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Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap… American Heartland Elderberry Collaborative Hits the Road

Farmer Mickey Gallagher, the “Johnny Elderberry Seed” of KC Farmyard, joined by Bevin Brooks of LIONBERRY, are the co-chairs of the American Heartland Elderberry Collaborative… AHECo.

They have been touring member farms of their AgriCluster and helping to cultivate the American elderberry across Kansas and Missouri.

This week the co-chairs visited Jeremy Fyler of Fyler Farms and helped him start his elderberry orchard. Jeremy operates a flour mill and has an impressive start to a fruit orchard. The co-chairs brought him 500 cuttings that Jeremy purchased from Michael Hursey of Casa Somerset, a fellow AgriCluster member.
The newly formed elderberry AgriCluster… American Heartland Elderberry Collaborative… also spent a long day of farm visiting with fellow AgriCluster member Cassandra Nichole at Colonial Gardens, Good Oak LLC, and Powell Gardens. The group discussed elderberry and its role in regenerative farming and how it can help restore marginal soil.
Mickey Gallagher is the in-house farmer at Casa Somerset Elderberry Orchard, and he also runs KC Farmyard, where he grows impressive ginger and specialty crops.
Later that evening, AgriCluster members crossed back into Kansas from Missouri to attend a lecture on fruit farm agritourism at Gieringer’s Family Orchard & Berry Farm. There, AgriCluster core member Lori Trojan of Wild Ivy Herb Farm, AgriCluster members Siri and Robert Leonard, and new member Tom Buller of Kansas Rural Center learned and discussed soil health and specialty crops.

DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP

Why Elderberry?

  • Why Elderberry?
  • Performs well on marginal soils
  • Prevents soil erosion
  • Integrates with soil-health and regenerative practices
  • Supports perennial hedgerows and diversified systems
  • Brings in the pollinators
  • Strengthens the ecosystem
  • Sequesters carbon
  • Increases mycorrhizal activity
  • Stabilizes poor soil
  • Is a perennial that can be cut down each year and composted
  • Aligns with growing consumer demand for regionally produced products
  • Disrupts the global supply chain
  • Food is medicine
  • Follow co-chairs Mickey and Bevin in a day in the life of stewarding elderberry with DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP.

PART 1

We start the day in Kansas at Casa Somerset, where we pick up elderberry cuttings from Michael Hursey to deliver to a farm in Missouri.

At Colonial Gardens, Cassandra and Bevin compare good soil… rich with mycorrhizal life… to soil that was subjected to unknown pesticide chemicals five or six years ago. We discuss the possibilities of elderberry in the marginal soil in Missouri.
Elderberry may be the answer. DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP.
Mickey and Cassandra in the Elderberry at Colonial Gardens newly acquired by Powell Gardens.
Cassandra, lifelong feral female farmer, is a member of the American Heartland Elderberry Collaborative and focuses on our future infrastructure. She also runs Good Oak LLC, where they have more elderberry and her famous critters.
Later that day, AHECo co-chairs Mickey and Bevin made a farm visit with Jeremy of Fyler Farms, who is adding American elderberry (Bob Gordon variety) to his orchard. These 500 cuttings are from Casa Somerset’s elderberry orchard. More DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP as we transport elderberry cuttings across state lines.
Jeremy has a lot of new projects on his farm and lots of room for elderberry to help with his Missouri soil health.

PART 2

Back in Kansas, Mickey shows us his high tunnel at KC Farmyard and the Casa Somerset elderberry, for which Mickey is the caretaker.

