Fire-Retarding Mycelium, Whole Roasted Cauliflower & An Immense World
Plus: who's reading BRB & book giveaway winners (#56).
Welcome back to BRB w/ Nathan P – I’m happy you’re here.
💥 Breakthrough: Fireproof Mycelium Insulation
We often talk about outdoor air pollution – but not enough about indoor air pollution.
The materials, paints, and furniture in our homes emit particles harmful to our health. Some come from fire-retardants like asbestos or phosphorus-based FRs, which are known carcinogens with further environmental concerns.
More than 250,000 deaths since 1999 in the US alone are attributed to asbestos. But mycelium from a rare mushroom could replace it to keep you and your home safe.
The Southern Bracket fungus (Ganoderma australe) is a non-toxic alternative to fire-retardants. Scientists showed last year it can resists fire better than modern coatings without emitting noxious gases (Chulikavit et al., 2023).
Fire-retardants are designed to interfere with combustion in many ways. Their main objective is to:
🔥 delay flames
🪑 thermally insulate materials
💨 reduce smoke & gases that asphyxiate
A popular approach is through char-forming coatings. These coatings slow heat and oxygen transfer to prevent ignition, while preventing the escape of volatiles from the material.
Most char-forming coatings today are phosphorus-based, which are toxic and bioaccumulate in the environment.
Yet mushrooms may have already come up with a benign and high-performance solution long ago. Mycelium (mushroom root) from the Southern bracket fungus also has excellent char-forming properties.
This inherent fire-resistance is thanks to long polymer chains called chitin. Given that this conk lives for many years without moving, it makes sense that it honed the ability to resist fires through evolution.
Researchers discovered that Garnoderma australe mycelium can have twice the char-forming potential of current alternatives. This can further be improved by turning the mycelium’s chitin into chitosan in an alkaline process.
The mycelium can be grown into thin sheets with high thermal stability, to be used in:
🏡 homes
🛋️ furniture
🚗 automobiles
They can keep our living spaces safer, both in the absence and in the presence of fire. Best of all, the mycelium safely biodegrades when the material reaches its end of life.
Were mycelium insulation or fire-retardants to be commercially available, would you consider them for your home? Let me know in the comments.
Who’s reading BRB?
Here are a few results from the 1-year survey of who makes up the BRB community. I will share more in upcoming posts.
More than half of readers already work in the food/climate world. Around a quarter consider it a personal interest and one tenth want to transition. Let me know how I or this community could help.
BRB readers are as diverse as I imagined. There’s a higher percentage of investors, founders, scientists / engineers, strategy, and marketing.
Interesting observation: those in finance and consulting express the highest interest in transitioning towards food & climate. We’re excited to have you!
Vegetarian and vegan BRB readers have 5X the ratio of the average population 💪 I must say I wasn’t expecting 20% of readers to be vegan. Two possibilities come to mind:
There is a very strong selection effect for plant-based consumption in this newsletter.
Vegans love to fill out surveys about their eating preferences (and I thank you).
Either way – I’ll keep the meatless and vegan recipes coming 🥘
More than one-third of responders are open to changing their diets this year, larger than I anticipated. Many mention less meat and more plant-based foods. BRB is here to help.
Congratulations to the winners of the 5-book giveaway! 📚
Erum Khan
Maahi Patel
Helena Mileo
David Benzaquen
Steve Molino
I reached out with next steps. Thank you all for your input.
🥘 Recipe: Whole Roasted Cauliflower
This recipe emerged as the reader favorite from this past year.
Roast a whole head of cauliflower and you will get a crispy caramelized outside and a tender buttery interior. Need I say more?
In this recipe, I place the cauliflower on top of citrusy and garlicky yogurt and drizzle green tahini sauce. You can also tear off florets to dunk into your favorite dips, which is actually not as messy as it sounds.
Scroll down for the instructions.
If you make it, please send pictures :)
📚 Book: An Immense World
You’ll never look at your pets the same after this book.
Ed Yong is one of my favorite science writers. I first came across his writing during COVID, and since read I Contain Multitudes that I recommended on here a while back.
An Immense World by Ed Yong explores a new dimension of the natural world: animal perception. It gives a glimpse into how other animals experience a very different life on this planet.
Animal senses are finely tuned for survival – whether it’s for hunting, mating, or collaborating. This sliver of reality’s fullness each animal experiences is called the Umwelten.
The sense whose expansiveness surprised me the most is smell. While humans communicate mostly through vision and hearing, nature communicates through molecules.
🐘 Elephants can literally smell fear
🐶 Dogs can smell impending storms
🐍 Snakes can smell which rodents they’ve attacked with venom
The book expanded my view of what animal consciousness could be like. Yet our limiting sensory perception also means that our activities disrupt life on Earth more than we can know.
This beautiful read will never leave you looking the same way at your pets, the oceans, and the smell of grass. I hope you enjoy.
Some favorite quotes as food for thought:
"Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal can only tap into a small fraction of realities fullness. Each is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny silver of an immense world.”
“The Umwelten concept can feel restrictive because it implies that every creature is trapped within the house of its senses. But to me, the idea is wonderfully expansive. It tells us that all is not as it seems and that everything we experience is but a filtered version of everything that we could experience.”
“The majesty of nature is not restricted to canyons and mountains… To perceive the world through other senses is to find splendor in familiarity and the sacred in the mundane.”
“Wilderness is not distant. We are continually immersed in it. It is there for us to imagine, to savor and to protect.”
Thank you for reading – BRB next week ✌️
🥘 Recipe: Whole Roasted Cauliflower
Source: adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi
Ingredients (4 servings as a side)
Cauliflower
1 head of cauliflower
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp of butter (optional, can replace with more olive oil)
Flakey salt
3 large tbsp of yogurt
1 clove garlic, grated
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Green tahini sauce:
80g or 1/3 cup tahini
80g or 1/4 cup water
1 clove garlic, grated
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 pinch of salt
Instructions (2h, active time 20 mins)
Rinse the cauliflower. Remove a few leaves closest to the florets to leave 2” or 5cm for air circulation. Leave the rest as they will be deliciously crispy.
Preheat the oven to 375F.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Place the cauliflower in the pot upside down and bring back up to a boil. Boil for 8-10 minutes. Drain and let cool in a colander for 10 minutes.
Place upright on a baking tray, baste with the olive oil and optional butter, and sprinkle with flakey salt. Bake at 375F for 1.5-2h and baste every half-hour.
Mix the yogurt, lemon juice, and grated garlic in a bowl. Spread evenly on the plate and place the cauliflower on top.
Blend the tahini, water, grated garlic, lemon juice, and salt. Add water to loosen or tahini to thicken.
Drizzle the green tahini on the cauliflower or use as a dip. Garnish with parsley. Enjoy with your besties :)
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier – I’m an avid reader, food enthusiast, and climate optimist.
BRB w/ Nathan P, your 5-min weekly dose of information to inspire climate action. I’m grateful you’re here. I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
Each Wednesday, you can expect💥1 Breakthrough, 🥘1 Recipe, and 📚1 Book on food & climate in your inbox.
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