3 ms·

It sounds like there's a great opportunity here for test strips to identify poisonous mushrooms, at least the most commonly encountered varieties.

• Alex3917 11y ago
  Not really. In the 50+ year history of amateur mycology clubs in the U.S., there hasn't been a single recorded death from mushroom poisoning. By far the biggest risk involved with foraging mushrooms is tick-related illness, including, but not limited to, lyme disease. Followed by getting in a car/bike accident on the way to forage, getting lost in the woods, falling injuring yourself, getting shot by hunters or pot farmers, or getting trampled by a cow -- all of which are orders of magnitudes more likely than accidentally poisoning yourself. And fwiw, there actually are chemicals that you can use to identify some mushrooms, but the government has banned them -- one for being a date rape drug, the other because it's a precursor to meth.
  • GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    > In the 50+ year history of amateur mycology clubs in the U.S., there hasn't been a single recorded death from mushroom poisoning. Are you doing some kind of special counting because even cursory googling suggests that this is not the case.
    • Alex3917 11y ago
      > Are you doing some kind of special counting because even cursory googling suggests that this is not the case. What I meant was there have been no deaths among members of amateur mycological associations. There have obviously been deaths among the general public, but that's not what I'm talking about.