USA Today - 26.08.2019

2D z MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2019 z USA TODAY LIFE

© WIGGLES 3D GAMES

DON’T QUOTE ME®

Israeli diplomat Rearrange the words to complete the quote.

Abba Eban talks

about history.

ALTERNATIVES EXHAUSTED HISTORY

MEN OTHER TEACHES WISELY

___________ ___________USTHAT________AND

NATIONS BEHAVE___________ONCE THEY HAVE

______________ALL___________ ______________.

8/26

Friday’s Answer: “Coming back to where you started is

not the same as never leaving.” - Terry Pratchett

TXTPERT

Across

3. 8367


4. 6284


5. 874753


6. 34843363

Down

1. 5464833


2. 786


3. 86825


4. 738


5. 7247


6. 3836


7. 9433

8/26

Today’s theme

Mathematics

Use the

phone

keypad to

decode the

clues.

For example:

2 could be A,

B or C ... and

5678 could

be LOST 8/23

© USA TODAY and Rich Coulter Friday’s solution

1 2 3 4

5

6 7 8 9

10

(^1) P E R S U A (^2) D E 3
L N F
O^4 D E F
(^5) T (^6) A L E C E
L T D C
I^7 A B O U T
A I T
(^8) S O L V E
ACROSS
1 Religious spinoffs
6 “The Voice” coach
Stefani
10 Rudely ignore
14 Honda’s luxury
brand
15 Lawman played by
Costner
16 Use a strop on
17 South Pacific
currency
19 Notice with a short
bio
20 Braggart’s display
21 Gnat’s undoing
22 In a way, slangily
23 Lyricist, essentially
24 Sister of Sasha
26 Point-blank
viewpoint
30 In the midst of
32 Totally spellbound
33 Charlton Heston
was its pres.
34 Rapid blinks,
perhaps
35 Drives to nowhere
in particular
37 View as
38 Dashboard gauge,
for short
39 Year-end tune
40 Far from
long-winded
41 Only NFL team
with a perfect
season
45 Nut in sticky buns
46 “My mistake!”
47 Earn a 0.0 GPA, say
49 Vending machine
feature
50 Larter of “Resident
Evil” movies
53 Flew the coop
54 Baseball’s “Big
Papi”
57 Debriefing product,
in brief
58 Help in a holdup,
say
59 “Low-budget,” in
brand names
60 Manage not to
47-Across
61 Heredity factor
62 Seeing stars
DOWN
1 Ahead of the tag
2 Vape shop buy
3 Stephen King’s
rabid dog
4 Prefix with corn or
pod
5 Tune about a
breakup, e.g.
6 Trattoria desserts
7 “Pogo” cartoonist
Kelly
8 Former NOW cause
9 “Planet Money”
network
10 Surefire winner
11 Easy decisions
12 Dram or gram
13 Often-buggy
software version
18 Was shy, in a way
22 Use an X-Acto
Knife on
23 Brutal reviews on
Yelp
24 Haunted house
noise
25 Hinge and Tinder,
for two
26 Cereal with a
cuckoo mascot
27 Boot camp
exercise
28 Vein yields
29 Peter, Paul or Mary
30 Quark’s place
31 Longish skirt
35 Fresca or Sprite
36 Working stiff
37 Places for
recliners
39 Barbershop
mishap
40 Moved
stealthily
42 “Stay Fresh”
mints
43 Far from
boorish
44 Parka feature
47 Change
parties
48 Headey of
“Game of
Thrones”
49 Reindeer in
“Frozen”
50 The whole enchilada
51 Haiku part
52 Sister brand of Van
Heusen
54 Bumstead, to his
pals
55 Vigoda of “Barney
Miller”
56 Purchaser of Victor
in 1929
Answers: Call 1-900-988-8300, 99 cents a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-320-4280.
INNER VOWS
CROSSWORD
BYZhouqin Burnikel
Friday’s Answer
8/23
© Andrews McMeel 8 /26
CROSSWORDS
ON YOUR PHONE
get our crossword app
EDITED Fred Piscop
DIFFICULTY RATING✮✩✩✩✩
Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x3
box contains the numbers 1 through 9 (no repeats).
8/26
8/23
SUDOKU FUSION
ON YOUR PHONE
puzzles.usatoday.com
Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x2
box contains the numbers 1 through 6 (no repeats).
DIFFICULTY RATING✮✩✩✩✩
7 3 5 2
6 1 8 4
8 5 9 4 7 6 3
4 7 1
2 6 5 4 3
7 8 9
5 1 8 9 2 3 4
3 7 8 6
2 5 3 9
1 6 2
2 4 1
6 2 3 1
2 3 1 6
2 6 3
4 3 6
4 3 2 8 5 1 6 7 9
5 8 1 6 7 9 3 2 4
9 6 7 2 4 3 5 1 8
8 5 4 3 9 2 1 6 7
1 2 3 7 8 6 4 9 5
7 9 6 5 1 4 8 3 2
3 4 5 1 2 7 9 8 6
6 7 8 9 3 5 2 4 1
2 1 9 4 6 8 7 5 3
1 3 4 2 6 5
6 2 5 3 4 1
3 4 2 1 5 6
5 1 6 4 2 3
2 5 3 6 1 4
4 6 1 5 3 2
Friday’s Answers
SUDOKU
©Andrews McMeel
QUICKCROSS
By John Wilmes 8/26
Baseball game location
Baseball game location
Opera song
Busch brew
“Moby Dick” captain
Donned
Pure Prairie League song
One time around the sun
Friday’s Answer
8/23
P A R K
A L A I
L A S T
O N E S
QUICKCROSS
ON YOUR PHONE
puzzles.usatoday.com
© Andrews McMeel
WALKER

