how are you going to get this message to connect with the average person?

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  I mean, it's that classic, uh, one night wonder that has been 10 years in the making type of stuff. So it's a lot of stuff coming together and a lot of people and a lot of work. But to touch upon that is, is like, one thing was just getting the, the product priced to like a dollar 50, a dollar a serving. It's still not like the world's cheapest coffee or hot cocoa, but it's like in a point where, okay, if I live in Arkansas or I'm like, I'm making, you know, 40 grand a year. And I'm like, you know, whatever the average 37,000 dollars is like, uh, like. Basic workers.

• 1:11:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  And, you know, they still go to Starbucks or they go to a cafe and they, you know, that dollar for them, if they really love coffee or whatever, it's somewhat obtainable. So that was one. And there was obviously a lot of, you know, education to go with it and making it easy to use. But I think one thing that was on our side, which I can't take any credit for is that why I think kale became popular back in the day when it did, or I guess coconut water to a certain extent is like, for an average consumer outside of West LA, it's like easy to imagine a lettuce that is like a super lettuce.

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  And kale is like, you might not even seen kale. It's like, yeah, I've seen it in the restaurants. Instead of an exotic super berry that even, you know, and so for someone, because shiitake or like lion's mane or turkey tail or chaga, they all grow in the US. So these are all things that are in different parts of this country. And I think generally people have seen the mushroom and they might not know what are the health benefits or which mushroom is better than the other, or how do we prepare it. So they didn't have like the toolbox, but they've seen the image, you know, they've seen it that like, okay, this is, I'm familiar with it. So it's, I feel like that helped us that

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  it's not, it's a little bit less of a stretch because they can like visualize it versus

• 1:12:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  the goji berry, which I love, but it's like a harder stretch. It's like, well, how does that even look like, you know?

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  Right. Like, what is a meringue?

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Where does that grow in some part of the world I'll never visit, you know?

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  And, you know, so I think that really helped us out as well as like people could visualize it before they felt the benefits and

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  But I think at end of the day comes the fact that the product needs to work, you know, and it needs to be enjoyable. And then the education.

• 1:13:11Rich Roll?

  You gotta get the taste right.

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:13:13Rich Roll?

  That must have been a process.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  Oh, they taste gnarly.

• 1:13:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna lie. Is they to the point is like a lot of the healthiest things that you can use in the herbal and fungi world, they taste pretty strong. And I guess your friend in the lab was focused on the efficacies and building those, but it's not an easy job to kind of break down those bitter flavors into a model. That's why coffee and cocoa may have been popular because those are the two bitters that most people enjoy. Like people who don't eat bitters and don't like dandelion, you know, drops or whatever, they might still have a black coffee or a dark chocolate. So I feel like that was, that really helped us out well is on the flavor side.

• 1:13:54Rich Roll?

  Let's talk about the sourcing of this stuff. You know, to the extent that we have an awareness that mushrooms grow and exist, I know that you forage, you forage for some of these and then other ones are grown in farms? And like, how does that work?

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:14:14Rich Roll?

  And you know, why is that important and what's important about it?

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  Sure. So with anything, you gotta look at not just like, oh, coconut water, you know? It's like you gotta look at multiple things like the genus. Like there's multiple different types of cordyceps. There's multiple different types of reishi. So what is the type of what you're using? Then you gotta use which part? Is it, you know, is it the fruiting body? Is it the mycelium? But also like in, like, let's say ashwakand, tulsi, or ginseng, or are you using, or even nettle? Are you using the leaf? Are you using the root? And those are two different things. And then where have they grown? But also like, how are they processed? So.

• 1:14:53Rich Roll?

  The process thing is a big part of it.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Especially with mushrooms because there are, most of them are not bioavailable raw, like I said, is like this kaitin. So you have to cook them almost like multiple hours called a decoction. So if you make a tea, you steep it. It's called an infusion. It's like, you know, three to five minutes. Coffee as well is like, it's a brew. But it's like an infusion.

