Hillary Rettig

I’ve always been intrigued by mushrooms, but ever since moving to the midwest, three years ago, I’ve been flat-out obsessed. Last year I attended the Telluride Mushroom Festival, a kind of mycological cross between Burning Man and Davos; and this year I’ll be attending the National Morel Festival, from which I hope to report back in a few months.

I’ve also grown a few, as documented earlier on this blog.

I’m in the midst preparing an epic fungi post, but this popped up in the newsfeed:

Just when you thought you had a handle on all the intricacies of modern, eco-friendly burials, a new post-mortem option has emerged. After creating a stir when it was announced five years ago, the Infinity Burial Suit, also known as the Mushroom Death Suit, is almost ready for real-world use.

The suit is embroidered with thread infused with mushroom spores that grow from the body after burial. These mushrooms digest the body as it decomposes and neutralize many of the environmental contaminants found in the body—including pesticides, preservatives, and heavy metals. In other words, wearing this suit will make mushrooms eat your body once it has been buried.

Jae Rhim Lee and Mike Ma, co-founders of the Infinity Burial Suit, met at the Hassno Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. Lee conceptualized the idea of a burial method that would help reconnect our bodies with the earth. She came up with the idea of an “Infinity Mushroom,” a fungus which would be able to “eat” her body and neutralize its toxins once she died. To test it out, she began “feeding” a group of mushrooms her hair, skin, and nails, and selected the ones that were able to best decompose them.

“We are both responsible for, and victims of, our own pollution,” Lee said in a 2011 TED talk on the Mushroom Death Suit. As a way of handling some of this responsibility, the suit would prevent the toxins in the human body from being released into the environment after death. It would preclude the use of formaldehyde, which is used in many American funerals as a preservative in order to slow the decomposition process. The suit is also intended to help deliver nutrients to plant roots more quickly and efficiently.

Personally, I’m not one of those nonattached Buddhist types who can view her own demise with perfect equanimity, but I have to say that being food for pretty and useful mushrooms does make the outcome more (err) palatable:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

btw, in the realms of the mushroom obsessed, I’m not even close to the most, or worst, or whatever. Last summer I was hanging out in a local graveyard (as mushroom people are wont to do) and saw these:

Yeah, that’s a headstone carved with morels and another flanked by some wooden morels.

Of course, here in Kalamazoo I routinely spot headstones sporting Wolverines and Spartans, so why the hell not morels? Fly your freak flag proudly!

So would any of you consider being food for shrooms? Also, fess up! How many of you read the headline and thought this was going to be a super-inflammatory Bernie post? :D

Over My Dead BodyPost + Comments (92)

I’ve been haunted, recently, by the news that 35,000 dairy cows froze to death in a massive blizzard in west Texas and east New Mexico.

It’s not the first time, or worst time, that’s happened.

I know that if I posted a story about a dog left outside to die in the cold, you’d all be up in arms. But should we care less about a cow’s (or 35,000 cows’) suffering?

Dairy is much crueler than many people realize. The occasional massive frozen die-off aside, year after year dairy cows are impregnated, then forcibly separated from their babies hours after birth. (They often cry for them for days and some fight back.) Eventually, when their milk wanes, they are slaughtered for leather and hamburger. The daughters repeat the cycle, whereas the sons—tiny babies, mind you—live for a few short, miserable weeks isolated, tethered, and deliberately malnourished in veal crates. (Veal wouldn’t exist if there weren’t a dairy industry.)

Dairy is also more harmful to our health than many people realize. It’s linked to many health problems including obesity and cancer. And, by the way, skim milk has even more cancer-causing hormones than whole.

Below is my partner’s Luscious Lasagna, which in place of cheese features a rich and savory tofu/tahini filling that will bring winter comfort to both you and the cows.

 

Dr. T’s Luscious Lasagna (serves 6)

 

Ingredients

 

12 lasagna noodles cooked as directed

24 oz jar of your favorite pasta sauce or make your own

8 oz of Daiya Mozzarella-Style Shreds

 

Tofu/Tahini Mash:

1 12 oz block of firm tofu, mashed with ½ tsp pepper added

2 Tbsp tahini

2 cups (or more if desired) chopped spinach

1 tsp onion powder

1 Tbsp nutritional yeast

4 Tbsp UNsweetened non-dairy milk

1 Tbsp flax seeds

 

Stir Fry Layer (optional):

1 cup onions, peppers, mushrooms

1 cup Beyond Meat Beefy Crumble

(stir fry together in advance)

 

Topping:

GoVeggie Parmesan grated topping

 

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Spread a small layer of sauce in a rectangular oven-proof casserole dish

Add four noodles

Add half the Tofu/Tahini Mash

Add Stir Fry layer

Spread a third of the sauce

Spread half the Daiya

Repeat with noodles, Mash, sauce, and Daiya

Add last four noodles

Top with last third of sauce and sprinkle with GoVeggie Parm

Bake for 35 minutes and then cover with foil and bake for another ten minutes.

 

Consider the CowPost + Comments (207)