1. 
   


2. 
   


3. 
   


4. 
   


5. 
   


6. 
   


7. 
   

   PLAY ONLINE
   PUZZLES.USATODAY.COM
   UP & DOWN WORDS
   By David L. Hoyt and Russell L. Hoyt

   
   


8. 
   

   Beatles song: “The Long
   and ”

   
   


9. 
   

   Patrick Swayze movie

   
   


10. 
    

    In-home doctor visits

    
    


11. 
    

    Requires

    
    


12. 
    

    Finally and permanently

    
    


13. 
    

    “Attaboy, Rover”

    
    


14. 
    

    Type of pet-sitter

    
    

Clues: Friday’s Answer

LAPTOP

COMPUTER

SCREEN

PASS

UP

NORTH

COUNTRY

COMPUTER

SCREEN

PASS

UP

NORTH

COUNTRY

MUSIC

WINDING

8/26

©Andrews McMeel

G N R W N T R N B S R M

V U N R H D E S U S E U

D C R G T V U O U G V E

F L I U E G I O N K E S

A E P S N B I A C H N U

L U V U U R R T R U E M

S S F D U R A U T U M N

E H T C A F U R I O U S

WORD ROUNDUP

By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

Friday’s answer: SHOWER POWER TOWER HOUR SOUR /

TEENAGER PRODUCER AIRSTRIP / WALRUS OTTER SEAL / CRIMSON

MAGENTA / NINE

8/26

Find and Circle:

Eight words with two U’s ☑☐☐☐☐☐☐☐

Two five-letter numbers ☐☐

T and F, on a test ☐☐

Put in order ☐

Not at any time ☐

© Andrews McMeel

PUZZLES

To report problems, email [email protected].

For more puzzles, get the USA TODAY Crossword app.

LOS ANGELES – The Shroom Room
looks exactly the way something called
the Shroom Room ought to. The tiny
space, which is used as a showroom for
mushroom powder purveyor Four Sig-
matic, looks like a house for a hobbit
particularly fond of fungi. There are red
(toadstool) stools at the entrance, min-
iature mushrooms where the walls meet
the mossy ground, rows of powdered
’shroom elixirs, and a white wooden aw-
ning topped with the kind of plants
you’d expect to see in an unkempt yard.
When general manager Aaron Kasko-
witz is on duty, the Shroom Room softly
pulses with a mix of world music and
cosmic beats.
If you’re going to drink mushroom
coffee anywhere, this is the zen spot to
do it. But that raises the question: Why
drink mushrooms at all?

Mushroom coffee is trending

Call it “mindfulness” or “self care,”
talking about hip health food is a pop-
ular topic today on social media, food
blogs and health podcasts. Accordingly,
such wellness trends as oat milk and
CBD have hit the mainstream, and
drinks with powdered mushroom mixed
in are on the rise.
According to a Pinterest study re-
leased at the start of 2019, superfood
powders have had a 144% year-over-
year spike in searches on the 250-mil-
lion-user-strong social media site, and
interest in nutrient-packed mush-
rooms, in particular, is up 46%.
The global mushroom market will ex-
ceed $50 billion by 2022, in part be-
cause of the food’s association with
healthy eating, predicts market re-
search company Grand View Research.
Medicinal mushrooms are among the
emerging foods that 1 in 4 adults want to
try to manage their wellness, a new NPD
Group study found.
Shroom Room’s Four Sigmatic, the
Goop-approved company that deserves
the most credit for bringing medicinal
mushrooms into the American con-
sciousness, now holds the No. 1 spot on

Amazon’s “instant coffee best sellers”

list with its box of 10 mushroom coffee

packets for $15.