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  But these ones you have to like cook, like it's called a decoction. Use a slow cooker or something like you really like have to give it a lot of heat. And like I said, lipids or alcohol, those tincture bottles that you see in some stores. That's another way of getting the adaptogenic properties out. But to answer your question, even though these grow in in North America. Unfortunately, there is really no collecting network of like average Americans going into the woods. Picking these out yet and you know, who knows, maybe in 10 years that will happen. So most most North American mushroom products are grown in laboratories in in grains. So they're usually grown in rice or something. Uh, but they're native to trees.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  So uh, I think uh, one way to make the mushrooms even greater is like. Is you grow it in a log, so you take decaying trees where they normally grow. So these mushrooms love growing dying trees or dead trees and they just like compost that. And uh, you take that and you put the mushroom spores kind of into the log. And then you grow it in a greenhouse. And some of them really it's hard to grow or impossible to grow. So you forage for them like turkey tail and chaga, but those are, there's a widely like. We get our chaga from Siberia and from this forest called Taiga, T A I G A. And that forest is completely like the size of the United States. So it's not like a small place.

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  And it's crazy, you would think, well, you know, what could you possibly forage from Siberia? Right?

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  So it's actually funny, but like some of the best things we can ever eat. Come from one of the extremes, either from an area where nothing grows. They're extremophiles or pioneers. Anything from an olive to a birch tree is a pioneer or maca in the high Andes. Or uh, these rhodiola and eulithero, the Siberian ginseng.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  That grows in like really harsh climates and when nothing else grows, they find a way to survive. And the survival mechanism is that energy, those nutrients that we need, those saponins and terpenes and all these difficult words. And then the other one is the most lush, biodiverse thing where there's no banana plantation, but next to the banana, there's a mango and there's a tobacco and there's a cacao and there's, you go to Kauai, Hawaii, or I don't know, like you go to the jungle in Costa Rica and there's 1,500 different types of bird chitting on and making the soil more nutrient dense. But tends to be one of the extremes. It's like incredibly biodiverse lush environment

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  or the extremely rough where only these few things survive, where there's a high nutrient density. So.

• 1:17:56Rich Roll?

  Right, very cool. And then let's talk about, let's talk about the processing. I mean, one of the things that you guys do that is, I guess relatively unique in your, in your business, in your world is this dual, this dual extraction process. So explain what that is and like why that's important.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  Well, the worst anecdote of the day is that it's like shampoo and conditioner together. No, I'm kidding. But basically, if you've like used these mushroom products before, you've usually had to buy two products. You've bought this hot water extracted, usually in capsules or powders and they have high amounts of these water soluble compounds, these polysaccharides and beta clugans that we talked about. And then you went separately and bought this tincture bottle that uses alcohol to extract these like more adaptogenic properties out. And we just combine those. So you get the kind of two in one, you get the polysaccharides and you get the more adaptogenic properties. That's like overly simplistically, but if you're at home and you're like, I really didn't understand anything this guy just said,

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  like what are they talking about? If you're at home and you go to a grocery store and buy a shiitake and just like using it in a soup or sauteing it with coconut oil or whatever, just knowing that if you apply heat and usually fats. Is the way to like unlock their healing powers even further. And I would also argue that tastes drastically better when you like mushrooms, when you cook them or saute them. And they just like get crispier and the mouthfeel gets better. And there's a lot of stuff that happens there that from a flavor and health benefit is really makes them like amazing. So.

• 1:19:37Rich Roll?

  Beyond the the taste, what you're really saying is that it this process allows the nutrients to become bioavailable for you, right? Like if you just if you don't do that and you eat it, it's going through your system, but your body's not able to absorb or utilize the the full benefit of what this.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  So the cell structure of them is something you can really absorb in that way. And you have to unlock them. And this is partly in the plant kingdom as well. There's certain things you have to ferment to really get them out or cook them or somehow like to make your body more ready for it. So you have to make them bioavailable. Otherwise, they really are just fiber in your gut, you know, and they pass through your body and you really don't get the the bang for the buck, so to say.

• 1:20:23Rich Roll?

  I think that raises a much larger issue about the whole, you know, superfood and supplement industry at large. You know, you go to Air One, you go to Whole Foods, you go to any any place where you can buy these types of products, these, you know, the acai and the meringue and the, you know, whatever.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  Bulgarian rosewater, like $60 a bottle.

