[jlittel]

As a beginner, I found it helpful to

- get a regional guidebook

- attend a mycology society foray

You can start with mushrooms that have no poisonous look-alikes, and gradually build confidence in your identification skills.

I do see a lot of troubling Facebook posts asking if a big heap of different mushrooms are edible.

You do have to put in some work to be able to identify a lot of different species. As a bonus though, I've leave a lot about trees and natural systems in general.

[oneTbrain23]

Avoid foraging. That will remove a whole class of unnecessary hazard. There is near zero benefits in foraging. Any nutrients can easily be gained from modern processed food and supplements. The cost savings in foraging cannot be justify with death or hospitalization. In fact the time wasted foraging can easily earn hundreds of dollars to but more expensive organic food. If it is for apocalypse scenario, learning to be weapon expert have way higher retur s than be a greatest foragers. Unless it is purely for thrill x factor seekers? Then dying is necessary to induce the excitement of knowing one has probability of dying from foraging.

[wreckdropibex]

You live in your world, but others live in their worlds. It _feels_ like you have a strong opinion about something that you don't have much experience from.

Foraging can be a fun and addictive hobby. Many people learn foraging from their parents and can very safely forage for mushrooms/berries/plants that they identify. It is not (just) about optimizing for nutrients, supplements, costs, apocalypses, whatever. People do stuff for other reasons as well; the joy of finding stuff can be addictive, walking in nature is likely good for you, walking overall is definitely good for you, eating food provided by yourself can give a warm and cozy feeling, and so on.

"Time wasted foraging can easily earn hundreds of dollars", dunno what consultant bubble you live in, but that is not the case for most of the world. People can not automatically just go convert time to money, not that many would even want to. Foraging can be a lot more rewarding than grinding away in some meaningless uber-for-whatever-gig-work.

Also, it seems for example going to earn extra money from Uber etc kills more people than mushrooms in the US (... where I am assuming you are from).

> In the United States, mushroom poisoning kills an average of about 3 people a year. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_poisoning

> at least 50 gig drivers for companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash had been killed while on the job in the United States [between 2017-2022] > https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/business/uber-lyft-driver...

[baggy_trough]

The benefit is that wild mushrooms taste much better than store bought.