Mushroom lover grows zombie fungus on his own BLOOD and SKIN – and then eats it
Cordyceps, a strange trendy fungus that feeds on the dead, has been a staple of Chinese medicine for more than 1,500 years and recently took center stage in the zombie apocalypse in HBO’s hit video game adaptation The Last of Us.
But how does it compare to a light snack?
One TikTok user, who goes by the handle @Southernspore on the platform, had the audacity to try it out with an extra zombie twist: “I grew it from my own blood and skin.”
The enterprising mushroom lover even put a piece of his fungus-infected dead skin under the microscope to show viewers the cordyceps ‘hyphae’ – the branching, thread-like structures – that grow on a diet of these former bits of himself.
“They’re all a disgusting shade of yellow,” he said, before taking a few long chews.
“I’m not going to swallow it, but (eh) it’s strangely sweet. It’s pretty good,” he said.
‘I would eat it again in a heartbeat.’
Cordyceps fungus has been a staple of Chinese medicine for more than 1,500 years and is central to the zombie apocalypse in HBO’s hit The Last of Us. But what is it like as a light snack? One TikTok user had the nerve to try it out with an extra zombie twist: ‘I grew it from my own blood and skin’
“They’re all a disgusting shade of yellow,” said TikTok user @Southernspore, before taking a few long chews. “I’m not going to swallow it, but (eh) it’s strangely sweet. I would eat it again’
“I’d like to see how that flavor compares to normally grown cordyceps,” @southsporewhose real name is believed to be Jacob Riley Hood, his TikTok followers told him.
Hood extracted his own blood and used the torn, calloused skin of his palms as a substrate for his ‘zombie mushrooms’ to feed on.
After the cordyceps had grown into a hardened puck of mycelium (a fungal root-like structure of hyphae), to about the size and appearance of a creepy coconut macaroon, Hood cut it open to look for the bits of his own skin that were supporting it all.
He then showed his TikTok followers what a regular mass of cordyceps looks like, grown from a less Halloween-appropriate substrate.
“This is what a normal growth looks like, compared to a human skin and blood growth,” Hood explained.
After the cordyceps grew into a hardened puck of mycelium (a fungal root-like structure of hyphae), to about the size and appearance of a creepy coconut macaroon, TikTok user @Southernspore cut it open to look for the bits of his own skin that everything supported him
“I would definitely do this again,” Hood opined, adding, “but next time not with my own blood.” Most likely, animal blood would be easier to do than extracting my own blood.”
“Bone and meat would also be an interesting experiment to do.”
Previous research – conducted by a team of more serious academic medical researchers in Korea and Egypt – has shown that the cordyceps fungus can be grown in a laboratory to produce the compound cordycepin more effectively and economically for use as a cancer treatment.
But because of the fungi’s creepy evolutionary history and their penchant for feasting on the corpses of insects and other creatures, cordyceps will never lose its sci-fi/horror movie cred.
Earlier this year, João Araújo, assistant curator of mycology at the New York Botanical Garden, explained to DailyMail.com that cordyceps previously evolved to allow the fungus to turn ants into zombies.
“We hypothesize that the fungus infected the first ant about 45 million years ago,” Araujo said.
‘The cordyceps was (first) in beetles and then jumped to ants because they both happened to be (in the same) tree trunk.’
Araújo added that about 35 ophiocordyceps fungi are known to turn insects into zombies, and are found in the US, Brazil and Japan, as well as parts of Africa.
HBO’s The Last of Us has stoked fears that the fungus will cause the next pandemic in the real world, which Van Rhijn said wouldn’t happen in our lifetimes, but he also noted that we should “never say never.”
“I’m not going to say ‘never’, especially in this area where we’ve seen crazy things happen. “Especially how it’s portrayed in the series, there’s a lot of hurdles to overcome before a fungus like this can infect people,” he said. .
But in the meantime, people are more than capable of returning the carnivorous favor by enjoying some cordyceps and their health benefits for themselves.