• 1:20:44Rich Roll?

  Crazy, like, super expensive, superfood stuff.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:49Rich Roll?

  And we have no idea how this stuff is harvested, where it was grown, how it was dried, how it was, you know, processed and packaged and shipped. We don't know the timeframe. We don't know any, we don't know anything about it. So we was like, oh, meringue, you know, you just buy that. And you know, my conversations with Darren, he's like, I'm telling you, you know, 99% of these products, you you'll get them and you'll use them. And it's either the nutrients either are not bioavailable, or they've been destroyed as a result of the way these these products were grown, harvested, you know,

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:23Rich Roll?

  dried, whatever it is that goes. Into getting them to the store.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  Everybody needs a friend like Darren who is like obsessed, so.

• 1:21:30Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  But I guess with.

• 1:21:31Rich Roll?

  So upset.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  But with internet, it is like these people are available and.

• 1:21:35Rich Roll?

  But you gotta educate yourself. You can't just go to the store and pull it off the shelf because it has a pretty package on it.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:41Rich Roll?

  It's telling you.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  But it's a lot of work. I can also relate. Like if, look, if you're, um, if you're like a single mom or you're working sixty, seventy hours a week, like.

• 1:21:49Rich Roll?

  You don't want, yeah.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Like, how can you know? Like, and it's pretty hard. And, um, you know, we made this for ourselves. It's like we, we don't really have a connection with our food as much anymore and. And but it's, it's hard. I'm, I'm not gonna lie. It's.

• 1:22:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  I, I mean, I'm in the industry and I do it all day long and I'm still like puzzled by like, is this good? I'm like, how is it made?

• 1:22:09Rich Roll?

  I just spent twenty bucks on this thing and like, I don't know. Like, I think it's supposed to be, but.

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And though there is a system that is not bulletproof, but I think is, is better than most people think. And it's just. Your instinct. I think there is something to be said about listening to your body. Once you consume it, how you feel. When you taste it, how does it feel like? And if you just tune into it within. From all this external noise and within and you consume something, um, you kind of feel it. And. I think same goes for movement and relationships is like, if you just like. Trust your gut and you often kind of have a pretty good clue. I mean, it's not a hundred percent, but you have.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  I think you're more accurate than you think, or we let ourselves think is, is if you just listen to your body and, and kind of tune in and kind of. Meditate on it and you often, I feel like know if it's, if it's working for you particularly because something might be great for someone else, but not might be you as well. So.

• 1:23:10Rich Roll?

  I think that's right. I think, I, I think as preparatory to that though, you have to, you have to be. On that path of being committed to connecting with yourself, though, because we live in a disconnected world and most people are disconnected. And I think their instincts are leading them astray because of that disconnection.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  But I would love, I don't know who would do this, but there would be like a community or a challenge or a play where 30 days, every day you go to a grocery store, you learn the source and the history and the myth and the details of one plant. Like 30 days, 30 plants and really look, and it can be obvious.

• 1:23:49Rich Roll?

  That would be great. Somebody should do that.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Like a potato, like a lot of people, like in Finland, people think it's the most Finnish thing to eat ever, potato. It's like, oh, potato. It's like a normal. And like, a lot of people think it's like a local food because it does grow in Finland. But you know, just the story of how it is from Peru and like how there's different colors and shapes and sizes and where's the potato I'm buying? Like, where is it from and how was it grown? And, and like just doing, you know, 30 days of that or, and finding out and just one a day, just one time and you just go and Google, like it's not, it doesn't, you don't need it. You don't need to go to the store with Darren, even though that would be great. I want to go to the store with Darren and just.

• 1:24:29Rich Roll?

  You'll never leave, though. You'll be there like all day.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:32Rich Roll?

  Every product will like inspire him to go on a new monologue.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  I'll take it, but I mean, just like Google a little bit and, and, and ask the store staff or a farmer's market always would be like ideal scenario. And just like, where is this from? You know, what is the country? What is the area? Which part? You know? And just looking at it, like looking at the lettuce.

• 1:24:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The guy at Ralph's is probably not going to be able to tell you.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Probably not, but um, yeah, that's why Google is so amazing, isn't it? Like you can get a lot of, a lot of information, but yeah.

