Four people have died and three others have required liver transplants after eating the aptly named death cap mushroom that is proliferating in California following a rainy winter.
The California Department of Public Health is urging people to avoid mushroom foraging altogether this year because death cap mushrooms are easily confused with safe, edible varieties.
Since Nov. 18 there have been more than three dozen cases of death cap poisonings reported, including the four deaths and three liver transplants, according to the health department. Many who sought medical attention suffered from rapidly evolving acute liver injury and liver failure. Several patients required admission to an intensive care unit. They have ranged in age from 19 months to 67 years old.
The death cap is one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world and is part of a small group of mushrooms containing amatoxins, which are highly potent compounds causing 90% of fatal mushroom poisonings globally. They are in city parks and in forests, often under oak trees.
I appreciate the intent here, but overall, I don’t think it helps with the specific phrasing here.
Some mushrooms contain toxins, in fact, depending on what specific mushroom and what specific toxin it contains it can be cooked out in some cases. In fact, it is common practice to not cover wild mushrooms while cooking as the process of cooking them allows them to evaporate and leave during the process of cooking.
Some mushrooms are differentiated based on ‘tasting’ a small bit of it–in certain safe cases. But this is part of investigating and trying to find out what you are dealing with. This is one or the practices used to differentiate mushrooms taxonomically–again in some specific and known cases.
Saying “You cannot taste mushroom toxins” and that “they taste just like any other mushroom” assumes you have tasted every mushroom and have some sense of what that might taste like–it’s not something that can be taken seriously.
What damage is done when you injest a ‘poisonous mushroom’ depends on the toxin and the amount, it is utterly dependent on what specific toxin is involved, how much was injested and the specifics of the person who has injested it. Even choice edible mushrooms may cause gastrointestinal distress to somebody who has an innate allergy or is predisposed to such sensitivity. Some mushrooms contain componensts that don’t mix well with alcohol for instance–so the entirety of the meal eaten in the evening should be taken into account when preparing wild edible mushrooms.
In the case of the “Death Cap” mushroom, the consequences are well known, severe and devastating. No need to make the toxicity somehow mysterious or exotic–it’s well understood.
Again, if you are curious and want to understand more start here: https://namyco.org/
No need to continue spreading vague terminology or half-reasoned guesses.
You aren’t really providing the helpful exchange you think you are here, and you are literally personifying that final point I made there.
At this point I’m willing to admit that this applies to the both of us!
No, I kept it simple and gave broad guidelines for staying safe if you’re a casual browser who doesn’t know a lot. It was a well-received comment according to votes. Your comment came off contentious and pedantic and was not as well received. This is about communication not textbooks.
Yeah, you wouldn’t want to be pedantic when death is on the line.
Nobody is going to learn everything they need to be safe from making mistakes in mushroom collecting on a fucking Lemmy post. So I kept my pointers broad and applicable to a large swath of people and situations.
I sure as shit ain’t going to tell people “No no, you really can tell poison mushrooms apart by taste” like some people here are insisting.