19 ms·

A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

151 points by CHB0403085482 4y ago

changoplatanero 4y ago
Mushroom foraging sounds really fun but I’m too scared to eat anything that I find.
- antx 4y ago
  There's no wiggle room. You need to be 1000% certain of identification, if you decide to eat a mushroom. That's how I've been doing it for the last decade. I forage a lot of mushrooms, but don't consume anything I'm not sure of. Also, there are "beginner" mushrooms, that don't have any dangerous look-alikes, such as the famous "chicken of the woods" (laetiporus sulphureus). You can't really go wrong with mushroom like these.
  - chasil 4y ago
    My farmers' market has a mushroom guy that brings in things that I've never seen before. Some of them get expensive and a few I've found rather unpleasant. There is absolutely no way that I could find these things myself, so I would suggest a dealer like this if you are in an area large enough to support one. This is the dealer at my market: https://www.wildgrowthgourmetmushrooms.com/ https://www.wildgrowthgourmetmushrooms.com/
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      I just wish I could find a morel, chanterelle, and porcini dealer.
      - chasil 4y ago
        What happens when you put in your zip code and search here? https://shop.marketwagon.com/collections/vendor/3711?redir=true&trk=mh25988w https://shop.marketwagon.com/collections/vendor/3711?redir=t...
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        "Sorry, we do not currently support your location."
        chasil 4y ago
        I hope you find something near you.
      - dzhiurgis 4y ago
        > chanterelle How do you cook them? They are pretty cheap here so I tried number of times this summer and found the flavour just not worth the cleanup hassle. Maybe they are different in NA. IIRC the traditional method here is to boil them and then cook with bacon and onion, so chances of their flavour is 0.
        cinntaile 4y ago
        Fry them in butter and put them on a piece of toast.
        dzhiurgis 4y ago
        Tried exactly that, def there’s nice mild flavour, but personally not worth the hassle.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
      Yeah, I've got foraging with a friend that knew what she was doing, and she really only did it for a fun excuse for a hike and bought her mushrooms at the farmer's market. Granted, I'm in Portland, so mushrooms are exceptional up here, but there's just no way you'll find the quality and quantity the pros do.
    - formerkrogemp 4y ago
      You should try lion's mane if you haven't already. It's pretty good. My favorite typically remains pink oyster mushroom.
    - rwmj 4y ago
      I've grown mushrooms (from known spores) before and it's interesting. The problem with it is that most mushrooms only grow on very specific materials, eg. only on oak wood or straw.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    Ha ha, more like "pancakes of the woods" [1]. I'll have to keep my eye out for them. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=laetiporus+sulphureus&client=safari&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJn5zS3uP6AhUjpIkEHeI5Ag4Q_AUoAXoECAMQAw&biw=1334&bih=789&dpr=2 https://www.google.com/search?q=laetiporus+sulphureus&client...
  - kaitai 4y ago
    "There are old mushroom hunters, there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old bold mushroom hunters."
- junglistguy 4y ago
  And aren't you terrified of eating food from a supermarket full of chemicals?
  - retrac 4y ago
    Depending where you are, that worry might be greater with foraged berries, mushrooms etc. I live in an area that's been heavily industrialised for over 150 years. The soil at my mom's place when tested had too much lead and PCBs for safety. And not too long ago they found leaking barrels of nuclear waste from the 1940s in a lovely wooded area just a couple blocks over from my old primary school. Only God knows what's in the soil here, unless you test it.
- AngryData 4y ago
  Many people just stick to the very easily identified mushrooms with few or no real look-a-likes or atleast mushrooms who's poisonous look-a-likes aren't that deadly but just make you feel shitty. Morels are super popular around me because they are very easy to identify and false morels aren't very hard to differentiate once you have seen true morels a couple times. They may look similar to someone who has never seen or picked morels before, but they have very distinct differences once you know what to look for. At the very least someone should learn what the extremely deadly mushrooms, like death caps or destroying angels, look like so they know what to most definitely avoid. Especially with the delayed reactions which might prevent them from connecting their illness with the mushrooms they ate a day or two before. A good field guide will specifically call out similar but deadly mushrooms when referencing edible mushrooms and are very clear on the dangers of misidentification and the minimum neccessary identification required. Some mushrooms require a microscrope, but many others just require you to identify certain distinguishing features.
- herbst 4y ago
  In Switzerland 'community halls' near forests usually have mushroom checking days where you can bring them in for free. Not sure how this works in other countries
kornhole 4y ago
It is fall and mushroom picking time! Here is my simple advice: The first mushrooms you should get to know in your area are the deadly ones. When you find a mushroom that looks like an edible one, temper your enthusiasm and be realistic. Mistakes are made when people really want to find an edible one. If it definitely doesn't look like a deadly one and might be the edible you identify, first try a small amount and see how it sits with you. Most are just indigestible and give stomach aches. If it looks anything like the deadly ones, when it doubt, toss it out.
- antx 4y ago
  That's really good advice. Even perfectly edible mushrooms can give you adverse effects. Eating just a piece and wait for 24 hours is how I usually go.
- voisin 4y ago
  I read advice once that if you were lost in the woods and didn’t know what might be poisonous, rub it on your arm and wait. If no reaction after 15 minutes, rub it on the inside of your lips lightly. If no reaction after 15 minutes, eat a very small amount, and if no reaction within a number of hours, you’re good to go. No idea if this is accurate but it seems reasonable.
  - DonaldFisk 4y ago
    No it isn't, at least not for mushrooms. To be safe, you need to use a reliable mushroom guide and identify anything you pick down to the species. It's best to learn how to identify a few species that you like and to stick to them.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    “No idea if this is accurate but it seems reasonable” has probably been the last words of a non-zero number of people.
  - greenyoda 4y ago
    That advice wouldn't seem to have helped for the mushroom described in the article, whose symptoms only surface 8 to 12 hours after eating it.
dang 4y ago
Url changed from https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/ohio-foragers-are-accidentally-poisoning-themselves-with-lethal-mushrooms/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/ohio-foragers-are-ac..., which points to this. I've also changed the title to a representative phrase from the body of the (current) article. (Submitted title was "Fungi Foragers Freaked"; please don't post titles like that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
  Thanks for that, the Ars Technica article completely glossed over the concern of false-identifications from mobile naturalist apps.
  - neonate 4y ago
    https://archive.ph/X0ZEB https://archive.ph/X0ZEB https://web.archive.org/web/20221013224545/https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/10/beware-of-deadly-wild-mushrooms-portage-county-man-survives-poisoning-thanks-to-experimental-drug-at-uh.html https://web.archive.org/web/20221013224545/https://www.cleve...
- eps 4y ago
  Ars link is better from the privacy persepctive as clevland.com integrates directly with accounts.google.com.
9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
Perhaps the key point of this news story: ’But unbeknownst to many, Ohio is home to some of the world’s deadliest mushrooms -- and they can look a whole lot like their edible cousins. A recent rash of nearly lethal poisonings have experts worried that mobile naturalist apps may be lulling otherwise cautious citizens into a false sense of security ‘
- chasil 4y ago
  The fungal species are not concentrated in Ohio, they are somewhat invasive as I understand it. "The death cap mushroom is an invasive species from Europe, now present on every continent except Antarctica. It became such a world traveler because humans spread the mushroom’s spores around like glitter at a kids’ glitter party... "...the death cap made a sudden appearance in 1938 and became increasingly common after that year." https://slate.com/technology/2014/02/most-dangerous-mushroom-death-cap-is-spreading-but-poisoning-can-be-treated.html https://slate.com/technology/2014/02/most-dangerous-mushroom...
