Bad mushrooms

Mushroom season is approaching and there are so many beautiful mushrooms in the woods. While it might be tempting to pick the mushrooms you, not all mushrooms you are finding are edible.

Some mushrooms might be just bitter and not very tasty, but many are really poisonous and consumption of just a piece might be lethal, especially for small children.

The deadly mushrooms are distributed throughout Europe and might be mistaken for edible varieties. Almost every edible variety of mushrooms has it’s poisonous doppelgänger. Accidental consumption of poisonous mushrooms leads to severe liver toxicity and can have lethal consequences if immediate treatment is not provided.

The safest way to consume mushrooms is to only eat store bought mushrooms. If you are really enthusiastic about picking your own mushrooms in the forest, reach out to people who are very knowledgeable about mushrooms. They better be true experts. In some places around the world you can find guides, who offer paid excursions and will teach you to recognise edible mushrooms.

Try to learn one or two very common varieties of edible mushrooms and pick only those. Make sure you know all the poisonous doppelgängers of this varieties. So you can distinguish poisonous mushrooms from edible ones.

Never ever except mushrooms other non-experts collected, for example while camping or from your neighbours.

There are so many accidents and even death caused by consuming poisonous mushrooms each year. It’s even possible to consume a deadly mushroom by accident, for example by accepting a dish someone made with fresh or dried self-picked mushrooms. Or when children eat a mushroom in the forest when not supervised. Poisonous mushrooms and edible mushrooms can look a lot alike so you might eat a poisonous mushroom even if you are pretty sure you know what you are doing.Be especially careful when you are far away from the hospital and cannot seek immediate help if something goes wrong. If you cannot afford going to the hospital, this is one more reason for not eating wild mushrooms.

Here is the video depicting some of the poisonous mushrooms you should not be eating. But there are so many more poisonous mushrooms out there.

For the ones who came for the raw food recipes, consuming wild mushrooms raw is not safe for so many reasons. Better even thinking about eating wild mushrooms raw at all.

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I'm passionate about eating the best food possible. I always buy organic and try to shop zero waste, in bulk and to support local farmers. For me, the people and the planet.