Edible Mushrooms Could Save The World

Nature

If you’re ready for some good news – and who isn’t? – how ’bout that edible mushroom that eats plastic? There’s fungus ‘mong us that could radically lower pollution levels around the world.

Many of us have known for a long time that mushrooms are magical. Highly prized throughout history for their culinary and medicinal uses, these suddenly-appearing fungi are hunted in the woods, by streams – or perhaps on your lawn.

But not all mushrooms are created alike. Certain kinds have psychedelic powers and are honored by American Native tribes as a tool to find spirits and inward guidance. Others, especially the common oyster mushroom found on grocery shelves everywhere, are a delicious and nutritious food.

In 2012, Yale University students found a rare type of mushroom (Pestalotiopsis microspora) in the Amazon rainforest. Back at the lab, they discovered that this amazing mushroom can feed off the main component in plastic–polyurethane. The durable plastic breaks down into purely organic matter.

Even better, Pestalotiopsis microspora can live on a diet of 100% plastic – with NO OXYGEN! If we were at the circus, this would be a front-ring act.

Let’s review: a wild organism has been identified that can reduce plastic waste into biomatter in the dark.

This discovery is huge. Think of what these little fungi could do to clean up massive landfills, generating useful organic “compost” as a by-product. It’s too bad mushrooms can’t swim or we could deploy them in the ocean to clean up that awful mess.

Some scientists foresee a future where vast, centralized trash dumps are replaced by community waste treatment centers that introduce the plastic-consuming fungi. Home recycling kits have also been proposed as a Good Idea.

Imagine a day when you could toss all your used plastic items into a container or spot outside and harvest organic material later. Sweeeeeet!

But the Yale researchers aren’t the only modern-day alchemists who are eager to solve the global waste disposal problem many areas face. What happens when the landfills fill up?

Fungi to the rescue! The Livin Studio, a “collaborative design development office” based in Austria, has a dream: employ the natural powers of biochemistry to transform trashy plastic into novelty food products. This, Dear Readers, is a noble dream.

A team from Livin Studio focused first on two widely-consumed types of fungus: the Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus Ostreatus) and the Split Gill (Schizophyllum Commune).

In December 2014, industrial designer Katharina Unger, who founded Living Studio, presented her group’s Fungi Mutarium incubator in Eindhoven in the southern part of the lowland country. We’re not talking about grocery-store mushrooms, as she explained:

“We mainly cultivated the ‘mycelium’ rather than the typical ‘mushroom’ fruit bodies. Both fungi show characteristics to digest waste material while remaining edible biomass.”

Mycelia are the reproductive parts of a fungus that develops as clumps of thread-like structures. Fungi, by the way, are not plants. They are related to yeasts and molds, all termed eukaryotic (YU-ka-ree-OT-ik) organisms.

The prototype consists of egg-shaped pods made from agar arranged in a ring. Agar, a gelatinous substance extracted from seaweed, is used by biologists to help feed and grow bacteria and other microorganisms. It acts as a culture that provides nutrients and a suitable environment. The microorganisms can’t digest the agar and destroy it, making it perfect for conducting a controlled experiment.

In this case, agar also served to mimic the natural surfaces that foster fungal growth in nature. Plastic, sterilized by an ultraviolet (UV) light mounted underneath the base, was added to each agar cup (or pod) to see if the mycelium would eat it.

A large pipette (long, thin, glass tube used as a dropper) delivers diluted (watered-down) mycelium cultures stored in the prototype’s holding tank on one side into each agar pod. A transparent dome covers the circular base for the pods, creating a closed environment where humidity can be regulated.

The cultures grow over the agar as they slowly digest the waste material and fill the space inside the pod. It can take several months before the plastic is completely destroyed by the mighty mycelium.

When the mycelium has finished feeding, the agar pods and their contents are removed and ready to consume.

At this point, I have to ask: just because I could eat a plastic-loving fungal byproduct, would I want to? The answer, according to Unger, is that texture and flavor depend on the type cultivated:

Pleurotus varies from very mild to very strong, sometimes described as sweet with the smell of anise or licorice. Schizophyllum is known to have a rather tough texture, which is harder to acquire for Western cultures.”

To consume this food, the innovators invented a Moon Spoon to scrape the fungi from the pods and Round Chops, used like chopsticks to pass pods from plate to plate. Both items are made from plastic.

We know what to do with them after we’ve finished eating, am I right?

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