In fact, one of these places where cannabinoids can be found is in a whole different form of life from humans and plants– a fungus, and in this case the black truffle.
Truffles are known as the “diamond of the kitchen” for both their costly rarity as well as the delicate flavors they impart as a cooking ingredient. Truffles grow underground, and are usually retrieved by fungus-hunting humans who utilize “trufflers”– an animal (usually a pig or dog) who sniffs out truffles so they can be dug out of the ground and sold for a high price.
In recent years, researchers investigating the chemical composition of truffles have discovered that their uniqueness extends beyond the kitchen. Black truffles produce the cannabinoid known as anandamide, the compound our bodies produce internally!
Anandamide is known as the “bliss molecule” and it plays a major role in many human functions– hunger, sleep, memory, pain modulation and most importantly, mood. The THC that the cannabis plant produces works so well on humans because of its similarity in structure to anandamide.
It is not yet known what function anandamide plays for the black truffle internally as the fungus does not have any receptors of endocannabinoids. It has been suggested that the anandamide truffles produce is why pigs love the smell so much, and these blissed out hogs help them spread their spores by digging them up. For humans, however, the flavor is still the only known appeal that these strange and unique fungi have for us.