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  I find it hard to imagine anyone relying on an app to determine whether or not a wild mushroom is edible or not. The poisonous mushrooms (particularly the widely distributed and complex Amanita types) have some of the most insidious biological toxins known, in particular alpha-amanitin, which has a really nasty delayed-action effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91-Amanitin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91-Amanitin It's mode of action is so unique (binds RNA polymerase, so destroying liver and kidney protein synthesis and leading to widespread cell death) that it's used in molecular biology labs for the study of protein synthesis. Maybe some of the more obvious edible types (boletes, chantrelles, some others) are fairly easy to identify, but even there they have stomach-upset causing relatives. Anything even vaguely similar to Amanita should be viewed with caution (there are closely similar edible types, no thanks). A few good books with lots of pictures, close attention to things like spore prints, going with someone with a lot of experience, that's the best introduction.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
neilv 4y ago
> When the app matched his photos of the backyard mushrooms with an edible species, [...] it almost killed him. Now there's an app that'd have to be designed very conscientiously.
- creepycrawler 4y ago
  Instead of a general mushroom identification app, it could be a poisonous mushroom identification app. The dataset would only include poisonous mushrooms, and it will be made clear that it is not exhaustive. This could be useful to rule out some mushrooms.
- SpikeDad 4y ago
  Wow. Who would take the liability of an app such as this? Regardless of how many disclaimers you'd have to agree to I could easily see a jury holding the creator of the app liable for a horrible death like that.
  - caust1c 4y ago
    It's literally part of the iphone camera, if you weren't aware. Not disagreeing with you, but acknowledging that it's pretty hard to prevent these apps with how accessible machine learning is today, despite accuracy still being difficult for many things.
  - csydas 4y ago
    I dunno, watching the video linked by this use [0], I think the apps (aside from Google Lens) do a fairly okay job of being clear that they aren't as sure on their identification and that they're about casualness, not "safe to eat or not safe to eat." While the article cites some persons who ate poisonous mushrooms because an app said they weren't poisonous, ultimately it will come down to "Did the app sell itself as telling you what's safe to eat and what's not?" From the video, I'm particularly harsh towards Google on this as it doesn't seem to include the confidence level or analysis process and instead focused on showing a result and even trying to sell you something based on the result. This does seem like it's the wrong approach that will get people killed, with thoughts like "well Google thinks it's this, and it's even trying to sell me some, so must be okay." For the others, you can see warnings in the apps about eating identified stuff, you can see how confident it is in the analysis, and they at least appear to be considering things like the region you're in when making an analysis. I think it would be fairly defensible based on the warnings and preparation that a reasonable person would not be expected to take the identification as a go-ahead to eat something. That unreasonable persons take unreasonable actions as a result of these apps wouldn't really change the legal interpretation, but of course maybe it can be persuasive in other directions. At first I shared the same opinion as you that these are dangerous apps, but watching what the apps do in the linked video, the non-google ones are actually pretty acceptable in my opinion. I would prefer they include a few more warnings though when there is low confidence matching or when there is conflicting matching just to remind the person using the app "hey, btw, a lot of plants can kill you. Don't eat this, I'm just an app." [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33220688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33220688
chrisgd 4y ago
Why do people like eating mushrooms from the woods? How much of it is the potential risk? There are plenty of options at the grocery store.
- monetus 4y ago
  I know you are more exclaiming than asking, or it reads that way, but it is seriously a lifestyle. Many mushrooms are only foraged as there just aren't farmers, but past that, it is kind of a prestige culture. Pride, and generations of knowing "the spots"
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    I read it as curiously exclaiming, as in “I don’t understand and have preconceived contrarian views but I might be missing something”, which is a really good “change my mind” introduction.
- jhauris 4y ago
  It's fun, it's an outdoors activity, and as far as I know you can't really get the mushrooms you find locally in the grocery store. Using an app to identify mushrooms, however, is a terrifying thought. Maybe it speaks more to people's conceptions of the capabilities of modern technology. If you want to get into foraging, there are some really easy to identify safe ones without dangerous lookalikes. Get a good identification book on the topic. Don't listen to random strangers on the Internet, and don't trust apps.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "There are plenty of options at the grocery store." Not really, as you can cultivate only a handful of mushrooms. The good ones have to come from the woods.
- bowlich 4y ago
  Based off the market rate for chanterelles my harvest this year would have cost several thousand dollars had I merely bought them from the grocer.
- 4y ago
pazimzadeh 4y ago
That seems like one of the problems that can be solved with technology, i.e. by using - machine learning could be used to visually identify fungi - Portable DNA sequencing devices i.e. nanopore? https://nanoporetech.com/products/smidgion https://nanoporetech.com/products/smidgion
- _whiteCaps_ 4y ago
  No, machine learning to identify the fungi is the problem: > So he did what he thought was the responsible thing: he used the plant identification app on his phone to determine the species of mushroom. I consider myself a beginner at foraging wild mushrooms, and even I can tell that the apps are laughably bad at identifying them.
  - sva_ 4y ago
    I think they can give you a first idea of what you should be searching for, if you find a specimen you have no name for. From there on you'll have to figure out what is similar, edible, and grows in your area; and in particular, how the edible ones are different from inedible/poisonous ones. It is usually just a few. I can't fathom eating some wild fungi without doing this kind of due diligence, blindly trusting an app.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "machine learning could be used to visually identify fungi" Even if the recognition rate would be way better - NOPE. There are mushrooms that look really identical - but one is deadly poisenous and the other good to eat. Some mushrooms you can only identify by slicing them up, smelling, watch color change, look for certain small details under the top - and where they grow. With current state of ML, you can get only a very rough classification and I doubt that changes anytime soon. Portable DNA sequencing sounds better, but I am sceptical, if the tech is mature enough. (If it is, sign me up, but it sounds expensive, they do not even have a price tag)
- pfdietz 4y ago
  This sounds like a problem that can be solved by - not eating wild mushrooms
collegeburner 4y ago
- dang 4y ago
  Would you please stop the unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments? We had to ask you about this just recently and you've continued to do it. That's not cool. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please fix this, we'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
thebetatester 4y ago
Not to be that guy but it's a little annoying that this has been used and safe for years in Europe but the FDA wants to gather more data but was perfectly okay supporting mandates for the covid vaccine that hadn't received near the amount of testing.
nkurz 4y ago
