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You can easily tell them apart by cutting them with a knife: The false brown cap will show a stronger blue discoloration under ultraviolet light if the soil contains manganese at >20% bioavailable water content, and the temperature didn’t drop below 12 degrees Celsius in the past month.
That’s good, I don’t want to bleed out my ass and deserve it.
If you do all the tests and still die bleeding out your ass, they might update the test and rename it after you.
That’s a few check boxes that need to be filled so I Don’t die.
stronger
Spore prints can be useful for identification too
A general rule is if it has pores instead of gills, you’re probably in the clear.
Except for that one in Europe, that shit will megadeath you.
In all seriousness, the general rule I’ve heard for foraging wild unknown things is:
- cut it open and rub it on your skin, wait an hour, if it gives you a reaction, stop here.
- touch it to your lips, wait a while, if it gives you a reaction, stop here
- touch it to your tongue, wait a while, if it gives you a reaction, stop here
- chew a bit and spit it out, wait a while, if it gives you a reaction, stop here
- swallow a small amount, wait a few hours, if it gives you discomfort, stop here
- if you’ve made it this far, it’s likely ok, do so at your own risk tolerance
Roots are generally OK, particularly if you have access to double boil them.
For mushrooms:
- pores are generally safer than gills
- don’t eat it if it’s bioluminescent
- don’t eat if it oxidizes quickly when you cut it open
- don’t eat it if it bruises blue or red
- learn how to detect what a bolete is. Boletes are generally safe, unless it breaks one of the rules above
- Slime: Just say no.
- make sure there’s not a mushroom growing on your mushroom. Double the mushroom is not double the fun.
- learn what a destroying angel looks like, even when it’s young. Appreciate it from a distance, but give that fucker 5 feet of space at all times.
I am by no means an expert. I’m just a rando guy from Appalachia with some wild ass Russian buds and we do some funky shit down here. Take everything I say with as much trust as you give to anyone on the Internet.
When in doubt, take it to an expert and even then, consume at your own risk tolerance.
That’s interesting, my general rule for foraging wild unknown things is: don’t.
Imagine dying for a D tier pizza topping
D tier pizza topping, lmao.
Right next to “caramelized onions”.
Now you’ve gone too far.
There was a guy a few years ago who tried to live off grid. He died, having left behind a journal detailing his final days. In it, he logged the exact process you outlined above for various things he foraged, which included wild potato seeds. Turns out those things pass all the above tests, but contain a deadly neurotoxin that builds up over time (that even modern science didn’t really know about). Poor guy starved because he was too weak to even crawl.
nature be scary fellow humans. Be careful out there.
He also wandered into the Alaskan wilderness with basically just a sack of rice and a .22lr rifle.
He was a a couple miles from safety the entire time, but did not buy a map so believed he was stranded when the river rose and cut off the main trail. But there was another trail with a raised cable crossing over the river a few miles upstream.
He was totally unprepared and essentially just committed extended suicide. The fact that he remembered some basic tips from a Boy Scout handbook doesn’t mean he was an expert. Kid was an idiot who got in way over his head.
That some guy ISNT JUST ANY GUY! 😤
- Documentaries were made about him
- A very successful movie was made about him “Into the wild”
- Countless Youtubers keep making videos about him; Thoughty2 made a very good video about him…
The point of my comment was to highlight that even if you follow all the good advice, there’s still a chance you discover some new things that will kill you.
Cool… I also forgot to mention all the books written about him… 😅
I heard about a guy that didn’t get accepted to art school.
German bloke too. His name? Albert Einstein
Eh, it’s sort of a tradition at this point. You just win some and lose some (and as is quite obvious the outliers of both categories are really out there!
For mushrooms the only good advice is, if you don’t know what you are doing, don’t go foraging for mushrooms. Rules and guidelines that apply for one region might not work for another. The risk reward never works out if you’re inexperienced. You either get a tasty treat or incurable certain death. It’s not a great gamble.
Sure, and I suppose you’re going to advise me not to do my own electrical home wiring either. 😛
If you’re even half competent, you could (not recommended) actually do some basic electrical work at home and come out of it alive and well after a few youtube videos and some reasonable precautions. I can’t same the same about mushroom foraging.
People are shocked when they find out how bad I am at electrical work!
Thank you!
This is how the internet should work.
Still safer than mushrooms picking
You either get a
tasty treatbland, mild dirt flavor or incurable certain death.FTFY
The people who die from death cap mushrooms here (Canberra, Australia) all learnt about mushrooms in another country, where death caps don’t grow, but an edible mushroom that looks just like them does
Here’s a general rule for foraging mushrooms; don’t use “general rules”.