In the evening we joined more members of the AgriCluster American Heartland Elderberry Collaborative to learn about fruit and specialty crops on a tour of Gieringer’s Family Orchard & Berry Farm.
Siri Leonard, a member of the American Heartland Elderberry Collaborative, works on the Growers Subcommittee shaping good elderberry growing processes, standards, and stewardship.
Here, Tom Buller is enjoying the special tour around the farm. We are thankful to have Tom jump in to help lead up our structural framework. We are lucky to have his experience in building the business bones and legal frame-raising of a new AgriCluster. Tom has elderberry on his land and is thinking about more.
Above is Robert Leonard, who has been with the AgriCluster since the early days. He and his wife Siri have their elderberry in the ground and are adding more. He is involved with plans to strengthen the market for elderberry.
Next to Robert is a farmer we are wooing… Jacob of JET Farms. GOT ELDERBERRY YET?
As it turned dark, we dropped Lori Trojan, our elderberry storyteller and core member, off at her Wild Ivy Herb Farm. On the next farm visit we can take a look at Lori’s elderberry and Mark Allison’s (seen below), who has elderberry at his Fossil Creek Winery. Mark also has the agritourism bus, The Miami Trolley.

Stay tuned as the co-chairs visit more members of the elderberry AgriCluster American Heartland Elderberry Collaborative.

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BUSINESS SECRETS WEEKLY

Lionberry 's Weekly Delusion and Re-illusion Update.

LionBerry’s Weekly Delusion & Re-Illusion Update

Lion’s Mane Mushroom Powder in Your Coffee Isn’t Lifting Your Brain Fog.

Welcome to Health Food Washing 101: Where Marketing Is the Science and the Label Is the Proof. If It’s on the Label, It Must Be True???

THE BOTTOM LINE — FOR THOSE WHO DON’T READ THE WHOLE THING:

Lion’s mane mushroom contains two bioactive compounds — hericenones and erinacines — that tell your brain to repair itself, grow new neurons, and cut through brain fog. Erinacine A is currently the most highly researched compound in the world for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and traumatic brain injury. These compounds are alcohol-soluble. They cannot be released by hot water. Coffee is hot water. This means every lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee on the market — regardless of what the bag promises — is delivering zero of these brain compounds to your brain. Zero. The powder passes through you untouched.

The only way to get hericenones and erinacines out of the mushroom and into your body is a dual extraction: alcohol AND water, from the fruiting body of the mushroom. That’s what LionBerry uses. That’s the difference between a product that performs and a product that just looks like it should.

Dual extract = the actual brain compounds, bioavailable, crossing the blood-brain barrier, reaching your brain.

And here’s the part nobody mentions: adding a liquid extract to your coffee is not harder than stirring in a powder. It is not a chore. It is not a complicated ritual. It is a dropper in a cup. There is no reason to choose powder over extract. None. The extract does what the powder only pretends to do, and it takes exactly the same amount of effort to use.

Buy whatever coffee you love. Put LionBerry in it instead.

There is a product sitting in your grocery store, your local market, and your favorite wellness shop. It comes in a beautiful bag. It says “clean label.” It says “no added sugars.” It says “gluten friendly.” It might say “adaptogenic.” It almost certainly says “lion’s mane mushroom” in large letters, because lion’s mane is having a moment, and moments sell product.

Ryze. Four Sigmatic. Every white-label mushroom powder coffee that appeared overnight when the trend hit.

What none of them say — anywhere on that bag, in that Instagram post, or in that influencer’s sixty-second testimonial — is this:

The lion’s mane in here is dried mushroom powder. It cannot reach your brain. It will not lift your brain fog. The focus you feel is caffeine. It was always just the caffeine.

That part didn’t make the label.

This is health food washing. The wellness industry’s version of greenwashing, where the language of real clinical function gets borrowed by products that cannot perform that function. Slap enough clean-sounding words on a package and the product inherits the credibility of the real thing without doing the work of the real thing. “Focus.” “Clarity.” “Neurogenesis.” “Lift the brain fog.” All words that live in the same neighborhood as lion’s mane research. None of them accurate when the lion’s mane in question is dried powder dissolved in hot water.

It’s not lying, exactly. It’s just letting you believe something that isn’t true and charging you a premium for the privilege.

The lion’s mane conversation got hijacked by powder.

And lion’s mane is not the first casualty of this. Elderberry has the same problem. People process it into a syrup so aggressively overcooked that the anthocyanins — the actual anti-inflammatory compounds that make elderberry worth anything — get burned off entirely in the heat. Then people try it, feel nothing, and elderberry gets a reputation problem it didn’t earn. The plant isn’t the failure. The processing is the failure. The label never mentions the processing. The category takes the hit.