Since no one has done it yet, I'll ask the obvious question about the FDA: how many people die or need a liver transplant each year because the FDA is being unreasonable here? Here's some quotes from the article: Approximately 40% of people who ingest the deadly Amanita mushrooms die or require a liver transplant, according to Dr. Pierre Gholam, the liver specialist at University Hospitals who treated Hickman. ... They immediately began preparing an application to the FDA for the emergency use of an investigational antidote – that if administered within 72 hours of ingestion can prevent liver damage and death in almost every patient who receives it. The drug, called Silibinin, is derived from the milk thistle plant and given intravenously. It has been available in Europe for over 30 years, but here in the United States it has yet to be approved by the FDA, so it is not stocked in hospitals or pharmacies. The result is that in order to obtain it for patients, an emergency use application must be submitted to the FDA for every patient who needs it, after which it is flown in by courier directly from the FDA laboratory in Philadelphia. “This literally takes an army of people working after hours,” said Gholam. “There are tireless, really unsung heroes at the UH research office who make this happen for every patient – they have to do this over and over and over.” Forty-seven times in the last 10 years to be exact. The biggest enemy in this process, says Gholam, is time. If the drug is administered after the 72-hour window closes, the chances of a full recovery drop dramatically. Making licensed physicians jump through these hoops while risking their patients lives should be a criminal offense. Yes, it's great that this particular patient survived, but there needs to be a better cost benefit analysis for drug approval. Almost certainly, there are patients who have suffered permanent damage or death because of the difficulty of obtaining this drug. What benefit is there to making this drug so hard to get? How many people miss the time window because of these requirements? How safe does a drug need to be if result of not getting it is a 40% chance of death or a liver transplant?
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Couldn’t the patient just take a bunch of the milk thistle supplements available at most pharmacies?
  - EdwardDiego 4y ago
base3 4y ago
Amanita tortellini
aGHz 4y ago
Several comments here advise getting a good mushroom identification book instead of relying on plant id apps for foraging. Do you have any recommendations? And more generally, how would you go about assessing the trustworthiness of any such book?
- microjim 4y ago
  Often localised ID or reference books can become like bibles. Consult your local mycologists or fungi enthusiast groups!
- mordechai9000 4y ago
  Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora Edit: this is the definitive resource for serious amateur mushroom enthusiasts in North America. It has a wealth of information on understanding the identifying characteristics of mushrooms, as well as keys to aid in the identification of many common genera and species. It's one of those books I find entertaining just to open and read at random. YMMV.
  - micro_cam 4y ago
    This is the Bible. his pocket guide is great as well and much easier to carry. he himself is quite the legend as well.
- anm89 4y ago
  There is no one right answer to this question. Find someone locally who is into mushrooming and ask them what is the best guide for your area.
_yb2s 4y ago
Silibinin is the active ingredient in milk thistle, a supplement available at almost any health food store. Do doctors not know this or are they just letting people die rather than prescribe an OTC nutraceutical? Or is there some reason it absolutely must be delivered intravenously? That seems unlikely since it is orally bioavailable. Edit: I found this, which suggests that it should work in theory, but intense vomiting from the poisoning probably makes it not possible to take a large dose orally: http://bayareamushrooms.org/poisonings/silymarin.html http://bayareamushrooms.org/poisonings/silymarin.html
- ericbarrett 4y ago
  OTC supplements in the U.S. are also notoriously under-regulated. Impurities and false labeling abound. I don't see a medical professional using them for a critically ill patient if there is a viable alternative. In fact supplements already cause 20% of liver failures nationwide: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/liver-damage-from-supplements-is-on-the-rise/ https://www.consumerreports.org/health/liver-damage-from-sup...
ghostpepper 4y ago
The headline is "A Rash" of poisonings but no other ones are described. Is it actually common for people to think an app is trustworthy for this?
dmitrybrant 4y ago
I've been foraging mushrooms for 30+ years, and I triple-check every single specimen before cooking it. The idea of a novice forager using an app to identify mushrooms is... unconscionable! Like... breathtakingly stupid. I've commented on this before, but it continues to baffle me how poorly-educated our public is about wild plants, berries, and mushrooms. And stories like this just perpetuate the fear (and stigma?) around foraging, when in fact there's a whole universe of flavors and textures to be had from wild mushrooms that are simply better, and more fun, than the grocery store.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  Curiosity: do you find that you (at 30+ years) are so good at identification in the wild that you don’t find any “bad” specimens once you get them home, or do you still catch some outliers where you needed to look at them more closely? Or does the process involve taking them home for closer examination?
  - dmitrybrant 4y ago
    To be honest I don't recall the last time I've ever accidentally picked up a poisonous specimen along with the good ones I was intending to pick. At this point it's such second-nature that telling apart an edible vs. poisonous mushroom is like telling a bottle of milk from a bottle of Drano. And yet I still examine each one at home before putting it in the pot. The other thing is that the truly deadly varieties, such as the subject of this article - Amanita phalloides, are really not that hard to avoid. When you're a novice forager, there are plenty of varieties that don't look remotely like Amanita, and are much easier to differentiate. There are some hardcore foragers who even consume certain varieties of Amanita (some of which are edible!), but to me this would be too much of a hassle, since it would involve spore prints and maybe even microscopy of the spores to be absolutely sure.
    - ncann 4y ago
      I think I read somewhere before about how if a mushroom is white, then stay away from it. How true is this from your experience?
roywiggins 4y ago
"Gholam says that the process of FDA approval for Silibinin is slow, primarily because it only works for amatoxin poisoning, from the Amanita mushroom species. Those poisonings are rare – so gathering enough data to satisfy the safety and efficacy requirements of the FDA takes time." Okay, but there must be data, since the EU approved it based on something, right?
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Sure, a rational version of FDA would accept it based on EU approval data. But that's not the FDA we have.
  - ratsmack 4y ago
    With the FDA, you need to follow the money.
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      Did you? Where did it lead?
      - junofan 4y ago
        It’s pretty well-known that a big reason there’s no cross-border approval pathway is that the FDA is partially funded by user fees.
        BurningFrog 4y ago
        Interesting! Haven't heard that before, but it does make sense.
      - ratsmack 4y ago
        There are many paths: https://mises.org/wire/legacy-corruption-fda-and-big-pharma https://mises.org/wire/legacy-corruption-fda-and-big-pharma
  - 4y ago
anm89 4y ago
I think this gives people the wrong impression that mushroom foraging is dangerous. It isn't. Anyone can quickly learn to identify the safe edible species around them. But the key is, you have to understand that you should know upfront what species around you, in your current season, are edible and eat only exactly those species. For example, almost anyone can learn to identify chicken of the woods, morels, oysters, and maitake and safely pick them with very minimal training. Trusting some app without context is an obviously stupid move IMO though and not surprising that people are getting hurt if that's how they are approaching foraging.
- yosito 4y ago
  > the key is, you have to understand that you should know upfront what species around you, in your current season, are edible and eat only exactly those species This is missing a very important factor, which is that there are some edible species with highly toxic lookalikes. These lookalikes are quite common in Ohio, hence why poisonings from misidentified mushrooms are also common.
  - Matticus_Rex 4y ago
    Which Ohio edibles have highly toxic lookalikes? There are two, but I'm guessing you're not basing this off of actual knowledge. If you avoid those two, you can forage dozens of other edibles easily. It's not hard to avoid those two (and their entire genus, though there are some easily-distinguished edibles in the genus as well).
  - anm89 4y ago
    Operative word being safe: > learn to identify the safe edible species The whole point is you shouldn't just run around picking stuff up, taking a run at an identification, and then popping it in your mouth. You should go out already knowing what you are willing to pick based off of what can safely be picked in your area. Safe here means no edible look a likes (or that you know how to differentiate with confidence)
yosito 4y ago
I'm from Ohio, and even before the apps, it was common to hear stories about people being poisoned by mushrooms. It's also relatively well known (though not well enough, obviously) that there are several species of toxic mushrooms that look nearly identical to edible ones. Perhaps people think an app is going to be infallible. I really think app stores ought to pull any mushroom-identifying app that doesn't come with a prominent warning. I live in Hungary now. Here we have mushroom identification centers at the local markets where we can bring mushrooms collected in the wild to be identified by professional mycologists. Maybe Ohio needs this as well.
