Let me ask you something. When did you last have a fizzy drink? Take a statin? Eat a piece of blue cheese? Have a slice of sourdough? Take penicillin?
All fungi. Every single one.
We have this idea that functional mushrooms are some kind of new wellness trend, something that arrived recently from the internet with a price tag attached. But fungi have been quietly running the show in human health and nutrition for as long as we’ve been keeping records. We just stopped noticing at some point.
Start with penicillin. Alexander Fleming discovered it in 1927 when he noticed that a mould, a fungus, was killing the bacteria in his petri dish. That accidental observation led to a drug that has saved an estimated 200 million lives. Two hundred million. It remains one of the most significant medical discoveries in human history and it came from a fungus that Fleming nearly threw in the bin.
That’s the one everyone knows. Here’s what most people don’t.
Statins, the cholesterol lowering drugs taken by millions of people in this country every day, are based on a compound produced by a mould. Immunosuppressants that make organ transplants possible, derived from fungi. Anti-viral compounds, anti-cancer treatments, drugs for migraines, high blood pressure, Parkinson’s disease. The citric acid in every fizzy drink you’ve ever had is produced by a fungal mould. Sixty percent of enzymes used in industry come from fungi. Fifteen percent of vaccines are produced via yeast.
Yeast, by the way, is a fungus. The sourdough starter sitting on your counter if you make your own bread, that’s a living colony of wild fungal yeast and lactic acid bacteria that you are feeding and nurturing and keeping alive. Some starters have been passed down through families for generations. People name them. I make my own sourdough and there is something genuinely connecting about the process, understanding that the thing making your bread digestible and nourishing is alive, has always been alive, and is doing something humans have been doing with fungi for thousands of years without necessarily knowing what it was.
The blue veins in your cheese are Penicillium mould. The same family that gave us penicillin, ripening your Stilton. Quorn, the meat alternative eaten by millions, is made from a fungal mould. Soy sauce, tempeh, sauerkraut, miso, all involve fungi in their production. Alcohol is produced by yeast as a by-product of respiration, which means every pint ever raised in celebration has fungi to thank.
We are not separate from the fungi kingdom. We never have been. We have just been spectacularly bad at acknowledging it.
Traditional Chinese medicine has known this for five thousand years. The use of fungi to support human health, from cognition and stamina to immune function and liver support, is documented across millennia of practice. Lions Mane, Reishi, Chaga, Turkey Tail, Maitake. These aren’t new discoveries. They are ancient tools that Western medicine is only now beginning to take seriously, largely because the research is making them impossible to ignore.
What strikes me every time I go down this rabbit hole is how much we owe to a kingdom we collectively decided wasn’t worth paying attention to. The medicine keeping your heart healthy. The bread on your table. The drink in your hand. The antibiotic that got you through that chest infection three winters ago.
All of it, fungi.
You were already taking them. You just weren’t paying attention.
May the spores be with you.