CULTURE
What Are the Best Ways to Eat or Take Magic Mushrooms?
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Should you clean your shrooms, grind them up, or bake them into a cake? Can you smoke these special spores? We've got all the answers, fellow psychonauts.
Published on November 11, 2019

Great. So, you live in Denver or Oakland, the first two US cities to enact significant psilocybin reform in recent months. Or, maybe you live in one of the new states or cities that are considering decriminalizing magic mushrooms. Regardless, if you know anything about these fantastic fungal morsels, you know they taste kinda gross. Gross enough that Carl’s Jr. will probably never offer a psilocybin burger, even if shrooms get federally legalized.

In what ways can you take psilocybin mushrooms? Which ones require the most prep work, and which ones can be done with almost no prep at all? We’ve got some ideas to help you gobble down those boomers as smooth as possible. 

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The First Step: Always Clean Your Shrooms

The easiest and simplest way to consume shrooms is by eating them straight up. However, there’s a huge risk to this method, since shrooms are often collected from cattle shit. That’s not always the case, but unless you know your stash came from a sterilized home grow, err on the side of caution and assume they grew under a cow patty. 

Cleaning shrooms is pretty straightforward. Run ‘em under cold water, wipe off any dirt or poo, then set them on a paper towel to dry. Potency shouldn’t be affected by a water rinse, but keep in mind that shrooms will readily absorb water.

If you prefer to clean your shrooms without rinsing or a soak, look into buying a mushroom brush. These culinary tools were specially designed with bristles stiff enough to knock off dirt but still soft enough to preserve the shroom’s flesh. Or you can simply wipe your shrooms off with a damp paper towel.

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Raw Doggin’ It

So, you decided to eat your shrooms raw. That’s hardcore, but also the simplest approach. Keep a rich drink on hand, just in case. And… you remembered to clean your shrooms before popping them, yeah?

Gel Caps

After cleaning the shrooms, you can grind them up into powders and place them into gel caps. If you know roughly how much you’ve placed into each gel cap, you can easily estimate your dose. Gel caps are a great way to store shrooms, or for taking them in a discreet manner. Just be sure they’re clearly separated from any other herbs, vitamins, or nutritional supplements. 

Gallery — Smoke Weed, Eat Shrooms, and Shine:

Smoking Shrooms

There’s some strong disagreement as to whether anyone can trip from smoking shrooms. There are plenty of anecdotal accounts, but even if it does work, it likely doesn’t last nearly as long or as intensely as orally ingesting them. 

Either way, we’ve already got weed if we want to smoke something to get high. Why add more gunk to your pipes?

Mix Your Shrooms with Other Food

A step up from eating raw shrooms: Sprinkle them onto or mix them into some other dish. Pizzas and pastas are common methods, but feel free to get creative. For instance, grinding up shrooms and eating them with handfuls of Japanese rice crackers should completely mask the shroom flavor with practically zero prep. 

As with eating raw shrooms, you should clean the fungi before mixing or sprinkling it onto your food. Even a little heat can make virulent bacteria reproduce at infectious levels. 

Shroom-Infused Chocolates and Other Sweets

Placing bits of shrooms into chocolates, caramels, or other confections is another excellent way to consume them. In the cases of chocolates, caramels, cookies, or any other sweet that requires baking, remember that psilocybin breaks down around 190°F, so cooking for extended periods of time (30+ minutes) beyond that temperature could affect potency. You can always try no-bake versions of your favorite snacks to preserve potency, too. 

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Shroom Tea

Next to eating them relatively raw, making a shroom tea is the most popular way to consume psilocybin. MERRY JANE has a quick-and-easy shroom tea recipe you can try at home, but again, feel free to get creative. You can add pretty much any kitchen ingredient to your shroom tea without compromising its potency.

Sauteed Shrooms, Quiches, Risottos, and Other Culinary Endeavors

Are you a culinary artist who won’t be satisfied with mere teas or psilocybin crumbles? Maybe you’ve been cooking with cannabis, and now you’d like to try your hand at shroom dishes?

Well, foody psychonaut, you’re in luck. There are tons of fancy recipes out there for higher-end ‘shroom dishes. And for more, check out our interview with @TheMushroomBible folks. Just know that psilocybin is sensitive to heat, and it begins breaking down around 190°F. Further, Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms have a tendency to infuse everything with their rank flavors, so anticipate cooking shrooms into foods with rich, heavy flavors to keep the gnarly flavor off your tastebuds.

Gallery — Check Out These Shroom-Infused Dishes by @TheMushroomBible Folks:

A Word of Caution: Cooking with Acidic Ingredients

Psilocybin isn’t the part of shrooms that makes us trip. The compound that makes us trip is actually psilocin, which our bodies make from psilocybin after it gets metabolized.

Studies show that psilocybin can convert to psilocin in an acid. That not only includes the acids naturally produced in our stomach, but the acids in our food, as well. 

Long-time shroomers will tell you that extracting psilocybin with lemon juice, an acid, will make you trip harder and faster. So, it stands that cooking or preparing your ‘shrooms with lemon juice  — or tomato sauces, or milk, or coffee, or any other acidic ingredient — could affect your dish’s potency. Remember that when you prepare yourself or your friends for a psilocybin experience.

Basically, start low and go slow, party responsibly, and play safe. And, as always, if psilocybin mushrooms are illegal in your area, pursue these ideas at your own risk. Otherwise, consider this information as something to look forward to once your city, state, or nation finally legalizes or decriminalizes magic mushrooms.

Follow Randy Robinson on Twitter

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Randy Robinson
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Based in Denver, Randy studied cannabinoid science while getting a degree in molecular biology at the University of Colorado. When not writing about cannabis, science, politics, or LGBT issues, they can be found exploring nature somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Catch Randy on Twitter and Instagram @randieseljay
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