The Trent Austin Patent

[amanitadreamer]

Discussion of the patent and its implications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv5OGjIArGc

Discuss here if you have questions.

[Donn]

while drying of the fungal tisue has been reported to convert a portion of the ibotenic acid to muscimol, such conversion is incomplete and highly variable according to sample variation and conditions. Indeed, a relatively low conversion rate of only 30% is typical by merely drying fungal tisue, leaving an unacceptably high concentration of ibotenic acid, typically 180 to 1800 ppm. A common ibotenic acid to muscimol ratio would be 3:2 in dried specimens

... lays to waste all of the claims that just by simply drying it, you convert the ibotenic acid to muscimol

Well, if by "the ibotenic acid", you mean all of it, then right, that isn't going to happen - nor would anyone claim that, I think. But if it's true that the fresh material is 90% ibotenic acid, then I think it's practically indisputable that a significant amount of it does convert to muscimol during the drying process, with the amount depending on the conditions.

To be really rigorous, I don't know that anyone at a more academic level has said that it's because of drying per se. The problem with that is that if you don't dry it, it will rot, so there isn't a good test of what simply happens over time. I'm not going to buy the kind of analysis that says nothing can happen because all chemical reactions require ____ - that's why your pharmaceuticals have a date on the bottle, because things are guaranteed to happen regardless. Few chemicals are absolutely stable.

That paragraph and sentence continues

..., such that the neurotoxin amounts far exceed the GABA analogue.

This is baloney. Ibotenic acid is not a "neurotoxin" in this application and in fact it's converted, in your body, to muscimol.

Furthermore, ingesting the dried tisue, which contains the relatively indigestible mushroom cell wall component chitin, would result in adverse physiological effects.

This is also baloney. Mushrooms are full of chitin, but they're excellent eating. They may disagree with some individuals, as is the case with practically everything in nature - potatoes, etc. - but I think this myth comes more from trying to eat arthropod exoskelotons, where the chitin is bound up with some other stuff to make a really indigestible shell.

On citric acid - it's what's in lemon juice, as you observe. So of course it isn't any more sour than lemon juice, if you use the same amount as you'd get with the the lemon juice. It's just simpler - no sugars, no other organic acids or terpenes like limonene. No chemical advantage that I know of, just might appeal to someone who doesn't think lemon and amanita are really a match made in culinary heaven. Which I think includes me, though I haven't decided if I like citric acid better.

[amanitadreamer]

while drying of the fungal tisue has been reported to convert a portion of the ibotenic acid to muscimol, such conversion is incomplete and highly variable according to sample variation and conditions. Indeed, a relatively low conversion rate of only 30% is typical by merely drying fungal tisue, leaving an unacceptably high concentration of ibotenic acid, typically 180 to 1800 ppm. A common ibotenic acid to muscimol ratio would be 3:2 in dried specimens

... lays to waste all of the claims that just by simply drying it, you convert the ibotenic acid to muscimol

Well, if by "the ibotenic acid", you mean all of it, then right, that isn't going to happen - nor would anyone claim that, I think. But if it's true that the fresh material is 90% ibotenic acid, then I think it's practically indisputable that a significant amount of it does convert to muscimol during the drying process, with the amount depending on the conditions.

To be really rigorous, I don't know that anyone at a more academic level has said that it's because of drying per se. The problem with that is that if you don't dry it, it will rot, so there isn't a good test of what simply happens over time. I'm not going to buy the kind of analysis that says nothing can happen because all chemical reactions require ____ - that's why your pharmaceuticals have a date on the bottle, because things are guaranteed to happen regardless. Few chemicals are absolutely stable.

That paragraph and sentence continues

..., such that the neurotoxin amounts far exceed the GABA analogue.

This is baloney. Ibotenic acid is not a "neurotoxin" in this application and in fact it's converted, in your body, to muscimol.

Furthermore, ingesting the dried tisue, which contains the relatively indigestible mushroom cell wall component chitin, would result in adverse physiological effects.

This is also baloney. Mushrooms are full of chitin, but they're excellent eating. They may disagree with some individuals, as is the case with practically everything in nature - potatoes, etc. - but I think this myth comes more from trying to eat arthropod exoskelotons, where the chitin is bound up with some other stuff to make a really indigestible shell.

On citric acid - it's what's in lemon juice, as you observe. So of course it isn't any more sour than lemon juice, if you use the same amount as you'd get with the the lemon juice. It's just simpler - no sugars, no other organic acids or terpenes like limonene. No chemical advantage that I know of, just might appeal to someone who doesn't think lemon and amanita are really a match made in culinary heaven. Which I think includes me, though I haven't decided if I like citric acid better.

