Imagine it now, you wake up in your mushroom house and do some pilates on your mushroom mat with a mushroom protein shake. You then grab your mushroom shoes, bag, and wallet so that you can walk to the cafe made of mushrooms down the road to buy your morning mushroom latte. Sounds like someone’s been eating mushrooms, right? Or perhaps this is just one of the levels in a cute video game?
Wrong on both accounts. Pretty soon (if not already) this shroomy scenario could be your reality just by making eco-friendly choices.
How? Well, mushrooms are doing what they do best – they’re popping up everywhere. Not in our gardens or woodlands yet – late summer and autumn are typically fungi foraging seasons – but in our kitchens, wardrobes, medicine cabinets and even walls it seems.
This paints a rather damp and sinister picture of a fungus problem spreading throughout our households (or even our brains if you’re a “The Last of Us” fan). When, in fact, what we’re talking about here is a “shroom boom” where mushrooms are making things greener in the fashion, construction, food and biotechnology worlds – not in the mouldy bread kind of way – but as a sustainable alternative.
Whether we’re talking about the root-like thread structure of mushrooms known as mycelium being used to grow green buildings, act as a leather alternative or replace plastic packaging, or whether it’s actually the compounds within a certain functional mushroom that bring benefit, one thing is for certain: The mushroom market is booming.
In 2021 the industry was worth US$ 50.4 billion and is predicted to grow to US$ 100.1 billion by 2028. And this is good news, because mushrooms can provide us with natural, biodegradable, vegan, fast-growing, regenerative, low-carbon, low-energy alternatives for more things than you think.
Spore couture
No longer does the coveted “genuine leather” seal of approval on designer bags, shoes, wallets and jackets carry the same cachet. A new clade of luxury mushroom materials to replace cow’s hide or polyurethane (PU) in leather goods is in town: think, “fungi, but make it fashion.”
Leading biomaterials and biotechnology companies like Bolt Threads, MycoWorks and Ecovative have developed mycelium-based leather alternatives such as Mylo™, Reishi™ and Forager™ hides, respectively, which are now dominating the world of eco-friendly fashion.
In general, shroom faux leathers are easily and energy-efficiently produced from organic matter or waste products, requiring no light, and grow in a matter of days or weeks. What’s more, they are vegan, biodegradable and also eliminate the impact and emissions of raising livestock, whilst maintaining the same aesthetic, look and feel as traditional leather. What’s not to love?
Some of the world’s biggest luxury fashion brands have even started partnering with these companies, investing millions in their innovative mycelium technologies and incorporating the resulting planet-friendly fabrics into some of their designs.
MycoWorks has teamed up with Hermès, using their Fine Mycelium™ technology to create a leather alternative called Sylvania for one of the luxury brand’s autumn/winter 2021 handbags.
Bolt Threads’ Mylo “unleather” has been used by the likes of Adidas, Lululemon, Stella McCartney and Ganni.
And Ecovative is also using mushrooms to make foams for household, beauty and skincare products such as slippers and makeup applicators alongside their pioneering AirMycelium™ technology to grow their Forager™ hides.
What’s more, just last week, a new study revealed a mycelium leather alternative which “self-heals” when torn, laying the groundwork for truly circular leather fashion items of the future.
Fungal food
To clarify, we’re not talking about pâté, soup or stroganoff here – though, arguably, delicious – we’re instead talking about some of the weird, wonderful and novel ways mushrooms are being consumed that are good for you and the planet.
Mushroom coffee is one such rising trend, with brands like Dirtea making blends of Lion’s Mane, Chaga and Cordyceps fungi coffee, which they say provides “all-day-long energy without the jitters and crashes of normal coffee, whilst strengthening your immune system and improving focus.”
Shroom-based snacks are also taking the health food world by storm, with Other Foods’ Mushroom Chips becoming an increasingly popular “low carb(on)” healthy snack; the company reports a serving of mushrooms as the second-lowest carbon emitter, only beaten by a serving of lentils.
Meat alternatives are another common mushroom-based product you can find in the supermarket nowadays, with brands like MyFOREST Foods, Meati and Bosque Foods making clean and green faux meats.
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Flour alternatives too. Circular biomanufacturing company, Hyfé Foods, captures the waste nutrients from food supply chain wastewater to use as a fermentation feedstock for their climate-positive mycelium-based products.
There are also mushroom-based supplements such as Lion’s Mane mushroom, which boasts the ability to “improve your memory,” “boost your focus” and “improve your mood.”
Mushrooms may even be having medical implications beyond the realms of health food or homoeopathy, as recent clinical trial studies show promise that synthetic forms of a particular compound (psilocybin) found within hallucinogenic mushrooms can help treat severe depression.
The best part is that your mushroom-based food could potentially even be packaged in a mushroom box, because regenerative disposable packaging is also now being made from mycelium.
Ecovative’s MycoComposite™ is a mycelium-based material used by one of the company’s divisions, Mushroom Packaging, as a styrofoam alternative, which big brands such as Ikea, Dell and Seedlip have all started using.
Mushroom bricks
Now mushroom bricks definitely sound like something you would collect in a video game, but building materials made from mycelium are in fact a sustainable alternative to concrete that could legitimately help green the built environment.
Living architectural structures can be grown from mycelium, walls can be insulated with it, rooms sound-proofed and construction waste recycled and combined with it to make new materials.
For example, Ecovative’s MycoComposite™ is also flame-retardant and insulating, so can be used as a mycelium-based building and construction material.
Biomanufacturing company Biohm has also created a mycelium insulation panel, aiming to branch out into other building materials and furniture as well.
And Redhouse Architecture’s Biocycler project recycles construction waste and mixes it mycelium to create new materials to build with.
“Shroom boom” or “shroom doom?”
The “shroom boom” is upon us, our fungal friends have proved themselves extremely versatile, capable of providing the necessary tools to green everything from the homes we live in, to the food we eat, and from the clothes we wear, to the luxury items we splurge on.
But if you’ve heard the buzz around the hit HBO zombie horror series, “The Last of Us” as of late, you may also be concerned that “shroom doom” may also soon be upon us.
The show depicts a post-apocalyptic world decimated by a fungal pandemic, where infected victims turn to zombie-like hosts whose sole mission is to spread their infection through biting. It is well worth watching!
Now, this is of course just a fictional series, but there is at least one element of this horror story where the non-fictional “shroom doom” comes in: The show’s pandemic was caused by climate change, and some scientists have warned that a fungal outbreak could happen in real life as a result of planetary warming (minus the zombies of course).
The take-home message? When it comes to protecting the environment and climate change, using innovative fungus-based products and materials could be vital to reducing our impact. But more than this, when viewed through the lens of One Health, this could even play a part in indirectly protecting the world from the emergence of harmful fungal pathogens in the long run.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of Impakter.com — In the Featured Photo: Mushrooms. Featured Photo Credit: Lucas van Oort