- 1letterunixname 4y ago
  And approve a life-saving drug that's already proven in Europe. It seems reckless and stupid to not immediately approve it given the impact.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    I'm no fan of the FDA, but it's worth noting Europeans said the same about thalidomide and thankfully America didn't listen. In 1960, Kelsey was hired by the FDA in Washington, D.C. At that time, she "was one of only seven full-time and four young part-time physicians reviewing drugs"[4] for the FDA. One of her first assignments at the FDA was to review an application by Richardson-Merrell for the drug thalidomide (under the tradename Kevadon) as a tranquilizer and painkiller with specific indications to prescribe the drug to pregnant women for morning sickness. Although it had been previously approved in Canada and more than 20 European and African countries,[8] she withheld approval for the drug and requested further studies.[3] Despite pressure from thalidomide's manufacturer Grünenthal, Kelsey persisted in requesting additional information to explain an English study that documented peripheral neuritis,[9] a nervous system side effect.[4] She also requested data showing the drug was not harmful to the fetus.[9] Kelsey's insistence that the drug should be fully tested prior to approval was vindicated when the births of deformed infants in Europe were linked to thalidomide ingestion by their mothers during pregnancy.[10][11] Researchers discovered that the thalidomide crossed the placental barrier and caused serious birth defects.[7] This is why America does independent review of results obtained from Europe.
allisdust 4y ago
I never understood why people don't just eat store bought mushrooms. Why risk liver failure and other serious health complications not to mention countless hours of hospital time over something as trivial as eating wild mushrooms. Why not teach in school explicitly to not eat wild mushrooms and may be teach how to farm safe varieties if someone desperately needs to eat their own picked ones.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Why do people cook food and not buy it only from restaurants with rigorous health and safety checks in place? Could avoid lot of food poisonings that way.
  - allisdust 4y ago
    I'm not sure its comparable ? Cooking food at home would be more hygienic than however rigorously maintained restaurant.
- Matticus_Rex 4y ago
  It's trivially easy to avoid toxic species, though. If you put in a tiny amount of effort into learning and limit yourself to thinks without toxic lookalikes (or put in more effort into learning), you are not risking liver failure and hospital time.
  - BostonEnginerd 4y ago
    The rash of poisonings makes it sound like avoiding toxic species isn’t that trivial.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      It is trivial though. Nearly every mushroom death in the US has come from one of two species, and they can be accurately described in minutes. Nearly all of the deaths come from people who don't know this tiny baseline of information. I would caution anyone who doesn't know what a death cap or a destroying angel is to avoid wild foraging.
silisili 4y ago
If there's one thing I've learned in my life about mushrooms, it's that there are way, way more varieties than you think, and for any 1 there are 20 that look the same. I used to hang out on r/mycology, and even experts would ask tons of questions before even making a guess. There's no way in hell an app can do this reliably, and while I hate to say it, I hope people sue them into oblivion. This isn't something benign like hotdog or not, or bird ID. This has fatal consequences...
- bergenty 4y ago
  If a human can do it using only visual and geographical cues, an app is definitely capable of the same.
dvh 4y ago
Just don't eat any mushrooms with stripes and limit yourself to boletus in say first 20 years of your mushroom hunting career.
pctrsq0perenl 4y ago
Foraging and telling apart edible mushrooms from the non-edible ones seems like a nice hobby to have. Are there any good reliable books that I can read to get started?
- Matticus_Rex 4y ago
  Almost definitely, but which one depends on where you live since species vary so drastically from place to place. The best way to find out is to look for a Facebook group for foraging in your state or city and ask which books are best for there. Many areas also have good beginner programs or events that teach some basics of a few easy edibles that have no toxic lookalikes.
alkonaut 4y ago
Just go after a specific kind of mushroom and one that doesn’t have any close lookalikes and it’s very easy to safely pick mushrooms. Next level up from picking a single one is to pick a few known kinds which all have distinct features that can’t be confused with others. I pick only boletus, chanterellus (which has a bad lookalike in North America but it’s not really that close and where I am in Europe there is no really poisonous lookalike at all). Even easier late in autumn when you can pick various cratherellus and there are almost no other mushrooms at all.
- methyl 4y ago
  There is a lookalike for chanterellus in Europe: Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygrophoropsis_aurantiaca https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygrophoropsis_aurantiaca
  - peer2pay 4y ago
    Yes, but this one is fairly easily distinguished and will also not harm you unless consumed in great quantities.
  - alkonaut 4y ago
    Yes, but not one I worry about. It’s both not known to be very poisonous (it’s surely eaten quite a lot) and it’s very easily distinguished from the real thing.
flohofwoe 4y ago
Jeez, trusting an image recogition app for identifying mushrooms is nearly Darwin Award level of stupidity. In my "corner of the woods" the wise elders say to not even go mushroom foraging in regions that are a just a couple hundred kilometers away, because the mushrooms look slightly different there (at least when it comes to the mushrooms that are called 'Champignons' in German (lat. Agaricus)).
lqet 4y ago
Highly recommended read, written by someone who narrowly survived eating Amanita Virosa: https://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/11/22/i-survived-the-destroying-angel/ https://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/11/22/i-survived-the-...
trhr 4y ago
Hahahahahaha. Imagine using something from the App Store to identify mushrooms instead of a reference book that is specifically written to keep you alive.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  I would say there is a case for warning labels in identification apps. especially when mushrooms are identified. The apps themselves are really good. If you haven't used some popular ones I would say you're being too dismissive. But those apps were never for finding something to eat, and especially not for finding mushrooms to eat. I can see how this isn't as Darwinian as I would otherwise lean toward.
  - trhr 4y ago
    I will trust my own intelligence over artificial intelligence any day.
luxurytent 4y ago
Wannabe mushroom foragers spend plenty of energy trying to identify what is edible, but they also need to spend that same amount of energy (if not more) in understanding what is not edible. Educate from both sides, or risk death
nokya 4y ago
"All mushrooms are comestible. Some only once." (can't remember the source, but that spoke to me)
- e12e 4y ago
  "There exists kinds of mushroom that can feed you until the end of your life if eaten once."
lightedman 4y ago
X-identification apps are utter garbage. Almost all of them fail critically on simple things. The rock identification apps are some of the absolute worst.
brycemice 4y ago
I am an novice mycologist and I just find it ridiculous that theres people out there picking mushrooms, cooking and eating them without ever having the knowledge of the species of mushrooms that grow in their region. Anyone picking and eating mushys without knowning the harmful species in their regions are simply asking for it. Do it and its only a matter of time before you or your app make a mistake and you end up in the hospital or a coffin. But regardless I'll break down the best practices in identifying mushys. 1. When ID'ing mushrooms look for 3 points of comparison. Never go on one comparison. Any good mushy ID's will document size shape color smell bruising color. 2. Use more than 1 set of eyes. Just because your convinced doesn't mean your right. Post pictures to a forum and get some other eyes on the specimen and make sure your ID is confirmed. 3. From my experience the best place to start and ID is the medium its growing in. Soil Wood Excreta Moist Dry Sunny Time of Day. Find as many points of comparison as possible and when in doubt DONT EAT THE GD THING!
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  Mushroom advice you get on the internet should only be used by people who also get legal advice on the Internet.

