Podcast:
Heal With Mushrooms
From Forest To Formula: A Conversation with Dr. Anna Sitkoff
With:
Cassandra Beaumont
April 12, 2025
Listen: Spotify
Listen: Apple Podcasts
Nerding out with a fellow mycophile is always a special experience, and this podcast was the perfect opportunity to do just that.
In this conversation with Cassandra we explored everything from my personal healing journey with medicinal mushrooms to the intricate ways fungal compounds interact with human physiology. It was a fun and enriching dive into the many dimensions of the mushroom-human connection.
Conversation starters
[For awkward dinner parties, silent elevator rides, grocery store lines, and your favorite barista]
"I had a trip with psilocybin mushrooms on the beach in Northern California, and it really transformed something in me neurologically where I was able to understand my hunger cues again."
"I really like to think about and talk about mushrooms as the doulas of nature. That role of mushrooms in nature for transforming death into life directly translates into what it means to be a woman."
Key Topics
[00:02:04] 🌊 Healing from eating disorder through psilocybin mushrooms restoring hunger cues
[00:03:22] 🏥 Father's cancer treatment sparked interest in medicinal mushrooms through Chinese medicine
[00:04:18] 🌲 Moving to the Pacific Northwest and working at Dandelion Botanical Company
[00:06:16] 🎓 Transition from herbalist to naturopathic medical school at Bastyr University
[00:09:29] 📚 Educational pathways for clinical mycology and available programs
[00:17:00] ⚡ Why I geek out on ergothioneine and oyster mushrooms
[00:22:00] 🧬 My new obsession with chitin, and why some people have digestive issues with mushrooms
[00:37:57] 👩 Mushrooms for women's hormonal health and fertility support
[00:44:05] 💊 How to formulate effectively with medicinal mushrooms (maximum 5 mushrooms!)
[00:50:54] Why the Lucidum Medicinals LUNGS formula is my favorite right now
[00:55:25] 🌙 Mushrooms as "doulas of nature" and their connection to feminine transformation
Spores for Thought
"Chitin is not extracted in water, alcohol, or acid. If you don't have a negative response to tinctures but have issues eating whole mushrooms, you'll know it's likely a chitin issue."
"More than five mushrooms in a formula ends up diluting each individual mushroom's medicinal components. There's no way you can get enough of each individual mushroom in a 500mg capsule to really benefit."
Go Deeper
Ergothioneine: The Elusive Amino Acid (blog post)
Medicinal Mushrooms Before, During, and After Pregnancy - Safety and What Works (white paper)
Fungal Chitin: The “indigestible” fiber that is, in fact, digestible (by most people) (white paper)
Chitin digestions, metabolism, and medicinal properties (carousel)
Fungi are the doulas of nature (LinkedIn)
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