Lion’s mane is heading down the same road.

Here’s what the bag won’t tell you, but the science will.

1. WHAT IS ACTUALLY IN LION’S MANE MUSHROOM?

Lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus) contains two classes of bioactive terpenes: HERICENONES and ERINACINES. Both trigger production of NGF (Nerve Growth Factor) and BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) — the chemical signals that tell your brain to repair, regrow, and rebuild.

These are the compounds behind focus, clarity, neurogenesis, and actually cutting through brain fog. Not vibes. Not marketing. Chemistry.

Hericenones are aromatic terpenes extracted from the fruiting body of the mushroom. They stimulate NGF biosynthesis directly in brain cells — sending the signal for neurons to repair, regenerate, and reconnect. They are low molecular weight compounds, which means they cross the blood-brain barrier. They reach your brain. Not just your bloodstream. Your actual brain.

Hericenones are the brain repair signal. Most supplements never make it past your gut. Hericenones do.

Erinacines are diterpenoids from the mycelium. They also stimulate NGF synthesis. Erinacine A is the single most researched compound in the world right now for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and traumatic brain injury. Also low molecular weight. Also crosses the blood-brain barrier.

Both are in this bottle. Both are doing work.

Neither one does anything for your brain unless they have been properly extracted. That is the entire problem. That is the only problem. And that is exactly where every lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee on the market is failing you.

2. THE BRAIN FOG IS STILL THERE. IT’S JUST MORE EXPENSIVE NOW.

Here’s what actually matters, and what the label will never tell you:

Hericenones and erinacines are alcohol-soluble terpenes.

Not water-soluble.

Alcohol-soluble.

Every popular lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee on the market mixes dried powdered lion’s mane into coffee — which is hot water. Hot water cannot extract alcohol-soluble compounds. This is not an opinion. This is basic chemistry.

Hericenones and erinacines are alcohol-soluble terpenes. Coffee is hot water. Hot water cannot touch them.

Those terpenes stay locked inside the chitin cell wall of the dried mushroom powder. Chitin is the same material as crab shells. Your gut does not have the enzymes to break it down. It was not built for it.

The lion’s mane mushroom powder passes through you completely intact. Completely inert. Your brain never saw it.

So the powder dissolves into your cup, looks like something is happening, and exits your body exactly the same way it came in. Untouched. Unabsorbed. Unbothered.

Expensive and unbothered.

What you DO feel from lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee? That’s caffeine. Caffeine genuinely works — caffeine feels like focus, your brain interprets it as clarity, and for a few weeks, maybe a few months, you think the lion’s mane is doing something. The brain associates the ritual with the result. The placebo is real enough to feel like progress.

It’s not the lion’s mane. It was never the lion’s mane. That’s just Tuesday morning with coffee.

Then the caffeine stops being novel. The placebo wears off. You’re right back to losing your keys and walking into rooms and forgetting why you went in there.

And now lion’s mane has a reputation problem it didn’t earn. The powder failed you. The extract never got a chance. The whole category takes the hit — and every product with “lion’s mane” on the label, including the ones that are actually extracted properly and actually work, gets written off as hype.

That’s the damage. Not just to LionBerry. To the entire conversation about what lion’s mane can actually do.

⚠️ LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER IN YOUR COFFEE = YOU ARE PAYING FOR PLACEBO ⚠️

3. WHAT LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER GIVES YOU — AND WHAT IT ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT

What you get ZERO of from dried lion’s mane mushroom powder:

✗ Hericenones — locked in chitin, not bioavailable, not reaching your brain

✗ Erinacines — same problem, same chitin wall, same result

✗ NGF induction — not happening

✗ BDNF induction — not happening

✗ Neurogenesis — no

✗ Dendritic regrowth — no

✗ Myelin sheath support — no

✗ Focus — not from the lion’s mane

✗ Clarity — not from the lion’s mane

✗ Cutting through brain fog — absolutely not

If you bought lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee for focus, clarity, and lifting brain fog — you got the immune product with brain health branding. That is not science. That is health food washing. Great product. Wrong label. Wrong promises.