• 1:25:06Rich Roll?

  So what do you, I know you got the book coming out soon. That's exciting. Healing mushrooms coming out October 10th, right?

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:15Rich Roll?

  October 10th. But with respect to 4Sigmatic, like what are you guys working on or what's coming up next? Or what are you excited about?

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's actually, it's, that's been a tough question for me is like coming from Finland. I feel like, and maybe this is just LA and New York, but I feel like everybody's always crushing it and killing it.

• 1:25:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  And like, and they're always, they seem to be so assertive and know what to do, you know? They're like, oh, do this and then, you know.

• 1:25:41Rich Roll?

  I don't think they do. They're just, most people are.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  But probably not. And I usually like, when people ask me this, like they want some elaborate, like, oh, 4Sigmatic will be the new Starbucks or like whatever answer that is big enough and ambitious enough to make them excited. But I usually reply with this anecdote of pushups. If you're with a trainer and you say, the trainer says 10 pushups. They rarely say nine or 11, right? They're like 10 or 12 or 15 or 20. But you know, what if you can only do four and then your form sucks? Like, and then you hurt yourself, you push yourself. And sometimes you have to push yourself, but you also don't want to push yourself, hurting yourself or your back or something.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  But what if you do 10, but your potential was 50? I think this is probably everything David Goggins talks about, right? Is like when you can, you're like halfway, right?

• 1:26:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  And what if you're limiting the greatest potential you have with this number of 10, right? And to me, like building a business or a life in general is kind of like that pushup. And the form, you should do as many as you can with the form without thinking of this number. And the form to me is like growing as a human being and then also having fun. So like, what is my form? And it's hard to live in uncertainty, but that's, it's kind of where it is. Like you have to go day by day, month by month, year by year and see where it goes. And, and, and that's how I look at also building 4Sigmatic is seeing how things go. But it's difficult. I, for me, it's as well difficult to live in uncertainty. It would be easy to say is like.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  In five years, we will be here, you know? And it would be clear and I see the power of goal setting. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge believer. I feel like every time I write something, it does usually happens. It's incredibly powerful, but at the same time, like I think the true happiness comes if you can just like concentrate on the form and that's just that one push up at a time, one mile at a time. Kind of like an ultra is like if you if you run the first five and you're like, you know, and you know, another 50 to go, you're like, oh my God, like.

• 1:27:53Rich Roll?

  You just have to be in the moment of what you're doing and and try to inject as much awareness and consciousness and presence into that. I mean, that's what I'm hearing you saying. It's like, yeah, you want to stretch and you want to expand and grow and do all these things. But like, let's take a beat, like where are we at with this emotionally, mentally and spiritually? Like, what's the next best thing for us to do? Rather than just, you know, cheerlead ourselves to some destination because we feel like that's what we're supposed to do as entrepreneurs.

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  And look, like there is problems that I don't have answers to right now that a company has when they grow and like they develop. But rather than asking like, how can we be Starbucks? Or how can we sell in X years? Or how can we IPO this company? Or whatever the classic startup things are that people say in this situation. It's also like, how can we grow? Like not revenues, but like, how can we grow? How can we make better products? How can we improve our community and how can we improve our messaging?

• 1:28:50Rich Roll?

  And impact the people that are your customers.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  And then like, how can we have more fun like for us as well?

• 1:28:55Rich Roll?

  Cause you're the fun guy.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Touche, touche, yeah.

• 1:29:00Rich Roll?

  No, I like it. I mean, I've watched, you know, from arm's length, you know, I've seen, I've seen your journey. I mean, you.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, the first time we met, it was, I think we had like four products.

• 1:29:10Rich Roll?

  When you started, you started in 2012?

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and.

• 1:29:14Rich Roll?

  And then you rebranded, like you kind of tweaked the name.

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:17Rich Roll?

  Was that in 2015 or something?

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, and but we met before that. I feel like, was it Canada 2013?

• 1:29:24Rich Roll?

  I think that's right, yeah.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  But we already knew like Travis and there was like a bunch of mutual friends, but I feel like. That dinner we sat down next to each other and or that event in Ontario, I think that was.

• 1:29:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  But yeah.

