| As so many others have said, this article is dangerous for your health. Firstly, how can mushroms harm you? 1. The most common case - rotten mushrooms. Mushrooms live in interesting places. If your mushroom has begun to rot and you did not watch out, then you will suffer from food poisoning. Beginners are hardly able to tell whether a mushroom is fresh. 2. Mushrooms that have not been prepared properly. Must mushrooms are poisonous, if eaten raw. Some can be stir fried, but there are species where every part of the mushroom must be given full heat for at least a quarter of an hour. Ignore this, and you will regret it. 3. Personal intolerance - quite some species are known to be digestible by some and to give bad reactions to others. This may even mean death. Learn that carefully, and go step by step when you try them while avoiding the all too dangerous stuff. 4. Poisonous in the strict sense. When one explains mushrooms to inexperienced people, you have to teach them about the defining features of a certain species. This means that if any of the features is not clear, different, or missing, then they may not eat the mushroom. "I believe" is ok, just do not eat it. In detail: Puffballs - he must be joking. There are too many of them, and the beginner will not even understand what to look for. Chanterelles - he even mentions the Jack O'Lantern without specifying the specific difference. That difference is ridges instead of gills. Further, there are many mushrooms with ridges, but I dare anyone to explain the similarity of a ridge of a chanterelle to a ridge of a trumpet of the dead (do not let the name scare you). Oyster mushrooms - oh yes, they can be mistaken. Saying that they are difficult to mistake depends on the knowledge of the person and that may vary wildly. Chicken of the woods - there is a persistent rumor that it is poisonous, if it grows on a poisonous tree. You will need botanic knowledge to be safe. Hen of the woods - not even this one is foolproof. King bolete - too little detail given, while many people still believe that all mushrooms with pores are edible. This is a dangerous and wrong belief. Lion's mane - I bet money on that there are people who will mistake an old hedgehog mushroom for a lion's mane. |