Mushroom Foraging Warning

[liuzhou]

Once again, authorities are warning against foraging for mushrooms unless you really know what you're doing. 21 people in California have been poisoned by Amanita phalloides, death cap mushrooms, leading to one death and the others with severe liver damage possibly requiring liver transplants. These are the  same mushrooms used in the recent 'mushroom murders' in Australia.

 

Amanita phalloides, death cap mushrooms.  Photograph: Vladyslav Siaber/Alamy

 

How many times do people have to be told?

 

California officials warn foragers after person dies from poison mushroom | California | The Guardian

Edited 20 hours ago by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

 

This story is spreading. It just came up on Chinese news. Yes they grow here, too. Although native to Europe, they have been introduced widely.

 

 

[gfweb]

Why people take the risk?

[chromedome]

11 minutes ago, gfweb said:

Why people take the risk?

 

There are many mushrooms that are safe, in that a) they're easy to identify, and b) there are no toxic lookalikes, at least where a given forager may live (the list varies on that basis, of course).

 

A great many fail on one or another of those tests, and there's a whole tranche of 'em, like some of the false morels (Gyromitra esculenta) or the highly recognizable, fairy-tale toadstool Amanita muscaria (red/orange/yellow cap with white spots, and often a gnome living underneath), which can be eaten if prepared correctly, but it's tedious and most people won't bother. Either way, those are not novice-friendly mushrooms (a friend joked that with A. muscaria, "If it's prepared one way, it makes you see God. Done another way, it introduces you in person"). *

 

Then there are the ones that are absolutely, positively, in the experts-only category. The classic example is Leucoagaricus leucothites. It's an appealing, pure-white mushroom that pops up on lawns, and it's considered to be a very good edible. But few people pick and enjoy them, because... they're a near-ringer for Amanita virosa, the ominously/accurately-named Destroying Angel. You wanna be really, really sure you understand the distinction before you try one, and even confident foragers aren't often willing to take the risk (I sure as hell wouldn't). 

 

To answer your question directly, I think a lot of it can be chalked up to overconfidence. Since the pandemic, foraging has been a hot trend, and some people feel pretty comfortable with harvesting wild mushrooms after buying a book, watching a few YouTube/TikTok videos, perhaps going on a supervised foray or two, or (worst of all) relying on a dodgy app or Google Lens. To be clear, nobody with any sense should eat a mushroom based solely on an app or an online search. 

You could sum it up, I suppose, as "Dunning-Kruger Effect meets The Darwin Awards."

* To forestall anyone's "well, actually...," that's an exaggeration. A. muscaria won't normally kill you, but it'll sure make you wish you were dead for a few days. 

[gfweb]

2 minutes ago, chromedome said:

You could sum it up, I suppose, as "Dunning-Kruger Effect meets The Darwin Awards."

 

Exactly.

Its like snake handling. Even the experts get bitten occasionally.