• 1:29:39Rich Roll?

  That was cool. I remember that well.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, a long way to go. I think we made so many mistakes.

• 1:29:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you've made huge progress. Like, there is mainstream awareness of your company, which is like, that's no small feat. But I think you've grown kind of in lockstep. Like, you're not trying to expand too quickly. Like, I've seen you make like smart moves. And I've seen patience. And I see you guys giving back. Like, you donate a portion of proceeds, don't you?

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have this contribution program. We especially work with this organization, Boarding for Breast Cancer. But yeah, we're like deeply committed. And by the way, if anybody is listening and they have an idea, an organization that is particularly focused on cancer, on research or something like that, we're really looking at other people who could partner up and maybe support them in the research of cancer or just like we do with Boarding for Breast Cancer, sponsoring them, their survivors. It's a nonprofit.

• 1:30:35Rich Roll?

  Why did you select that area?

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  It's like, most of the team that we have, we have a lot of cancer in the family. So it's like deeply personal. It's also like the second leading cause of death.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  Like, right second, close second to cardiovascular disease. And so it's a big thing. I went to actually run a marathon in southern France and I was talking the night before with this guy who came to there for cancer, like a conference, symposium or whatever they call it. Like, he's in some sort of a super cancer expert. And he was saying is like, is like, not only the current research kind of indicates that roughly one in two will have cancer, but every person will have cancer at some point of their life. They just, like, their immune system might be stronger than with the every second person.

• 1:31:24Rich Roll?

  We're all developing cancer cells.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:31:25Rich Roll?

  And our immune system is responding to it.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  And he was saying is like, that's the, that's one of the biggest myths in his field, which I'm no expert in, so I'm not even gonna pretend. But what he was saying is like, look, like, Everybody will have cancer multiple times and they just come and go and and our body will like if your immune system is strong enough, you will able to fight it. And it's actually just like body's own ability also to balance this body, this homeostasis and and it happens. So that was a deeply personal thing and and there's some promising research on mushrooms and cancer. Again, not a thing where I'm no expert in and I think probably more research is coming, but we, you know, collaborate with a bunch of amazing doctors and if you're

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  familiar with it, there is, you know, in shiitake, maitake, turkey tail, there's all these amazing like and turkey tail, these polysaccharide, crestin and peptide and their promise, how they've been used in Japan. And there's all this amazing stuff of promise, you know, whatever the end result might be. Uh, there's like, um, hope, I would say. And so that's, that's why we're kind of excited in it. So if, if you can just contact me through, uh, our company website and our team will get, get back to, send it to me. So if you know somebody who's doing research or has an organization in that field, we would love to collaborate with some, somebody, uh, some other organizations besides just supporting for breast cancer.

• 1:32:52Rich Roll?

  Beautiful, man. Um, all right. Well, before we close this down, I think a good way to, to kind of end it would be to leave people with a few ideas about how they can embark upon their, uh, their, their new relationship with the world of mycelium. Mycelium? Mycelium?

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  So mycelium is a part of fungi.

• 1:33:13Rich Roll?

  Right. But I, I mean, I'm kind of just mean fungi in general. You know what I mean? Like, okay, it's like, okay, this mushroom thing, all right, I'm ready to like learn more. Obviously, you know, Tero's book, Healing Mushrooms comes out October 10th and, uh, it, he basically, it's, you did a great job, man. This is going to help a lot of people. Like, not only is it your story, but you kind of walk people through, you know, step by step, how to understand this and the health implications and benefits here. So, um, I think it's going to help a lot of people. It's great. So check that out. But like, if you're like, okay, like what do I do? Like I could go to the grocery store. Obviously, you know, you have your products, but how can people, you know, better sort of bring these things into their life?

• 1:33:52Speaker 01

  Well, I think this is already a great starting point. So if you've Listen to this whole thing. You're already well on your way. You already know more than ninety eight percent of the population on this. So

• 1:34:03Speaker 01

  our company also offers, so the book is out and that's obviously like kind of the world's first kind of cookbook on these things and really kind of what we talked about back in the days, like when you wrote your book, it was your story and like why you are doing what you're doing. But then the question is like, how? So in this book, I have like fifty unique recipes and how to really utilize where to buy them. If you're interested in foraging part particularly, I recommend contacting like your local, my, you know, mycologist association and almost every big city will have one and just like getting to know people already doing it versus going by yourself. And just, you know, finding some-

• 1:34:43Rich Roll?