Medicinal mushrooms (which do not

get you high and are not psychedelic)

can be found in vitamin stores with such

brands as Sun Potion (that sells 100-

gram jars for about $50); at grocery

stores such as Whole Foods (another

place where Four Sigmatic is sold); and

via fancy drinks at hip cafes, as in the

popular chaga-ccino (that costs $7.50)

at Alfred Coffee in California and Texas.

“Suddenly (putting mushrooms in

drinks is) becoming really trendy, al-

though it’s really ancient for wellness,”

says Kaskowitz, who pours us lion’s

mane and chaga mushroom coffees be-

neath a shelf filled with elephant ear-

shaped ’shrooms. Cozy.

Are there legit health benefits?

Medicinal mushrooms, also referred

to as (the somewhat arbitrary term) su-

perfoods and (the word for alternative

medicines that promote homeostasis)

adaptogens, have long been used in Chi-

nese medicines before trendy Ameri-

cans caught on.

I press Kaskowitz for reasons why the

drink is good for you, but he’s quick to

point out that hisrationale for sipping

mushrooms has more to do with his own

experience than with verified studies.

Kaskowitz, a former health coach and

current student of herbology who is bat-

tling multiple sclerosis, tells me he’s

found certain mushrooms make his

body feel “less stressed, less over-

whelmed (and) more smooth.”

He does seem smooth today as he

graciously pours out mushroom powder

and offers toadstool keychains inside of

the vibiest miniature cafe I’ve ever en-

tered. (There are free samples and Four

Sigmatic swag.) He continues his role as

a calming presence in my life.

“Part of my purpose as an individual

is to help people live their most happy

lives,” he says. I buy into it 100%.

And, later, I think I’m experiencing

the benefits of the chaga (touted as an

immune system booster) and lion’s

mane (a supposed ally for your nervous

system). I feel a lightness that’s similar

to a caffeine buzz, but without the crash.

And then I realize this jolt-less experi-

ence may be totally in my head, because

I can’t tell what’s real after I’ve begun

implicitly trusting my new wellness

sensei.

Dietitian Carrie Gabriel, who also

writes for herbal supplement company

Hum, offers a second opinion.

Mushroom coffee “definitely has val-

ues as an antioxidant and helping with

digestion and giving you some focus

without jitters,” she says. Validation?

However, she adds, “I’ve had a tough

time wanting to shout on the cliffs that

adaptogens (like mushrooms) are

great,” because aside from some studies

on chaga’s anti-cancer properties, there

still isn’t much evidence-backed re-

search on the stuff.

Gabriel says she won’t explicitly pre-

scribe medicinal mushrooms to clients,

but she might suggest that someone

who gets anxious from a lot of caffeine

try the lower-caffeine version of mush-

room coffee. Still, “I can’t honestly tell

you that I have felt anything special

from (the mushrooms).”

What does mushroom coffee taste

like?

The wellness fungi – with names in-

cluding chaga, reishi, cordyceps and li-

on’s mane – aren’t the mushroomy por-

tobellos your tongue’s anticipating.

They’re more like soil-flavored bland-

ness. “Earthy,” if you’re being kind.

Which means they easily hide in flavor-

ful coffees and teas, and even work to

cut black coffee’s acidity.

That being said, the chaga and lion’s

mane coffee is actually decent.

“(Customers) always use the word

‘actually’ when they say ‘this is good,’ to

qualify it,” Kaskowitz says. “Their ex-

pectations are that it’s going to ... taste

like medicine.”

I try another one of Four Stigmatic’s

many powdered offerings: A mushroom

cacao mix with reishi (meant to be a

stress reducer) that I pour into my coffee

and proceed to offer my co-workers.

They don’t accept my drinks, because

I’m not good at being an elixir evangelist

like Kaskowitz is. They think I’m trying

to drug them.

No, I explain to them. They’re not

magic mushrooms, per se. I did get them

from a tiny hobbit house, though.

TRENDS

Mushroom coffee just might grow on you

Carly Mallenbaum
USA TODAY

Chaga mushrooms are turned into powder and used as an ingredient in Alfred

Coffee’s Chaga-ccino.SANDY HOOPER