Thank you Don!!
So far most of the studies I find are showing little to no conversion of ibo to musc on drying which is why it's the control. He uses it as the control in this patent. Do you have a study showing drying at ambient temps convert anything significant? I would love to see it.
My videos are not for academics, obviously. I have to deal with people commenting or writing in groups or comments or to me personally claiming that just by drying you get significant conversion. So far that's not what I am seeing. There's very little testing or studies on this other than this patent and several studies I had back in the beginning which were lost on my hard drive that died 6 months ago.
It is true that chemical reactions need a fluid medium. What little loss happens is miniscule which is why medications do have dates and they are several years usually. With amanita you will continue to have a conversion of 3 - 5% over the following 30 days and then nothing after that. At the 9 month to a year mark it will start to degrade but again, slowly.

I really am tired of the academic community treating ibotenic acid this way. They are like bulls in a china shop, injecting it into brains in large quantities and saying, look at all that damage!! It is reckless and bad science. That's why in my video where I eat raw amanita, near the end I call for the scientific community to take it seriously and do better research on it, possibly looking into treatments for ADD/ADHD and other attention issues and motivation and depression issues.

It is true that ingesting a large amount of raw amanita tissue could mess with your insides. And some people are more sensitive than others but in small quantities I think most people would be okay. But when you write a patent you have to write current scientific dogma along with agreed upon medical practices and warnings which I think he was doing here.
I can eat some mushrooms and not others and I do have to watch how much even with the ones I can eat. It's a thing.

[Donn]

So far most of the studies I find are showing little to no conversion of ibo to musc on drying which is why it's the control. He uses it as the control in this patent. Do you have a study showing drying at ambient temps convert anything significant? I would love to see it.

No you wouldn't. Ha ha. The one that comes to mind is Tsunoda et al., Change in Ibotenic Acid and Muscimol Contents in Amanita muscaria during Drying, Storing or Cooking, which I believe you've seen, though if like me you don't read Japanese it's mostly about looking at the tables.

The gist of it is, drying in a warm place for a few days results in significantly more muscimol - and significantly less ibotenic acid - but also significantly less of the two put together. Which suggests that improvement in conversion techniques might ought to be measured in terms of muscimol and ibotenic acid yield, as opposed to final ratio.

The patent cites a couple of other Japanese papers for his 30% conversion figure - Tsujikawa, Kenji et al., 2006. Analysis of hallucinogenic constituents in Amanita mushrooms circulated in Japan. Forensic Science International Vol 16, 172-178
Tsujikawa, Kenji, et al., 2007. Determination of muscimol and ibotenic acid in Amanita mushrooms by high-performance liquid chromatography and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Journal of Chromatography B 852, 430-435.

[PeaceLoveGratitude]

So far most of the studies I find are showing little to no conversion of ibo to musc on drying which is why it's the control. He uses it as the control in this patent. Do you have a study showing drying at ambient temps convert anything significant? I would love to see it.

No you wouldn't. Ha ha. The one that comes to mind is Tsunoda et al., Change in Ibotenic Acid and Muscimol Contents in Amanita muscaria during Drying, Storing or Cooking, which I believe you've seen, though if like me you don't read Japanese it's mostly about looking at the tables.

The gist of it is, drying in a warm place for a few days results in significantly more muscimol - and significantly less ibotenic acid - but also significantly less of the two put together. Which suggests that improvement in conversion techniques might ought to be measured in terms of muscimol and ibotenic acid yield, as opposed to final ratio.

The patent cites a couple of other Japanese papers for his 30% conversion figure - Tsujikawa, Kenji et al., 2006. Analysis of hallucinogenic constituents in Amanita mushrooms circulated in Japan. Forensic Science International Vol 16, 172-178
Tsujikawa, Kenji, et al., 2007. Determination of muscimol and ibotenic acid in Amanita mushrooms by high-performance liquid chromatography and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Journal of Chromatography B 852, 430-435.

Yeah I have both of those. These were the ones I used last year in developing my version of drying and prep. Dammit. Was hoping for something more. But alas it never does show up. I think I've exhausted the internet.
My problem with the Japanese study (Tsunoda0 is that they created 2 variables at once so there's no knowing whether or not time or temperature was the determining factor in conversion of if it was the combo of the two. Very frustrating. And of course there's no temp given for the heater dried ones.
The graph that shows the marked loss of product after 80 degrees is why I am a proponent of drying at 80 degrees and not much higher. At that point there's a sharp drop in ibo but not yet for muscimol. What was really valuable in that study was the storage info.
I totally forgot I was going to make a video for preparing amanita for recreational dosing, which would be different since you want to push more conversion but not as worried about storage for a longer time.
Thanks!