  Mycology Association?

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:44Rich Roll?

  Really? Like every city has one of those?

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, then they're actually, you'd be surprised, pretty much. Like, there's a-

• 1:34:51Rich Roll?

  What kind of dude shows up at that?

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  Also women?

• 1:34:55Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  Those are women. Actually, mushrooms are originally more forged by women. So it's this like, I don't know.

• 1:35:02Rich Roll?

  It's like people are into that world, like-

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and women, and that's one of the reasons why it's a theory, why mushrooms went out of style in Anglo-Saxon cultures was this witch hunt. So women were responsible for the knowledge and the healing powers of fungi. And they would go around and distribute their healing powers. And maybe, or maybe not, there were some psychedelic mushrooms involved.

• 1:35:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  But, and then-

• 1:35:30Rich Roll?

  Hence the witchcraft.

• 1:35:31Speaker 01

  And then the witchcraft came and they got labeled as witches and it became a thing because it was associated with their behaviors. Like, that's one of the theories why they assume where in other cultures like Slavic cultures or Asia, they're incredibly popular and normal part of your daily life. You go to Russia or you go to you know, even southern Germany, like people love mushrooms. But then why in these Anglo-Saxon cultures, it was almost like demonized? And one of the theories is this relationship with women and mushrooms, which is very strong.

• 1:35:59Rich Roll?

  Interesting. That's a whole book unto itself that I think would be really interesting.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Probably not the right person to tell the story of women and mushrooms.

• 1:36:06Rich Roll?

  That's a wild story, though.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and to that point is like, there's your local experts who can help you out if you're interested in foraging and obviously the book will hopefully answer a lot of the questions. And when you go to a grocery store, you should, pretty much every grocery store in America, including Ralph's, will carry the Shiitake's of the world. And I would just say is like, instead of getting the butter mushroom, the portobello mushroom, try to look for Shiitake, Anoki, oyster mushroom. And if, another cool thing is, I would have to give a shout out, no way affiliated with them, but back to the roots is this startup that makes mushroom growing kits called Mushroom Farms. And basically, you can grow these oyster mushrooms that are incredibly nutritious and also a great way of like, taste like

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  this meaty structure. And those ones, you can grow in coffee grinds, like used coffee grinds, and you can grow it at home. And it's an amazing way. Also, if you have kids, what an amazing gift you can give to your kids is like, growing mushrooms at home. And this can be done in a condo in New York City. So this doesn't require you need to be in a farm. It comes in a little box and just an amazing thing they've created. And, you know, just teaching your children and also teaching yourself is like, how do you grow different kinds of foods and this fungi is just one of the things. And oyster is probably one of the easiest to grow. So check that out as well, if that resonated at all.

• 1:37:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, awesome. Well, I'll put a link up to that in the show notes. And also, you know, the Four Sigmatic website has, you have lots of cool blog posts there that kind of go into detail about this stuff.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, hopefully make it entertaining as well. And we try to share recipes and whatnot on social and, you know, same as you and Julia doing is just like, trying to also answer how and when, and instead of just the why, which is, the why is really the starting point, but very soon you ask like, how and when and where and all that stuff.

• 1:37:59Rich Roll?

  You go on your journey with it.

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So.

• 1:38:01Rich Roll?

  And then you too can become a fungi.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And we have this Mushroom Academy as well. It's like a free e-learning course on mushrooms. So if you really want to geek out, there's three levels, three courses, 100% free, and you can study more about that. But yeah, that's it. Good starting point.

• 1:38:19Rich Roll?

  And if you're in Venice, can people come by the Shroom Room?

• 1:38:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so funny story, the most kind of random story and actually clink with a mutual friend Travis. And through Travis, before we moved to LA, Travis was like the first person I really met. And through Travis, I met Teeny.

• 1:38:33Rich Roll?

  Teeny.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  Teeny has handle only with love, makes this beautiful jewelry.