Also; “don’t eat it if it bruises blue”, you’ll miss out on all the fun ones with this advice.
Yeah, atleast here in northern part of europe we have multiple shrooms that bruise blue and are still edible. I recomend getting a mushroom foraging guide book of your area, and first getting familiar with all the ones that can seriously hurt you.
Books pah! We didn’t take books the last time I went mushroom foraging! Books are for cowards! We took a senior fellow from the University of London who specialised in mycology, instead.
the blue ones can be the funnest ones
though perhaps not when you’re wildly unprepared for the things they will show you (and also, though I have yet to try them myself, probably not the best for dinner since everyone says they taste like shit)
don’t eat it if it bruises blue
Or do if you’re up for an interesting time and it passes the test above. Eat about three grams for some nice sights and 6 before sitting in a dark, cool room to meet something unknown
If it bruises blue, cut off a very thin slice from the center of the stalk and put it on agar until it creates mycellium. There’s some other stuff you need after that which I’ll be happy to help you with.
uncle benz
I don’t think there are any harmful mushrooms that bruise blue but would love for an expert to chime in here
I dunno my roommate was weeping about the shadows coming for him and said he couldn’t leave the bed for days and didn’t know why we hadn’t heard the screaming… So, like, a little harmful.
Rubroboletus satanas is definitely poisonous. On the other hand, Imleria badia is very good. Bruising blue doesn’t really say anything about edibility.
I’m not an expert, though.
Good to know, but definitely wouldn’t mistake that stinky thing for an edible or fun mushroom
I am by no means an expert. I’m just a rando guy from Appalachia with some wild ass Russian buds and we do some funky shit down here. Take everything I say with as much trust as you give to anyone on the Internet.
Best disclaimer ever.
you’re probably in the clear. Except for that one
Looks like the meme is accurate
Do you mean ‘pores instead of gills’ ? I think all mushrooms produce spores, no?
You are correct, bad typo. Corrected
The mushrooms from the bolete family here in Germany often stain blue (or some other color) when bruised but most are very good mushrooms for eating. For example, Imleria badia, Neoboletus erythropus and Suillus grevillei. The last one is even slimy but you can just remove the cap. (There is also this really tasty gill-having mushroom Lactarius deliciosus that stains green). Also, Armillaria can do bioluminescence but are also edible! I agree with checking for fungi infections of mushrooms and to learn to ID the deadly poisonous Amanita species (funnily enough, there are some really good edible ones in the same genus!).
Your guide to carefully test foraged organisms is definitely helpful. However, when foraging mushrooms you have to keep in mind some additional things. Many, if not most mushrooms are really toxic when eaten raw! People frequently get poisoned while eating edible mushrooms that are not cooked enough. They apparently often contain hemolysins. Also, there are a few tasty mushrooms that can be toxic if eaten in combination with alcohol. If you go foraging mushrooms, better try to learn some groups, how to distinguish them and what are their characteristics than trying to test by your body’s reaction. But yeah, if you were to be without any food in the wild maybe it helps to know how to test for edibility.
All good points, your comment deserves a whole lot more upvotes.
Interesting, but nature is a kaleidoscope and evolution isn’t linear. Mushroom rules like this tend to be super regional and even then, take it with a grain of salt.
Pretty sure those general rules are given to the SAS for when dropped behind enemy lines in a jungle setting. I think I heard it from a Ray Mears book.
No clue if you have any idea what you’re talking about but appreciate the Information dump. If I’m ever near death from hunger but surrounded by forest floor growths I’ll try to remember this.
Roots might be safe if you can double boil them??? Jesus christ, I guess I’m never touching wild mushrooms ever.
Roots, not mycelium, sorry if that was confusing.
Don’t eat mycelium.
The confusion was mostly on me as I mistook double boiling to mean boiling twice but thank you for the clarification anyway.
No you were right, it does mean boiling twice, much like you would do for cassavas.
Why shouldn’t we eat mycelium?
Except for that one in Europe
Joke, but poisonous mushrooms here are either quite distinct (lol Dickfuss) or give you a mild stomache ache. Well, except the section with mushrooms that look like a poisonous variant but aren’t.
All that to find whether a random plant will poison you
Animals are so much easier: is it an animal? It’s good to eat
Oh, my friend, I suggest you look into fugu, mad cow or chronic wasting disease.
