You must log in or register to comment.
Yep. Years ago I interviewed someone for a radio program here in the Netherlands. This was a forest ranger, on the topic of people foraging for mushrooms. It was the hip thing to do at the time.
He explained how wildly dangerous it is for average people to do. Especially when looking up things online.
He showed me two images that looked basically identical. He explained to me that one mushroom was edible and delicious. And that it could be found in the forests in the United States. The other, identical looking mushroom can be found in European forests. That one liquifies your internal organs and causes you to shit yourself to an agonising death.
He explained that each year a handful of people die from eating it. Because they looked up a guide online, and failed to understand that there’s regional differences between edible and deadly mushrooms. And by the time they got medical attention, there was nothing that could be done.
I’m not a fan of mushrooms anyway, but I’d certainly never be dumb enough to go pick some myself. That shit’ll get you killed.
In France you can take them to a pharmacy and they will be able to determine the mushrooms for you
Neat, I didn’t know that was a thing that they offered. Sounds like a good idea to keep people safe from stupid mistakes.
He explained to me that one mushroom was edible and delicious. And that it could be found in the forests in the United States. The other, identical looking mushroom can be found in European forests. That one liquifies your internal organs and causes you to shit yourself to an agonising death.
Oh god, this wasn’t “chicken of the woods” (big orange mushroom that grows out of dead tree trunks), was it? Adam Ragusea did a video not long ago about it and acknowledged that mushrooms could be dangerous but figured this one was so easy to identify that there was no risk to telling people to forage it. Even if a mistake is a one-in-a-million chance, the dude has like 2.5 million subscribers so he might have killed 2 or 3 people with it.
Probably not Chicken. We get it here in Europe as well, though it’s not as abundant as far as I know. We picked it in a course here, but I haven’t eaten it since America where it’s more trendy.
That page makes me not even want to eat mushrooms from the grocery store.
If chicken of the woods is growing from a yew tree, it can be dangerous.
I just buy them in a growkit, that way they are fun an enjoyable
honestly even worse is destroying angel. That thing (well same species(?) different kinds but all as deadly) can be found on all continents! and it looks similar to yum mushrooms in all places :) number 1 cause for mushroom related deaths, and it also liquidifies your organs! whoo!
i’m so glad the texture of mushrooms makes my skin crawl so i never get the idea to go out there and forage them for food. Wikipedia link 4 different edible shrooms that look similar to that one and to my eyes they all look the same, and idk about you but the level of anxiety I’d feel preparing dinner with something that is as far as i can tell edible would be unreal
A shitty what!?!?
watercolour
Idk if op meant to fearmonger, but mushrooms are hardly ever toxic and hardly ever fatal.
It is now thought that of the approximately 100,000 known fungi species found worldwide, about 100 of them are poisonous to humans.[14] However, by far the majority of mushroom poisonings are not fatal,[15] and the majority of fatal poisonings are attributable to the Amanita phalloides mushroom
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_poisoning
That said, definitely be safe and if you arent sure, dont eat it.
I’m less interested in the total number of species, and more interested in my likelihood of holding one
100/100000 = 1 in 1000 or 0.1% chance its gonna poison you
Possibly, but which species are more common? Maybe poisonous mushrooms are 0.1% of the number of species, but 10% of the number of mushrooms growing.
“Maybe”
Why not look it up like I did instead of postulating and nothing more?
My point is that you did not account for how common each species is
Neither did you
FYI you can actually safely lick all mushrooms that we know off. The bad ones will taste bitter if there’s every a confusion between the species. Though if you’re really unsure don’t risk it.
My friend forages for porcini mushrooms out near Tahoe. I thankfully don’t like mushrooms, so he’s not offended when I decline, but idgaf how good he is at finding them, it only takes 1 fuckup and you’re dead. He says there’s no mushrooms that look like it and as long as you only look for that one, you’ll be fine. Frankly imo mushrooms are nasty as hell even when you get the kind you know won’t kill you at the store. I have no desire to risk my life to eat wild fungus.
Some of the good tasting butterfiles evolved to taste foul to increase their chance of survival. Mushrooms on the other hand have mastered the art of deception. What can heal the brain can also force you to die a painful death.
Pick shaggy ink caps