• 1:38:37Rich Roll?

  She makes insane jewelry and she has this totally cool workshop space off Appicini in Venice.

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  And one night Teeny texts me or called me, I can't remember which one it was, but it was like midnight. I was, I should have not been up, but I was up and he's like, Tero, I got you a space. Like this is the spot you have to, like that night, I'm like calling the landlord at the middle of the night. Like locking in this space on Appicini in Venice Beach, California. So if you happen to go into Venice Beach, California, and it's quite near Arowan. We have this little shroom room and you can get free mushrooms there. You can just come over and we sell handmade mugs, mushroom mugs and, and wooden mugs and mushroom T-shirts. And we actually, Travis makes us, he makes these pans, these ninja pans.

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  So we make mushroom ninja pans and just a community to, to have a cup of mushrooms on us and hang out and talk about all things fungi.

• 1:39:37Rich Roll?

  Awesome, man. Good talking to you.

• 1:39:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks for having me.

• 1:39:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that was super fascinating. I mean, I learned a ton. There's still so much to learn. And very helpful, you know, it's just, it's, it's enlightening and illuminating to realize that there's this whole world out there that, that I still have so much exploration, you know, to go through. And I think most people do. So thank you for the work that you do in bringing this awareness to the world and, and helping people achieve better health, man. It's cool and I'm excited for the new book and the journey that you're on. And I'm here to support you every way I can.

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  Thanks. You've already done a lot. And for this episode, you should do the mushroom emoji and peace.

• 1:40:20Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, we'll do that.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  One time.

• 1:40:22Rich Roll?

  Instead of a peace and then the plants, I'll put a mushroom.

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, for one time.

• 1:40:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:40:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool, man. All right.

• 1:40:29Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me on.

• 1:40:30Rich Roll?

  If you're digging on Tarot, again, pick up the new book. Mushroom is available everywhere, October 10th, currently available for preorder, of course, right?

• 1:40:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:40:39Rich Roll?

  And foursigmatic.com, super cheap. What's, what is it gonna cost?

• 1:40:43Speaker 01

  16 bucks and probably somewhere or less.

• 1:40:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, nice, man.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  Good. Unnamed online outlet, probably.

• 1:40:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, wherever you buy your, wherever you, you buy your books and support independent bookstores as well.

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:40:56Rich Roll?

  Foursigmatic.com and where else can people connect with you?

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  I'm really bad with social. I have like a private Instagram, I am Tarot, but I try to put out good content through foursigmatic. So F O U R S I G M A T I C.

• 1:41:10Rich Roll?

  And that's on Instagram too.

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  And YouTube and Twitter.

• 1:41:13Rich Roll?

  I don't know all that kind of stuff.

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  Facebook, probably all the usual suffixes.

• 1:41:16Rich Roll?

  All right, man. Peace and.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  Mushrooms.

• 1:41:21Rich Roll?

  Awesome.

• 1:41:27Rich Roll?

  Fascinating, right? I know, unbelievable. And we only scratched the very surface of what this whole crazy mushroom kingdom is all about and how it can be an incredible benefit to our health and vitality. I've been using Tarot stuff for years, but if all of this is brand new to you, Tarot was nice enough to create a cool giveaway for you guys, something he calls 120 days on shrooms. They're giving away a 120 day supply of mushrooms to five lucky fans of the RRP. Basically, they're putting together a bundle of my two favorite foursigmatic products, the Cordyceps Elixir, four boxes of that, which is amazing pre-workout,

• 1:42:07Rich Roll?

  as well as Mushroom Coffee with Lion's Mane, four boxes of that to replace your morning Joe. I'm telling you, this stuff will light you up. It's unbelievable, as well as a copy of Tarot's new book, Healing Mushrooms. To enter, simply take a screen grab of this podcast episode on your mobile device or your computer and then post it on social media, on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. And importantly, make sure that you tag it. Use the tag hashtag rich and T E R O. And that way we'll be able to see it and you'll be entered into the giveaway. The giveaway, the period of this ends on October 10th, so you got to do it right away. Also, you must be a US resident to enter for shipping purposes. Again, this is not a paid sponsorship thing.

• 1:42:52Rich Roll?

