cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39826218
California officials are warning foragers after an outbreak of poisoning linked to wild mushrooms that has killed one adult and caused severe liver damage in several patients, including children.
The state poison control system has identified 21 cases of amatoxin poisoning, likely caused by death cap mushrooms, the health department said Friday. The toxic wild mushrooms are often mistaken for edible ones because of their appearance and taste.
“Death cap mushrooms contain potentially deadly toxins that can lead to liver failure,” Erica Pan, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “Because the death cap can easily be mistaken for edible safe mushrooms, we advise the public not to forage for wild mushrooms at all during this high-risk season.”
A sudden uptick like this makes me think that AI photo ID apps may be to blame. They’re nortoriously bad at identifying mushrooms partially because it’s impossible to ID many mushrooms from a single photo which is unlikely to show all the features needed.
If you are using an app that gives you a little AI blurb the language/tone it uses makes it sound like there can be no mistake. For some people that’s all they need. Last week I saw someone post about how grok had “definitively” ID’d this person’s mushroom as Pluteus cervinus from one photo. It was very clearly Hypholoma fasciculare.
I had to look up what possible edible someone might confuse with a death cap.
Apparently there’s an Asian mushroom that can be confused with death caps. The secret to not confusing it with a death cap is knowing it doesn’t grow in the US. I wonder if this is AI identification going amok, or if there are people from Asia who are foraging it and not realizing the problem until too late.
A sad reminder to make sure your foraging guide is tailored to the area you are in.
Crazy that people don’t know how to validate what they forage when there are deadly lookalikes. If you pick a yellow/white/green tinged cap with white gills, obvious attached annulus and a white volva, toss it aside, especially if you don’t know what any of that means. Foraging is fun, but there are far safer varieties that are easier to ID.
Yeah, agaricus in general. Just too many lookalikes and most are not pleasant. I don’t mess with those either.
Rather, don’t touch it, and if you do, wash your hands (in the woods? Come up with something that does not bruise!). These things might have so high load that even stains or spores could screw you up.
is that right? i thought it was safe to chew up death caps as long as you dont swallow any
I dont think you can absorb it through your skin regardless. At least, afaik. I’ve been handling them with bare hands every season for years now, hopefully i’m not doomed
You are correct. Taste is actually a common part of identification. You have to digest it to get hurt. But I personally just don’t mess with ID’ing agaricus. There are a few choice primo ones, a couple that will kill you, and a whole bunch that are just bleh, and might make you violently vomit. And they are just so close in appearance, I leave them be.
Which Agaricus will kill you? I’m not aware of any in the PNW.
Edit: I think I remember having this conversation before, you’re using “Agaricus” to mean “all gilled mushrooms” like it’s the 18th century instead of what it actually means today.
Using Agaricus to include Amanitas. And several of my current books still do that.
I would maybe start saying ‘agarics’ instead to prevent confusion.
Fair advice, thanks
according to iNat observations A. phalloides is found in that area, though uncommon
That’s an Amanita, not an Agaricus.
haha my bad, idk why i thought i read Amanita
All mushrooms are safe to handle with bare hands. Sure, if you’ve spent the whole day groping death caps you might want to rinse off but you really don’t need to wash after touching a mushroom. You actually have to ingest to be poisoned. As far as I know, spores are only harmful if the get into the lungs regularly over a prolonged period and that goes for all spores, not just ones from toxic mushrooms.
Mostly you want to wash your hands because mushrooms tend to be covered in dirt/leaves/duff.
Yeah, I can do all that but I draw the line at larvae, as dumb as that sounds. Irrational fear, but I’m getting better haha
yeah, it’s all safe through the skin. It’s just that you can always accidentally scratch an eye, or something along the lines. Furthermore, there are toddlers (that’s why I’m a bit overly careful here, lol) that just mess things up randomly, like lick their/your hands, put things in places they shouldn’t be. We don’t really even know for certain how dangerous spores are too, all known cases could be explained by other delivery methods IMO, but is it really worth the risk when being safe on this stage is trivial?
Definitely worth the risk for me, I can’t improve my skills let alone ID a mushroom if I don’t pick it up and get a good look. If you aren’t comfortable with it that’s fine but telling people to just not touch mushrooms doesn’t help anyone because no one has ever died or become sick from touching a mushroom.
These things might have so high load that even stains or spores could screw you up.
We once found one of these beauties: deadly poisonous raw, delicious when cooked seven times. I only touched it, and must have put my fingers to my mouth later: strong headaches and stomach pain for the rest of the day.
Unfortunately researchers seem to believe that no amount of cooking removes all the toxins, and in some countries, like Sweden and Finland, where it’s among the most valued mushrooms to pick, it’s adviced not to use them for food anymore.
It’s even worse: they differ in edibility across the globe. I’ve eaten them some times, they are mostly tasty because when they sprout in Spring it’s mostly nothing else available; cooking is extremely important (it’s more like 2 boilings really, 7 is a bit exaggerated). And worst part: apparently they also have some unwashable slow accumulating toxin that seems to cause cancer over loooong time. Well, still quite tempting, but I kind of try to keep away from this stuff - Finland is somewhat close to border where they might become too dangerous. To mess with me, they produce huge crops in my forest - that my friends are happy to take. Well then my forest also produces large amounts of Cortinarius rubellus that they also attempt to collect occasionally. I force them to wash their hands after showing and explaining to them ID - I mean, yeah, it’s safe to just touch them, it’s just if you went so far as collect them in the wild with intention to eat, I probably shouldn’t trust you to know what you are doing, which is exactly thee requirement to be able to chew and spit out a deadly mushroom with no harm to yourself.
There is a white mushroom that is edible that looks strikingly similar to a death cap that grows in the pacific northwest. There is like one structural difference and if you rely on AI images or identification apps there is an extremely high probability of misidentification, don’t bet your life on something so stupid
we advise the public not to forage for wild mushrooms at all
This is what I always do, exactly for the reasons layed out.
I once got confident enough to trust myself with a handful of species. My father taught me, and I’d maintain that a book alone just isn’t enough, you need a person who lives in those parts. But then I moved to a different country and they all look slightly different here and I’m basically back to zero.
Maybe don’t stop snap then.
Don’t eat those who eat the dead after you poisened everything. Duh.
I saw a post from a vet today on one of the ID forums, a dog had eaten a mushroom and was very ill. Preliminary ID was A. phalloides. Absolutely heartbreaking, I’d never get over that.
As dumb as raw milk.
