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 Ember Erebus
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Registered: 03/15/11
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 Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns 
#14124903 - 03/15/11 03:24 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
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I am an Ottawa artist and mycophile who has been invited to build a living sculpture as part of a community garden by the Ottawa Art Gallery. My plan is to collect unwanted phone books, inoculate them with several strains of oyster mushrooms (and hericium and reishi) and use them to build helixical columns that will produce fresh food for a community feast. The project is designed to educate people about the health and environmental uses of oyster mushrooms and to give community gardens, classrooms and kitchens the knowledge and tools needed to execute similar projects with their own old phonebooks.
I have been advised by that the Yellow Pages Group over print every year and that they have donated books for art projects in the past so I have asked the Yellow Pages to participate in my project. Although they like the idea, the books have not been “designed to be used as food packaging or containment (ie. in direct contact with food. While we use vegetable-based inks in our directories, you can understand that for the purpose you seek, we cannot sanction the use of Yellow Pages directories.”
Will you tell me if mushrooms grown on phonebooks are actually safe to eat? How can I explain this simply to the Manager of Environment and Recycling at the Yellow Pages?
I would deeply appreciate your advice on this matter.
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shroom-jitsu
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Registered: 01/24/10
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: Ember Erebus]
#14125014 - 03/15/11 03:46 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
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The better question is how many people will claim that eating book-grown mushrooms harmed them in some way. It's a sick world we live in. It's really hard to do anything positive or helpful in any community anymore without someone pulling the race card or claiming injury or injustice.
The simple fact of the matter is, yes, certain compounds can be broken down by mushrooms into harmful elements. Who could possibly know if the ink or paper treatment in a book could render a mushroom harmful? It's a lot harder to prove that something could be harmful than it is to prove that it's safe. The irony here is, the biggest fear isn't over anyone really being harmed - it's over the fear of getting sued. It's sad when people have to make decisions based on fear.
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 MonkeyKnifeFight
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Registered: 06/08/10
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: shroom-jitsu]
#14125494 - 03/15/11 05:22 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
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Have you considered coffee grounds for the oysters? It accomplishes a similar goal of reducing waste and will probably perform better. I've grown oysters on phone books a few times and never seen great performance. Coffee works great and in the end you have nice mushroom compost you can reuse in the garden. I am doing something similar at a community farm in my area with coffee cut with a little straw.
Reishi will like phone books or any paper/cardboard. Not particularly tasty for a feast though.
EDIT: Forgot to mention coffee grounds have the benefit of being designed for human consumption. I think oysters grown on phone books would be perfectly safe but I can't prove it.
Edited by MonkeyKnifeFight (03/15/11 05:23 PM)
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TimmiT
Registered: 03/23/10
Posts: 3,284
Loc: Victoria 
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: Ember Erebus]
#14126420 - 03/15/11 08:24 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
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You could talk about the use of oyster mushrooms in bioremediation... breaking down hydrocarbons into non-toxic components
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"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination" ~ John Lennon
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PoC
Relax
Registered: 03/10/04
Posts: 2,125
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: TimmiT]
#14126978 - 03/15/11 10:02 PM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
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Coffee grounds is a good suggestion. You may also be able to get ahold of some free wood chips, cardboard, or newspaper by asking around. If it came down to it straw bales aren't very expensive either.
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NSF
Eager to learn
Registered: 01/27/11
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: PoC]
#14129465 - 03/16/11 10:05 AM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
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+1 for the coffee grounds idea. They should compress into nice blocks, more work than yellow pages though.
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RogerRabbit
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: Ember Erebus]
#14129711 - 03/16/11 11:24 AM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ember Erebus said:
Will you tell me if mushrooms grown on phonebooks are actually safe to eat? How can I explain this simply to the Manager of Environment and Recycling at the Yellow Pages?
I would deeply appreciate your advice on this matter.
Yes, they're safe. In the U.S. and Canada, phonebooks, newspapers, books, etc., have all been printed with soybean based inks for the last 30 or more years. Beyond the inks, they're just wood pulp. Lead based inks have been illegal in the western world for a long time now.
What they mean by 'food packaging' is they don't produce them under sanitary food guidelines. However, you're going to be sterilizing them before use anyway. Eat away. I sent at least some of the fruits you see below for heavy metals testing. They all came back normal.
RR
    
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shroom-jitsu
Divine Triangler
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: RogerRabbit]
#14129833 - 03/16/11 11:58 AM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
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That's awesome news. I hope you pull it off.
A few friends of mine were booting around a similar community-based project, but it never got going. The mention of coffee grounds above reminds me of it. We were going to hit up the Starbucks Grounds for Gardens and Home Depot for bulk raw materials. We figured they wouldn't mind a little extra community exposure and a possible donation for operating costs or some such.
Don't know how it all works, but the idea of community cultivation efforts make me warm and fuzzy inside. 
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Ember Erebus
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Registered: 03/15/11
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Loc: Canada
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: shroom-jitsu]
#14134001 - 03/17/11 12:12 AM (2 years, 2 months ago) |
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Thank you RR. I wanted you to say that. Of course! You are right about the sanitary conditions and the sterilization.
I have worked with coffee grounds before. It was very easy to collect way too much coffee grounds from a handful of cafes over a week. I showed up unannounced with a bin for each and they were very happy to help out. I have my heart set on phone books for this project, but may make some similar sculptures with coffee grounds next year.
Thank you for your input!
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PocketRevolution
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: Ember Erebus]
#14193331 - 03/27/11 06:57 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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In terms of obtaining the phone books, you might consider coming up with a different reason to tell the "VP in charge of extra phone books". Rather than trying to persuade him there's no corporate liability or PR issue with this, which could be tricky, you might just invent a non food-related art project to ask for phone books for. Once you have possession of the books you can do whatever you want with them.
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Ember Erebus
Stranger
Registered: 03/15/11
Posts: 3
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 1 year, 10 months
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: Ember Erebus]
#14417657 - 05/08/11 03:02 AM (2 years, 14 days ago) |
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The project is moving forward with out The yellow pages help. We held our first phone book drive in the small hamlet of Munster today.
http://www.alexiswilliams.net/blog.html
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure
Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 39,269
Loc: USA Mountain Northwest
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Re: Mushroom Art Phone Book Project Health Concerns [Re: Ember Erebus]
#14418480 - 05/08/11 09:22 AM (2 years, 14 days ago) |
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When new phone books come out, they're often set by people's doors, and then people put the old ones out to be collected by boy or girl scouts, etc. You might try to find who is collecting the old ones and arrange to get them there. Also, talk to the city. They might give you the keys to the paper and cardboard recycling bins and say you can use it at will.
RR
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