  I don't benefit financially from this whatsoever. It's just a cool thing Tara wanted to do for you guys. That's it. Also, don't forget to pick up his book Healing Mushrooms. It drops tomorrow, 10/10, at least on the date that I am recording this. And follow Four Sigmatic on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It's F O U R Sigmatic, easy to find. How's the plate doing? You guys eating right? Are you eating more plants? Have you checked out the meal planner yet? So many people struggle. I put together this amazing tool. It solves all of your problems. Basically, when you sign up for this incredible service that we recently created, you'll get access to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of plant-based recipes, unlimited meal plans and grocery lists. Everything's metric system compliant. And it's all really personalized and customized based on your specific goals,

• 1:43:35Rich Roll?

  your food preferences, your allergies, your time constraints. We have an incredible customer support team. These people are experts. They live and breathe this stuff. They have graduate degrees, they're athletes. We even have grocery delivery. I used to say in 22 metropolitan areas, but they just corrected me and said that now it's up to 60. So that's incredible. This is life-changing stuff, you guys. Essentially, everything you need to start eating healthier and make it stick. So if this sounds cool to you, you can check out what the offering is all about at meals.richroll.com or click on Meal Planner at the top menu at richroll.com. The whole program is available to you for just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year. Totally affordable. That was a big priority in putting this together.

• 1:44:18Rich Roll?

  I wanted to create a product that everybody could enjoy. And I'm proud of it. I'm really proud of it, which is why I keep talking about it. Anyway, meals.richroll.com, check it out. Finally, another quick reminder, my 51st birthday is coming up, October 20th. I'm using it to try to do something good. I'm trying to raise $51,000 for Charity Water to help bring clean water to those most in need. And I need your help to get there. Come on, you guys, it's the giving season. So please consider a one-time gift of $51, $1 for every year. I have been drinking clean water on planet Earth. To learn more, visit my campaign page, my fundraising page at my.cheritywater.org/richroll. Also put that link up in the show notes. And while we're talking about show notes, please always make a point of checking out the show notes on the episode page for not

• 1:45:03Rich Roll?

  only this episode, but for all episodes. We put a lot of time and effort into creating essentially a bibliography, all kinds of links and resources to really extend the experience of the podcast beyond just what you're hearing and putting it more into action. And we've got lots of great links up there for Tarot and this episode as well. If you would like to support this show and my work, share it with your friends and on social media, leave a review on iTunes, hit that subscribe button. We also have a Patreon set up for people who want to support my work. But I'm asking that if you're one of those people who's thinking about throwing me a few bucks, I appreciate that very much. But at least through my birthday, why don't we throw that at Charity Water instead?

• 1:45:45Rich Roll?

  I'd much rather have that money go towards those people who need it much more than myself. Also, I send a free weekly short email out every week called Roll Call, five or six things I stumbled across over the course of the week, a video I watched, a documentary, a couple of articles, a new product I'm enjoying, just stuff like that. No affiliate links. I'm not trying to make any money off this. Just a way for me to share things that interest and inspire me and kind of cut through the morass of social media where stuff just tends to get lost in people's crazy timelines and all that kind of stuff. So that's it. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiello for audio engineering and production, Sean Patterson for all his graphic wizardry, David

• 1:46:28Rich Roll?

  Zammatt, the newest member of the team, for all his video work. And he started taking portraits of all of the guests, which are amazing. We're going to start building that into this experience. He made a video behind the scenes of the Tarot episode, and he's finishing up a video that goes more in depth into my conversation with Tarot. So keep an eye out for that. You can go to youtube.com/richroll to see all my videos there. And theme music, as always, by Analemma. But as I pointed out the other day, Jason Camiello, our engineer, also writes a lot of the interstitial music. That's some of his original compositions. So thank you, Jason, for that. You can find him on social media @JasonCamiello, C-A-M-I-O-L-O,

• 1:47:07Rich Roll?

  and David Zammatt also on Instagram, @DavidZammitt. Thanks for the love, you guys. I'll see you back here soon. Peace, plants.

• 1:47:16Speaker 02

  Mushroomz.

• 1:47:18Rich Roll?

  Namaste.

• 1:47:19Speaker 02

  (Music)