151 points by CHB0403085482 4y ago

changoplatanero 4y ago

Mushroom foraging sounds really fun but I’m too scared to eat anything that I find.

antx 4y ago
There's no wiggle room. You need to be 1000% certain of identification, if you decide to eat a mushroom. That's how I've been doing it for the last decade. I forage a lot of mushrooms, but don't consume anything I'm not sure of. Also, there are "beginner" mushrooms, that don't have any dangerous look-alikes, such as the famous "chicken of the woods" (laetiporus sulphureus). You can't really go wrong with mushroom like these.
- chasil 4y ago
  My farmers' market has a mushroom guy that brings in things that I've never seen before. Some of them get expensive and a few I've found rather unpleasant. There is absolutely no way that I could find these things myself, so I would suggest a dealer like this if you are in an area large enough to support one. This is the dealer at my market: https://www.wildgrowthgourmetmushrooms.com/ https://www.wildgrowthgourmetmushrooms.com/
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    I just wish I could find a morel, chanterelle, and porcini dealer.
    - chasil 4y ago
      What happens when you put in your zip code and search here? https://shop.marketwagon.com/collections/vendor/3711?redir=true&trk=mh25988w https://shop.marketwagon.com/collections/vendor/3711?redir=t...
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        "Sorry, we do not currently support your location."
        chasil 4y ago
        I hope you find something near you.
    - dzhiurgis 4y ago
      > chanterelle How do you cook them? They are pretty cheap here so I tried number of times this summer and found the flavour just not worth the cleanup hassle. Maybe they are different in NA. IIRC the traditional method here is to boil them and then cook with bacon and onion, so chances of their flavour is 0.
      - cinntaile 4y ago
        Fry them in butter and put them on a piece of toast.
        dzhiurgis 4y ago
        Tried exactly that, def there’s nice mild flavour, but personally not worth the hassle.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    Yeah, I've got foraging with a friend that knew what she was doing, and she really only did it for a fun excuse for a hike and bought her mushrooms at the farmer's market. Granted, I'm in Portland, so mushrooms are exceptional up here, but there's just no way you'll find the quality and quantity the pros do.
  - formerkrogemp 4y ago
    You should try lion's mane if you haven't already. It's pretty good. My favorite typically remains pink oyster mushroom.
  - rwmj 4y ago
    I've grown mushrooms (from known spores) before and it's interesting. The problem with it is that most mushrooms only grow on very specific materials, eg. only on oak wood or straw.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Ha ha, more like "pancakes of the woods" [1]. I'll have to keep my eye out for them. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=laetiporus+sulphureus&client=safari&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJn5zS3uP6AhUjpIkEHeI5Ag4Q_AUoAXoECAMQAw&biw=1334&bih=789&dpr=2 https://www.google.com/search?q=laetiporus+sulphureus&client...
- kaitai 4y ago
  "There are old mushroom hunters, there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old bold mushroom hunters."
junglistguy 4y ago
And aren't you terrified of eating food from a supermarket full of chemicals?
- retrac 4y ago
  Depending where you are, that worry might be greater with foraged berries, mushrooms etc. I live in an area that's been heavily industrialised for over 150 years. The soil at my mom's place when tested had too much lead and PCBs for safety. And not too long ago they found leaking barrels of nuclear waste from the 1940s in a lovely wooded area just a couple blocks over from my old primary school. Only God knows what's in the soil here, unless you test it.
AngryData 4y ago
Many people just stick to the very easily identified mushrooms with few or no real look-a-likes or atleast mushrooms who's poisonous look-a-likes aren't that deadly but just make you feel shitty. Morels are super popular around me because they are very easy to identify and false morels aren't very hard to differentiate once you have seen true morels a couple times. They may look similar to someone who has never seen or picked morels before, but they have very distinct differences once you know what to look for. At the very least someone should learn what the extremely deadly mushrooms, like death caps or destroying angels, look like so they know what to most definitely avoid. Especially with the delayed reactions which might prevent them from connecting their illness with the mushrooms they ate a day or two before. A good field guide will specifically call out similar but deadly mushrooms when referencing edible mushrooms and are very clear on the dangers of misidentification and the minimum neccessary identification required. Some mushrooms require a microscrope, but many others just require you to identify certain distinguishing features.
herbst 4y ago
In Switzerland 'community halls' near forests usually have mushroom checking days where you can bring them in for free. Not sure how this works in other countries

kornhole 4y ago

It is fall and mushroom picking time! Here is my simple advice: The first mushrooms you should get to know in your area are the deadly ones. When you find a mushroom that looks like an edible one, temper your enthusiasm and be realistic. Mistakes are made when people really want to find an edible one. If it definitely doesn't look like a deadly one and might be the edible you identify, first try a small amount and see how it sits with you. Most are just indigestible and give stomach aches. If it looks anything like the deadly ones, when it doubt, toss it out.

antx 4y ago
That's really good advice. Even perfectly edible mushrooms can give you adverse effects. Eating just a piece and wait for 24 hours is how I usually go.
voisin 4y ago
I read advice once that if you were lost in the woods and didn’t know what might be poisonous, rub it on your arm and wait. If no reaction after 15 minutes, rub it on the inside of your lips lightly. If no reaction after 15 minutes, eat a very small amount, and if no reaction within a number of hours, you’re good to go. No idea if this is accurate but it seems reasonable.
- DonaldFisk 4y ago
  No it isn't, at least not for mushrooms. To be safe, you need to use a reliable mushroom guide and identify anything you pick down to the species. It's best to learn how to identify a few species that you like and to stick to them.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  “No idea if this is accurate but it seems reasonable” has probably been the last words of a non-zero number of people.
- greenyoda 4y ago
  That advice wouldn't seem to have helped for the mushroom described in the article, whose symptoms only surface 8 to 12 hours after eating it.

dang 4y ago

Url changed from https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/ohio-foragers-are-accidentally-poisoning-themselves-with-lethal-mushrooms/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/ohio-foragers-are-ac..., which points to this. I've also changed the title to a representative phrase from the body of the (current) article. (Submitted title was "Fungi Foragers Freaked"; please don't post titles like that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
Thanks for that, the Ars Technica article completely glossed over the concern of false-identifications from mobile naturalist apps.
- neonate 4y ago
  https://archive.ph/X0ZEB https://archive.ph/X0ZEB https://web.archive.org/web/20221013224545/https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/10/beware-of-deadly-wild-mushrooms-portage-county-man-survives-poisoning-thanks-to-experimental-drug-at-uh.html https://web.archive.org/web/20221013224545/https://www.cleve...
eps 4y ago
Ars link is better from the privacy persepctive as clevland.com integrates directly with accounts.google.com.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago

