What the F***ungi are truffles ? Differences between mushrooms and truffles

I write this post with the hope of not having to explain this notion for the rest of my life , maybe my job will become less repetitive and next time you’ll come to Amsterdam you’ ll not have to queue into your favourite smart-store due to the surprising amount of already informed people .

Now , apart from utopia ….. What are Magic Truffles ?

Honestly , We’ve heard any kind of legend about the origin of magic truffles and the most ridiculous ones are from people who have never even tried one. (No , nobody is making them in a lab injecting controlled amount of psilocybin , I promise).

Magic Truffles (more precisely called “Sclerotia”), are just another kind of fruit bodies produced by some of the same fungi organisms that also produce magic mushrooms.

Yes, you read well . Just some of them .

The famous Psilocybe Cubensis species infact does NOT produce sclerotia.

The known psychoactive fungi species which can also produce magic truffles are :

_Psilocybe Mexicana (including strains A , B , and Jalisco) ;

_Psilocybe Atlantis ;

_Psilocybe Galindoi ;

_Psilocybe Tampanensis .

The sclerotia (truffles) that these species create, get formed and remain underground, in conditions in which a mushroom would not easily sprout (for example with a lack of oxygen) , and they contain the same compounds (Psilocybin , Psilocyn , Baeocystin and Norbaeocystin ) as their brothers growing above the ground.

No , you can’t say that mushrooms are stronger than truffles , and no , you can’t even say that truffles are stronger than mushrooms . Every species is different , and in different studies with different samples there has been different results.

However You can still roughly calculate which kind is stronger than another with these known parameters:

_ The dry mass of a truffle should contain less (around 2/3rds ) active compounds than a dry mushroom of the same species;

_ A fresh mushroom body is 90% water , while a fresh truffle is only 70% water ;

_ Fresh sclerotia are twice as potent as fresh Psilocybe Cubensis ;

_ Dry sclerotia are two thirds as potent as dry Psilocybe Cubensis.

How a truffle looks like                                                          How a mushroom looks like                                                                                      

Before we finish this post , you have to know about another important difference between these two magical fruits : The Taste . 🙂

But as the romans said …. “De gustibus non disputandum est” ( Tastes are not to be discussed).

MushLove