Sure. Go for healthy animals. There are also several nasty viruses that have passed from animals to the humans who ate them. But shit happens. Given a random plant or a random animal, I’ll take the animal
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
The local pharmacist in my parent’s village died from accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms ☹️
Should’ve done the French Pharmacists’ education instead :p
Modern witchdoctor. Haha, metal.
Neat, I didn’t know that was a thing that they offered. Sounds like a good idea to keep people safe from stupid mistakes.
It’s very trusting to let a professional from an unrelated profession make life or death decisions for you
It’s part of their education, not only what is edible, also what to do/prescribe when mushrooms are ingested that cause malicious symptoms.
So it’s most literally part of their profession.
I will never understand impulsive people who just DO things, with little thought or worry of consequences.
I just buy them in a growkit, that way they are fun an enjoyable
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.
It sounds like the answer to your question is probably within that same video you watched.
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
Don’t be a shitty.
A shitty what!?!?
We don’t know. The original author died from eating a false brown cap before he could finish his guide 😞
Cropper of memes
Mycologist/forager I assume
watercolour
I remember going on a nature walk in Middle School, and our primary stoner/everyone’s future dealer (we’ll call him Nate because that was his name) picked and ate a random mushroom for the lols. I remember spending the entirety of that walk worrying about Nate’s next couple of days. But as you likely pieced together, he was fine, and lived to become everyone’s future dealer.
EDIT: For anyone wondering, it was one of those small, skinny, kind of spindly looking mushrooms. Almost like psilocybin but with a flatter cap.
The Modern Shaman, hero in the shadows we didn’t know we needed.
Don’t munch on a hunch
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.
Huh, that’s really interesting about the butterflies. Do you know if that’s how Pipevines & Viceroys developed their poison?
I didn’t know there were poisonous butterflies until I read about Pipevines coating their clutches with poison for protection.
I found out about mushrooms the fun way.
Viceroys usually trap their enemies in a closed room and let in poison gas.
Well, that’s awesome. I hope to photograph a Viceroy one day, but I don’t think I’m in their current habitat.
I baby sat for a kid whose mom was a herpetologist. She showed me the line on the Viceroy’s wings, differentiating it from a Monarch, and taught me it was poisonous to predators.
Then she stuck a snapping turtle in my face, scarring me for life. She was pretty damn awesome.
I’m not sure if you missed the Star Wars reference or not?
…dammit. 🫥
Yes, evolution is a reaction in response to stimuli and dangers present in their environment. Another example this time provided by Darwin is the case with peppered moths. The majority were white colored as they found protection being blended in to the light colored environment.
The industrial revolution introduced pollution that changed the color of nature, in response the black colored moths quickly gained the majority because they blended in better so they had a greater chance to survive, years later once the pollution improved the white moths once again thrived because of the incredibly complex quick acting process of natures natural selection.
Ah, very cool! Thanks! I remember the Pepper Moths lesson from bio, but guess I just never considered that butterflies may have evolved into poison production for protection.
Appreciate the info!
Fun fact about mushroom toxicity by contrast. Because the mushroom is only the reproductive organ of the organism, and you’re basically doing it a favour by picking it and spreading its spores everywhere, theres no evolutionary pressure for it to evolve toxicity to humans. So the compounds in mushrooms that are toxic to us likely exist for other purposes, and are only toxic to us by coincidence.
For this reason the proportion of species of mushrooms that are safe vs. the number that are toxic is greater than with plants. Because plants have had selective pressure to evolve poisons that discourage or prevent herbivory. So if you walk into an unfamiliar forest and pick one plant and one mushroom to eat at random, it’s more likely the plant is the bigger danger.
Of course I absolutely do not condone eating plants or fungi at random unless you intend to have a painful death.
If your family has been hunting mushrooms in the area for a few generations and you’ve been going with them as a kid (and you’re not dumber than the mushrooms) you’re almost certainly fine.
If not, don’t bother, you’ll end up poisoning yourself (and possibly others) and probably ruining the forest for those who know what they’re doing.
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.
I think there are surprisingly few poisonous ones out there, and fewer that could actually kill somebody.
at least no one ever returning from a forest said a mushroom had killed him.
Yeah, I know, that’s like the first thing they teach you at returning school
You apparently have a shitty mushroom guide.
Or live in Europe. Seriously, it’s so much harder here, except for 3 or 4 really obvious but not that great tasting ones .