Perhaps the key point of this news story: ’But unbeknownst to many, Ohio is home to some of the world’s deadliest mushrooms -- and they can look a whole lot like their edible cousins. A recent rash of nearly lethal poisonings have experts worried that mobile naturalist apps may be lulling otherwise cautious citizens into a false sense of security ‘

chasil 4y ago
The fungal species are not concentrated in Ohio, they are somewhat invasive as I understand it. "The death cap mushroom is an invasive species from Europe, now present on every continent except Antarctica. It became such a world traveler because humans spread the mushroom’s spores around like glitter at a kids’ glitter party... "...the death cap made a sudden appearance in 1938 and became increasingly common after that year." https://slate.com/technology/2014/02/most-dangerous-mushroom-death-cap-is-spreading-but-poisoning-can-be-treated.html https://slate.com/technology/2014/02/most-dangerous-mushroom...
photochemsyn 4y ago
I find it hard to imagine anyone relying on an app to determine whether or not a wild mushroom is edible or not. The poisonous mushrooms (particularly the widely distributed and complex Amanita types) have some of the most insidious biological toxins known, in particular alpha-amanitin, which has a really nasty delayed-action effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91-Amanitin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91-Amanitin It's mode of action is so unique (binds RNA polymerase, so destroying liver and kidney protein synthesis and leading to widespread cell death) that it's used in molecular biology labs for the study of protein synthesis. Maybe some of the more obvious edible types (boletes, chantrelles, some others) are fairly easy to identify, but even there they have stomach-upset causing relatives. Anything even vaguely similar to Amanita should be viewed with caution (there are closely similar edible types, no thanks). A few good books with lots of pictures, close attention to things like spore prints, going with someone with a lot of experience, that's the best introduction.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago

neilv 4y ago

> When the app matched his photos of the backyard mushrooms with an edible species, [...] it almost killed him. Now there's an app that'd have to be designed very conscientiously.

creepycrawler 4y ago
Instead of a general mushroom identification app, it could be a poisonous mushroom identification app. The dataset would only include poisonous mushrooms, and it will be made clear that it is not exhaustive. This could be useful to rule out some mushrooms.
SpikeDad 4y ago
Wow. Who would take the liability of an app such as this? Regardless of how many disclaimers you'd have to agree to I could easily see a jury holding the creator of the app liable for a horrible death like that.
- caust1c 4y ago
  It's literally part of the iphone camera, if you weren't aware. Not disagreeing with you, but acknowledging that it's pretty hard to prevent these apps with how accessible machine learning is today, despite accuracy still being difficult for many things.
- csydas 4y ago
  I dunno, watching the video linked by this use [0], I think the apps (aside from Google Lens) do a fairly okay job of being clear that they aren't as sure on their identification and that they're about casualness, not "safe to eat or not safe to eat." While the article cites some persons who ate poisonous mushrooms because an app said they weren't poisonous, ultimately it will come down to "Did the app sell itself as telling you what's safe to eat and what's not?" From the video, I'm particularly harsh towards Google on this as it doesn't seem to include the confidence level or analysis process and instead focused on showing a result and even trying to sell you something based on the result. This does seem like it's the wrong approach that will get people killed, with thoughts like "well Google thinks it's this, and it's even trying to sell me some, so must be okay." For the others, you can see warnings in the apps about eating identified stuff, you can see how confident it is in the analysis, and they at least appear to be considering things like the region you're in when making an analysis. I think it would be fairly defensible based on the warnings and preparation that a reasonable person would not be expected to take the identification as a go-ahead to eat something. That unreasonable persons take unreasonable actions as a result of these apps wouldn't really change the legal interpretation, but of course maybe it can be persuasive in other directions. At first I shared the same opinion as you that these are dangerous apps, but watching what the apps do in the linked video, the non-google ones are actually pretty acceptable in my opinion. I would prefer they include a few more warnings though when there is low confidence matching or when there is conflicting matching just to remind the person using the app "hey, btw, a lot of plants can kill you. Don't eat this, I'm just an app." [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33220688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33220688

chrisgd 4y ago

Why do people like eating mushrooms from the woods? How much of it is the potential risk? There are plenty of options at the grocery store.

monetus 4y ago
I know you are more exclaiming than asking, or it reads that way, but it is seriously a lifestyle. Many mushrooms are only foraged as there just aren't farmers, but past that, it is kind of a prestige culture. Pride, and generations of knowing "the spots"
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  I read it as curiously exclaiming, as in “I don’t understand and have preconceived contrarian views but I might be missing something”, which is a really good “change my mind” introduction.
jhauris 4y ago
It's fun, it's an outdoors activity, and as far as I know you can't really get the mushrooms you find locally in the grocery store. Using an app to identify mushrooms, however, is a terrifying thought. Maybe it speaks more to people's conceptions of the capabilities of modern technology. If you want to get into foraging, there are some really easy to identify safe ones without dangerous lookalikes. Get a good identification book on the topic. Don't listen to random strangers on the Internet, and don't trust apps.
hutzlibu 4y ago
"There are plenty of options at the grocery store." Not really, as you can cultivate only a handful of mushrooms. The good ones have to come from the woods.
bowlich 4y ago
Based off the market rate for chanterelles my harvest this year would have cost several thousand dollars had I merely bought them from the grocer.
4y ago

pazimzadeh 4y ago

That seems like one of the problems that can be solved with technology, i.e. by using - machine learning could be used to visually identify fungi - Portable DNA sequencing devices i.e. nanopore? https://nanoporetech.com/products/smidgion https://nanoporetech.com/products/smidgion

_whiteCaps_ 4y ago
No, machine learning to identify the fungi is the problem: > So he did what he thought was the responsible thing: he used the plant identification app on his phone to determine the species of mushroom. I consider myself a beginner at foraging wild mushrooms, and even I can tell that the apps are laughably bad at identifying them.
- sva_ 4y ago
  I think they can give you a first idea of what you should be searching for, if you find a specimen you have no name for. From there on you'll have to figure out what is similar, edible, and grows in your area; and in particular, how the edible ones are different from inedible/poisonous ones. It is usually just a few. I can't fathom eating some wild fungi without doing this kind of due diligence, blindly trusting an app.
hutzlibu 4y ago
"machine learning could be used to visually identify fungi" Even if the recognition rate would be way better - NOPE. There are mushrooms that look really identical - but one is deadly poisenous and the other good to eat. Some mushrooms you can only identify by slicing them up, smelling, watch color change, look for certain small details under the top - and where they grow. With current state of ML, you can get only a very rough classification and I doubt that changes anytime soon. Portable DNA sequencing sounds better, but I am sceptical, if the tech is mature enough. (If it is, sign me up, but it sounds expensive, they do not even have a price tag)
pfdietz 4y ago
This sounds like a problem that can be solved by - not eating wild mushrooms

collegeburner 4y ago

dang 4y ago
Would you please stop the unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments? We had to ask you about this just recently and you've continued to do it. That's not cool. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please fix this, we'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

thebetatester 4y ago

Not to be that guy but it's a little annoying that this has been used and safe for years in Europe but the FDA wants to gather more data but was perfectly okay supporting mandates for the covid vaccine that hadn't received near the amount of testing.

nkurz 4y ago

Since no one has done it yet, I'll ask the obvious question about the FDA: how many people die or need a liver transplant each year because the FDA is being unreasonable here? Here's some quotes from the article: Approximately 40% of people who ingest the deadly Amanita mushrooms die or require a liver transplant, according to Dr. Pierre Gholam, the liver specialist at University Hospitals who treated Hickman. ... They immediately began preparing an application to the FDA for the emergency use of an investigational antidote – that if administered within 72 hours of ingestion can prevent liver damage and death in almost every patient who receives it. The drug, called Silibinin, is derived from the milk thistle plant and given intravenously. It has been available in Europe for over 30 years, but here in the United States it has yet to be approved by the FDA, so it is not stocked in hospitals or pharmacies. The result is that in order to obtain it for patients, an emergency use application must be submitted to the FDA for every patient who needs it, after which it is flown in by courier directly from the FDA laboratory in Philadelphia. “This literally takes an army of people working after hours,” said Gholam. “There are tireless, really unsung heroes at the UH research office who make this happen for every patient – they have to do this over and over and over.” Forty-seven times in the last 10 years to be exact. The biggest enemy in this process, says Gholam, is time. If the drug is administered after the 72-hour window closes, the chances of a full recovery drop dramatically. Making licensed physicians jump through these hoops while risking their patients lives should be a criminal offense. Yes, it's great that this particular patient survived, but there needs to be a better cost benefit analysis for drug approval. Almost certainly, there are patients who have suffered permanent damage or death because of the difficulty of obtaining this drug. What benefit is there to making this drug so hard to get? How many people miss the time window because of these requirements? How safe does a drug need to be if result of not getting it is a 40% chance of death or a liver transplant?