Powder does contain beta-glucans, which support immune function, gut health, blood sugar, and cholesterol. Those are real benefits. But nobody is buying mushroom coffee for their cholesterol. And there is no reason — not one — to choose a powder that cannot deliver the brain benefits over a liquid extract that can. A dropper in your coffee takes exactly the same effort as stirring in a powder. The extract does what the powder cannot. This is not a hard choice.

4. BUY WHATEVER COFFEE YOU LOVE. PUT THIS IN IT INSTEAD.

For the actual brain benefits — neurogenesis, dendritic regrowth, myelin sheath protection, NGF and BDNF induction, real focus, real clarity, actual brain fog obliteration — you need a dual extract: alcohol AND water, from the fruiting body of the mushroom.

The alcohol pulls the hericenones and erinacines out of the chitin cell wall and into a bioavailable form. The water captures the beta-glucans. Your brain gets what it was promised. Your immune system gets the bonus.

The alcohol pulls the brain compounds out. The water gets the immune compounds. You need both. That’s what a dual extract is.

Both hericenones and erinacines are low molecular weight compounds. They cross the blood-brain barrier. They actually reach your brain — not just your bloodstream. Your brain.

Most supplements never get past your gut. These do.

LionBerry uses a dual extract — alcohol and water — from the fruiting body of the mushroom, because that is the only way to get hericenones and erinacines out of the chitin wall and into a form your body can absorb and your brain can use. It costs more to do it this way. It takes longer. It cannot be scaled by cutting corners.

We don’t cut corners. Not because it’s easy. Because the lion’s mane in this bottle is supposed to do what lion’s mane is supposed to do.

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ NGF/BDNF induction

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ neurogenesis

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ myelin sheath protection

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ dendritic regrowth

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ lifting the brain fog

It does taste good though. We’ll give it that.

5. WHAT A DUAL EXTRACT ACTUALLY DELIVERS

✓ Hericenones → NGF/BDNF stimulation → brain repair and rebuild signal activated

✓ Erinacines → NGF synthesis → neuroregeneration and neuroprotection

✓ Blood-brain barrier penetration — low molecular weight, actually reaches your brain

✓ Neurogenesis — growth of new neurons

✓ Dendritic regrowth — rebuilding the connections between neurons

✓ Myelin sheath support → nerve conduction, reaction time, sustained focus

✓ Actual brain fog relief — the real kind, not the caffeine kind

✓ Beta-glucans → immune and gut benefits included

✓ Bioavailability guaranteed — extraction breaks the chitin wall so your body can actually absorb it

Real extraction.

Real bioavailability.

Real compounds reaching your actual brain.

Zero powdered fantasy.

Brain repair. Nerve growth. Immune support. Gut health. One bottle. Properly extracted so your body can actually use it. Revolutionary concept, we know.

Buy whatever coffee you love.

Put this in it instead.

RESEARCH CITATIONS

Because we didn’t make this up.

[1] Ma et al. (2010). Hericenones and erinacines: NGF biosynthesis stimulators. Mycology — DOI: 10.1080/21501201003735556

[2] Kawagishi et al. (1991). Hericenones C, D and E, NGF synthesis stimulators. Tetrahedron Letters

[3] Friedman M. (2015). Chemistry, Nutrition, and Health-Promoting Properties of Hericium erinaceus. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry — DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.5b02914

[4] Ratto et al. (2022). Hericerin derivatives and pan-neurotrophic pathway activation in hippocampal neurons. Journal of Neurochemistry — DOI: 10.1111/jnc.15767

[5] PMC Narrative Review (2024). Lion’s Mane: A Neuroprotective Fungus. PMC — pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12030463

[6] Phan et al. (2014). Hericenones and NGF-mediated neurite outgrowth via MEK/ERK and PI3K-Akt signaling. Food & Function — DOI: 10.1039/c4fo00031e

[7] Restorative Medicine Monograph — Lion’s Mane comprehensive review. Restorative Medicine — restorativemedicine.org/library/monographs/lions-mane

LionBerry Regenerative

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Business Secrets Weekly drops every Sunday at www.lionberry.us