What do you mean? Chanterelles taste great
I live in Europe. Just go by the rule of thumb, if you’re unsure, do not eat. Does it have a porous underside, if yes, most of the times edible. Does it have lamelles, if yes, be careful. Apart from the very dangerous ones, that you should know. If you’re a bit knowledgeable, take a pinch and put it in your tongue, if it’s spicy or stinging, it’s not edible. Is it neutral, it’s likely to be edible. If you go by that order you should be fine. Never forget number 1 though.
Don’t go by any general rules. If you are unsure, take it home and sit down with your mushroom guide book and go through all the ways of identifying it and separating it from similar species until you are sure, or you give up and throw it away.
Just off the cuff here are a couple of examples that violate the advice given above, golden chanterelle is very spicy but perfectly edible; gyromitra esculenta (“false morel”) does not have lamelles, is supposed to be mildly flavoured, but is deadly toxic.
And at the end of the day, if you have separated it but you’re STILL not sure, throw it out. Not having mushrooms is preferable to being a corpse.
Yes but a morel does not have a porous underside, hence I’d be careful anyway. As for chanterelles, I feel like you don’t really have much room to mistake it for something else. However it’s been sometime since I went into the woods and I’ve always disliked the English naming for mushrooms and basically don’t know any in English
Yeah, the mushroom guides I use in the pages for the edible mushrooms normally alert to dangerous mushrooms that may be mistaken for that mushroom and outlines the differences.
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
I see about 5 unknown mushrooms for every one known deadly one (death cap, growing under the canopy of an oak)
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
That didn’t sound right, my experience that depending on luck and season, somewhere between 50 and 90 % of big mushrooms I come across in a forest are poisonous or at least disgusting. I admit it’s a very wild estimate and I’m very far from knowing all the mushroom I come across, but still, that seems like a big contradiction. So I followed your link to the primary article.
I suspected that they might only count potentially lethal mushrooms, but no, it indeed seems they count even those that only make you nauseous. The problem is in the other number. The 100 000 means all funghi, it includes for example all yeasts. Most funghi don’t create mushrooms that anyone would consider picking. So the ratio you calculated below is WAY off.
I would also like to note that the number 100 seems to come from a very simple PubMed search. Basically, if nobody wrote a paper about someone being sick after eating a mushroom, they wouldn’t find it. I don’t think that would mean that many foraged mushrooms would be missed, but it is a limitation worth knowing about.
Tasting bad doesnt mean poisonous though, and yes most mushrooms taste like spoiled dirt
The percentage doesn’t matter if they are used for (alleged) murder
That seems unlikely to be murder, people really don’t generally murder friends who are close enough to invite to lunch
She’s in jail right now.
I don’t think there has been a verdict yet though.
Edit: she’s
Never had a problem in middle temperate Europe or heard about anyone who had.
I even pick up these fuckers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrolepiota_procera though many avoid them because of relative similarities to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_phalloides.
It is delicious and like the best nature has to offer here. You coat it in breadcrumbs and cook in oil on a pan. It tastes better than any steak. However it is a pain in the ass to find and a real treasure.
Can be confused with these deadly mushrooms too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinoderma_asperum (they are much closer looking than wiki suggests).
Still, one of my two most favorite mushrooms.
Honestly even if I happened to eat a mildly poisonous shroom (which never happened) it would be fine for me personally. There is huge amount of edible mushrooms but we stick to few select safe ones that are hard to mistake.
I have done much worse things to my body with drugs and alcohol poisoning every other day. One instance of light poisoning per year or something like that would be like nothing. Not that it ever happened because I stick to the rules my parents teached me and their parents teached them and so on.
I had food poisoning more times (above zero) than mushroom poisoning.
I wouldn’t dare to pick mushrooms abroad. I wonder if climate change will fuck us one day though.
Not so much Amanita phalloides as Amanita pantherina, that one looks much more similar. But I agree, if you know what you’re doing and don’t pick mushrooms with which you don’t have experience with and aren’t sure about, you’re good.
I used to pick up even Amanita rubescens, an acual (although edible and tasty) Amanita, so even more similar to poisonous ones. But I didn’t have an opportunity for quite a few years and now I wouldn’t dare, until I got an opportunity to verify with someone experienced and trustworthy.
what’s the picker’s rule?
lick it, wait 15 mins, take a nibble, wait 15 mins, then eat it
or just give it to your friend and see what happensKnow exactly what it is. Follow the identifying steps in a book about mushrooms in your area until you have learnt which mushrooms live in your locale and can pick them by sight
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.
Pick shaggy ink caps