colechristensen 4y ago
Couldn’t the patient just take a bunch of the milk thistle supplements available at most pharmacies?
- EdwardDiego 4y ago

base3 4y ago

Amanita tortellini

aGHz 4y ago

Several comments here advise getting a good mushroom identification book instead of relying on plant id apps for foraging. Do you have any recommendations? And more generally, how would you go about assessing the trustworthiness of any such book?

microjim 4y ago
Often localised ID or reference books can become like bibles. Consult your local mycologists or fungi enthusiast groups!
mordechai9000 4y ago
Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora Edit: this is the definitive resource for serious amateur mushroom enthusiasts in North America. It has a wealth of information on understanding the identifying characteristics of mushrooms, as well as keys to aid in the identification of many common genera and species. It's one of those books I find entertaining just to open and read at random. YMMV.
- micro_cam 4y ago
  This is the Bible. his pocket guide is great as well and much easier to carry. he himself is quite the legend as well.
anm89 4y ago
There is no one right answer to this question. Find someone locally who is into mushrooming and ask them what is the best guide for your area.

_yb2s 4y ago

Silibinin is the active ingredient in milk thistle, a supplement available at almost any health food store. Do doctors not know this or are they just letting people die rather than prescribe an OTC nutraceutical? Or is there some reason it absolutely must be delivered intravenously? That seems unlikely since it is orally bioavailable. Edit: I found this, which suggests that it should work in theory, but intense vomiting from the poisoning probably makes it not possible to take a large dose orally: http://bayareamushrooms.org/poisonings/silymarin.html http://bayareamushrooms.org/poisonings/silymarin.html

ericbarrett 4y ago
OTC supplements in the U.S. are also notoriously under-regulated. Impurities and false labeling abound. I don't see a medical professional using them for a critically ill patient if there is a viable alternative. In fact supplements already cause 20% of liver failures nationwide: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/liver-damage-from-supplements-is-on-the-rise/ https://www.consumerreports.org/health/liver-damage-from-sup...

ghostpepper 4y ago

The headline is "A Rash" of poisonings but no other ones are described. Is it actually common for people to think an app is trustworthy for this?

dmitrybrant 4y ago

I've been foraging mushrooms for 30+ years, and I triple-check every single specimen before cooking it. The idea of a novice forager using an app to identify mushrooms is... unconscionable! Like... breathtakingly stupid. I've commented on this before, but it continues to baffle me how poorly-educated our public is about wild plants, berries, and mushrooms. And stories like this just perpetuate the fear (and stigma?) around foraging, when in fact there's a whole universe of flavors and textures to be had from wild mushrooms that are simply better, and more fun, than the grocery store.

KerrAvon 4y ago
Curiosity: do you find that you (at 30+ years) are so good at identification in the wild that you don’t find any “bad” specimens once you get them home, or do you still catch some outliers where you needed to look at them more closely? Or does the process involve taking them home for closer examination?
- dmitrybrant 4y ago
  To be honest I don't recall the last time I've ever accidentally picked up a poisonous specimen along with the good ones I was intending to pick. At this point it's such second-nature that telling apart an edible vs. poisonous mushroom is like telling a bottle of milk from a bottle of Drano. And yet I still examine each one at home before putting it in the pot. The other thing is that the truly deadly varieties, such as the subject of this article - Amanita phalloides, are really not that hard to avoid. When you're a novice forager, there are plenty of varieties that don't look remotely like Amanita, and are much easier to differentiate. There are some hardcore foragers who even consume certain varieties of Amanita (some of which are edible!), but to me this would be too much of a hassle, since it would involve spore prints and maybe even microscopy of the spores to be absolutely sure.
  - ncann 4y ago
    I think I read somewhere before about how if a mushroom is white, then stay away from it. How true is this from your experience?

roywiggins 4y ago

"Gholam says that the process of FDA approval for Silibinin is slow, primarily because it only works for amatoxin poisoning, from the Amanita mushroom species. Those poisonings are rare – so gathering enough data to satisfy the safety and efficacy requirements of the FDA takes time." Okay, but there must be data, since the EU approved it based on something, right?

BurningFrog 4y ago
Sure, a rational version of FDA would accept it based on EU approval data. But that's not the FDA we have.
- ratsmack 4y ago
  With the FDA, you need to follow the money.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    Did you? Where did it lead?
    - junofan 4y ago
      It’s pretty well-known that a big reason there’s no cross-border approval pathway is that the FDA is partially funded by user fees.
      - BurningFrog 4y ago
        Interesting! Haven't heard that before, but it does make sense.
    - ratsmack 4y ago
      There are many paths: https://mises.org/wire/legacy-corruption-fda-and-big-pharma https://mises.org/wire/legacy-corruption-fda-and-big-pharma
- 4y ago

anm89 4y ago

I think this gives people the wrong impression that mushroom foraging is dangerous. It isn't. Anyone can quickly learn to identify the safe edible species around them. But the key is, you have to understand that you should know upfront what species around you, in your current season, are edible and eat only exactly those species. For example, almost anyone can learn to identify chicken of the woods, morels, oysters, and maitake and safely pick them with very minimal training. Trusting some app without context is an obviously stupid move IMO though and not surprising that people are getting hurt if that's how they are approaching foraging.

yosito 4y ago
> the key is, you have to understand that you should know upfront what species around you, in your current season, are edible and eat only exactly those species This is missing a very important factor, which is that there are some edible species with highly toxic lookalikes. These lookalikes are quite common in Ohio, hence why poisonings from misidentified mushrooms are also common.
- Matticus_Rex 4y ago
  Which Ohio edibles have highly toxic lookalikes? There are two, but I'm guessing you're not basing this off of actual knowledge. If you avoid those two, you can forage dozens of other edibles easily. It's not hard to avoid those two (and their entire genus, though there are some easily-distinguished edibles in the genus as well).
- anm89 4y ago
  Operative word being safe: > learn to identify the safe edible species The whole point is you shouldn't just run around picking stuff up, taking a run at an identification, and then popping it in your mouth. You should go out already knowing what you are willing to pick based off of what can safely be picked in your area. Safe here means no edible look a likes (or that you know how to differentiate with confidence)

yosito 4y ago

I'm from Ohio, and even before the apps, it was common to hear stories about people being poisoned by mushrooms. It's also relatively well known (though not well enough, obviously) that there are several species of toxic mushrooms that look nearly identical to edible ones. Perhaps people think an app is going to be infallible. I really think app stores ought to pull any mushroom-identifying app that doesn't come with a prominent warning. I live in Hungary now. Here we have mushroom identification centers at the local markets where we can bring mushrooms collected in the wild to be identified by professional mycologists. Maybe Ohio needs this as well.

