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A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

cleveland.com

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Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#21

Post by chernofool »

voisin wrote: post #7
kornhole wrote: post #3

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 se…

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.

Bad idea for mushrooms. Some of them are insidious - you could feel fine for several hours while your liver is destroyed, and by the time you feel sick it's too late to do anything.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#22

Post by monetus »

chrisgd wrote: post #16

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.

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"

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#24

Post by jhauris »

chrisgd wrote: post #16

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.

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.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#25

Post by smegsicle »

neilv wrote: post #11

> 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.

a mushroom identification app that doesn't draw attention to toxic lookalikes sounds pretty close to criminally negligent

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#26

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #23

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

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.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#27

Post by hutzlibu »

chrisgd wrote: post #16

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.

"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.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#28

Post by sva_ »

_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #26
pazimzadeh wrote: post #23

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

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.

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.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#29

Post by eyelidlessness »

chrisgd wrote: post #16

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.

I have mild and pedestrian taste for mushrooms and I’m satisfied by grocery offerings, but no there aren’t plenty of options at the grocery store. Some different presentations of button mushrooms is common, and maybe shiitakes. More varieties are sometimes available at some farmers markets, generally cultivated, and even still they don’t offer many varieties found in the wild.

It’s not the potential risk. Mushroom hunters are usually both very careful and very knowledgeable, or at least very careful to defer to people who are very knowledgeable. And a lot of them are either chefs or supplying chefs. For everyone else I t’s mostly because the variety available is so much more limited than you portrayed, and because mushroom hunting is a hobby some people enjoy either for its own sake or for the context of being in the woods to forage for that’s own sake.

Re: A rash of nearly lethal mushroom poisonings in Ohio

#30

Post by eyelidlessness »

monetus wrote: post #22
chrisgd wrote: post #16

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.

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"

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.
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