1letterunixname 4y ago
And approve a life-saving drug that's already proven in Europe. It seems reckless and stupid to not immediately approve it given the impact.
- notch656a 4y ago
  I'm no fan of the FDA, but it's worth noting Europeans said the same about thalidomide and thankfully America didn't listen. In 1960, Kelsey was hired by the FDA in Washington, D.C. At that time, she "was one of only seven full-time and four young part-time physicians reviewing drugs"[4] for the FDA. One of her first assignments at the FDA was to review an application by Richardson-Merrell for the drug thalidomide (under the tradename Kevadon) as a tranquilizer and painkiller with specific indications to prescribe the drug to pregnant women for morning sickness. Although it had been previously approved in Canada and more than 20 European and African countries,[8] she withheld approval for the drug and requested further studies.[3] Despite pressure from thalidomide's manufacturer Grünenthal, Kelsey persisted in requesting additional information to explain an English study that documented peripheral neuritis,[9] a nervous system side effect.[4] She also requested data showing the drug was not harmful to the fetus.[9] Kelsey's insistence that the drug should be fully tested prior to approval was vindicated when the births of deformed infants in Europe were linked to thalidomide ingestion by their mothers during pregnancy.[10][11] Researchers discovered that the thalidomide crossed the placental barrier and caused serious birth defects.[7] This is why America does independent review of results obtained from Europe.

allisdust 4y ago

I never understood why people don't just eat store bought mushrooms. Why risk liver failure and other serious health complications not to mention countless hours of hospital time over something as trivial as eating wild mushrooms. Why not teach in school explicitly to not eat wild mushrooms and may be teach how to farm safe varieties if someone desperately needs to eat their own picked ones.

Ekaros 4y ago
Why do people cook food and not buy it only from restaurants with rigorous health and safety checks in place? Could avoid lot of food poisonings that way.
- allisdust 4y ago
  I'm not sure its comparable ? Cooking food at home would be more hygienic than however rigorously maintained restaurant.
Matticus_Rex 4y ago
It's trivially easy to avoid toxic species, though. If you put in a tiny amount of effort into learning and limit yourself to thinks without toxic lookalikes (or put in more effort into learning), you are not risking liver failure and hospital time.
- BostonEnginerd 4y ago
  The rash of poisonings makes it sound like avoiding toxic species isn’t that trivial.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    It is trivial though. Nearly every mushroom death in the US has come from one of two species, and they can be accurately described in minutes. Nearly all of the deaths come from people who don't know this tiny baseline of information. I would caution anyone who doesn't know what a death cap or a destroying angel is to avoid wild foraging.

silisili 4y ago

If there's one thing I've learned in my life about mushrooms, it's that there are way, way more varieties than you think, and for any 1 there are 20 that look the same. I used to hang out on r/mycology, and even experts would ask tons of questions before even making a guess. There's no way in hell an app can do this reliably, and while I hate to say it, I hope people sue them into oblivion. This isn't something benign like hotdog or not, or bird ID. This has fatal consequences...

bergenty 4y ago
If a human can do it using only visual and geographical cues, an app is definitely capable of the same.

dvh 4y ago

Just don't eat any mushrooms with stripes and limit yourself to boletus in say first 20 years of your mushroom hunting career.

pctrsq0perenl 4y ago

Foraging and telling apart edible mushrooms from the non-edible ones seems like a nice hobby to have. Are there any good reliable books that I can read to get started?

Matticus_Rex 4y ago
Almost definitely, but which one depends on where you live since species vary so drastically from place to place. The best way to find out is to look for a Facebook group for foraging in your state or city and ask which books are best for there. Many areas also have good beginner programs or events that teach some basics of a few easy edibles that have no toxic lookalikes.

alkonaut 4y ago

Just go after a specific kind of mushroom and one that doesn’t have any close lookalikes and it’s very easy to safely pick mushrooms. Next level up from picking a single one is to pick a few known kinds which all have distinct features that can’t be confused with others. I pick only boletus, chanterellus (which has a bad lookalike in North America but it’s not really that close and where I am in Europe there is no really poisonous lookalike at all). Even easier late in autumn when you can pick various cratherellus and there are almost no other mushrooms at all.

methyl 4y ago
There is a lookalike for chanterellus in Europe: Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygrophoropsis_aurantiaca https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygrophoropsis_aurantiaca
- peer2pay 4y ago
  Yes, but this one is fairly easily distinguished and will also not harm you unless consumed in great quantities.
- alkonaut 4y ago
  Yes, but not one I worry about. It’s both not known to be very poisonous (it’s surely eaten quite a lot) and it’s very easily distinguished from the real thing.

flohofwoe 4y ago

Jeez, trusting an image recogition app for identifying mushrooms is nearly Darwin Award level of stupidity. In my "corner of the woods" the wise elders say to not even go mushroom foraging in regions that are a just a couple hundred kilometers away, because the mushrooms look slightly different there (at least when it comes to the mushrooms that are called 'Champignons' in German (lat. Agaricus)).

lqet 4y ago

Highly recommended read, written by someone who narrowly survived eating Amanita Virosa: https://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/11/22/i-survived-the-destroying-angel/ https://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/11/22/i-survived-the-...

trhr 4y ago

Hahahahahaha. Imagine using something from the App Store to identify mushrooms instead of a reference book that is specifically written to keep you alive.

yieldcrv 4y ago
I would say there is a case for warning labels in identification apps. especially when mushrooms are identified. The apps themselves are really good. If you haven't used some popular ones I would say you're being too dismissive. But those apps were never for finding something to eat, and especially not for finding mushrooms to eat. I can see how this isn't as Darwinian as I would otherwise lean toward.
- trhr 4y ago
  I will trust my own intelligence over artificial intelligence any day.

luxurytent 4y ago

Wannabe mushroom foragers spend plenty of energy trying to identify what is edible, but they also need to spend that same amount of energy (if not more) in understanding what is not edible. Educate from both sides, or risk death

nokya 4y ago

"All mushrooms are comestible. Some only once." (can't remember the source, but that spoke to me)

e12e 4y ago
"There exists kinds of mushroom that can feed you until the end of your life if eaten once."

lightedman 4y ago

X-identification apps are utter garbage. Almost all of them fail critically on simple things. The rock identification apps are some of the absolute worst.

brycemice 4y ago

I am an novice mycologist and I just find it ridiculous that theres people out there picking mushrooms, cooking and eating them without ever having the knowledge of the species of mushrooms that grow in their region. Anyone picking and eating mushys without knowning the harmful species in their regions are simply asking for it. Do it and its only a matter of time before you or your app make a mistake and you end up in the hospital or a coffin. But regardless I'll break down the best practices in identifying mushys. 1. When ID'ing mushrooms look for 3 points of comparison. Never go on one comparison. Any good mushy ID's will document size shape color smell bruising color. 2. Use more than 1 set of eyes. Just because your convinced doesn't mean your right. Post pictures to a forum and get some other eyes on the specimen and make sure your ID is confirmed. 3. From my experience the best place to start and ID is the medium its growing in. Soil Wood Excreta Moist Dry Sunny Time of Day. Find as many points of comparison as possible and when in doubt DONT EAT THE GD THING!

jeffrallen 4y ago
Mushroom advice you get on the internet should only be used by people who also get legal advice on the Internet.