"If It Bruises Blue, It's Toxic!" — And Other Mushroom Myths

[Music] greetings everyone I'm Adam Harrington and in this video we are going to go over some myths surrounding the foraging the harvesting and a consumption of wild mushrooms if you've been interested in foraging mushrooms or perhaps you have been forging mushrooms for many years you've probably come across some statements that may or may not be true perhaps you've read some things in books or have seen people post things online or you heard from a neighbor or heard from a great-uncle about their experiences foraging mushrooms and you heard some general rules of thumb that sound kind of fishy and you're wondering if they hold any firm basis in reality and I've been teaching the skills involved in foraging mushrooms for many years so I've heard all different kinds of general rules of thumb or general statements that are actually just myths whenever you look at them so that's what we're going to do in this video explore some of these myths surrounding the foraging the harvesting and the consumption of wild mushrooms number one if a mushroom was growing on a tree then it is safe for consumption this is entirely a myth and it's one that I hear quite often surprisingly yes there are plenty of aníbal mushrooms that grow directly on trees mushrooms like oyster mushrooms chicken of the woods the beefsteak polypore and plenty others many medicinal mushrooms grow directly on trees as well however there are plenty of poisonous mushrooms that grow directly on trees whether the trees are living or dead such mushrooms would include a deadly gallerina gallerina marginata jack-o'-lantern mushrooms grow directly from wood - oh ma fascicle arey the sulfur topped mushroom even the poisoned pigskin puffball which can grow to rest early but oftentimes it's found growing directly on wood all of these are considered to be toxic fungi and they grow directly on trees so just because the mushroom is growing on a tree that says nothing about its edibility status and there are many mushrooms that grow directly on trees where the edibility status is unknown so just because the mushroom is growing on a tree does not mean it's edible does not mean it's medicinal does not mean it's poisonous it just means that it's growing on a tree number two there are no toxic polypore mushrooms this is a myth now I remember when I first started forging wild mushrooms that I was told that there are no toxic polypore mushrooms later I learned that there are toxic polypore mushrooms and if you're unfamiliar with polypore mushrooms these are typically shelf-like mushrooms that typically grow on trees though there are exceptions and on the underside of the cap you will see that there's a poor surface which is actually a surface comprised of tubes that end in pores many pores hence that term polypore now there is at least one toxic polypore here in North America and there probably are more than the one that is well-known is the tender nesting polypore papal appleís niggle ins also known as hapless ruta lands this is a brown cinnamon brown annual fungus that grows directly on wood and you look at the underside of the cap and you see that there is a poor surface so this is a poly pore that contains a toxic compound known as pelipper ik acid it contains a lot of it up to 40% of the dry weight of this fungus is pelipper ik acid and if you would ingest enough of plethoric acid this would lead to this regulation of central nervous system function as well as kidney dysfunction so you definitely do not want to consume that polypore mushroom so there are toxic polypore mushrooms that's just one there are probably more but just because a mushroom is a polypore does not mean that it's safe for consumption number three if an animal eats it then it is safe for human consumption this is a myth just because you see a wild animal consuming a wild mushroom that doesn't mean that that mushroom is safe for you many wild animals can consume mushrooms that are toxic for human beings but they are edible for those animals so it should come as no surprise that there are a lot of mycologist animals in nature and perhaps the most commonly observed my Cottages mammals include squirrels and chipmunks but a lot of other animals consume mushrooms a lot of beetles slugs and insects consume mushrooms and just because you see these animals and insects and slugs consuming mushrooms again it doesn't mean it's edible for you feeding trials and field observations have shown that particularly squirrels and small rodents can consume some seriously toxic mushrooms for human beings but they're edible for those animals and also just because a wild animal is eating it doesn't mean that that mushroom is safe for your pet cows chickens horses and dogs can get very sick eating some mushrooms that would be edible for wild animals so just because an animal's consuming a wild mushroom that doesn't mean that it's edible for you number four touching a poisonous mushroom is dangerous this is a myth I touch poisonous mushrooms all the time any time I'm trying to identify poisonous mushroom I'm touching it a lot of people touch poisonous mushrooms and they are fine you can't absorb the toxins transdermally through your skin you'd have to eat the toxic mushroom in order for it to exert its effects on your body so you can safely touch just about any wild mushroom that's out there whether it's toxic or not now of course there are exceptions because some people are sensitive to certain mushrooms for example there's a genus known as the sue Willis genus which largely houses edible mushrooms and the caps of many soil species are slimy and sticky and some people are sensitive to that and they develop itching and redness and swelling in their skin but it's only in a few select individuals and again those are actually edible mushrooms and I enjoy eating soilless mushrooms now there might be one exception in this whole discussion about touching toxic mushrooms and that would be an Asian fungus known as Poteau stroma cornu dami now I don't have any photographs to show you so you have to look it up online I don't have any photographs because it doesn't grow where I live now that's a seriously toxic fungus you do not want to ingest it some people claim you cannot touch it either because it'll exert its toxic effects even if you touch it now it seems like it might be just a rumor that's being spread around it's hard to find any confirmation on that statement but if you're worried about touching toxic fungi maybe just be worried about potus stroma cornu dami but for the vast majority of people you could touch any wild mushroom that's out there number five smelling unknown mushrooms is dangerous this is a myth that I honestly don't hear too often but I hear it enough that I thought I'd include it in this video you could safely smell just about any wild mushroom that's out there this is a useful way to get a positive ID from any mushrooms so for instance this one smells kind of like anise or licorice she somewhat fishy somewhat mushroomy this is an oyster mushroom you just want to take some quick whiffs you don't wanna put a hood over and just inhale four minutes at a time because where the issue comes up is if you inhale a lot of spores and you were seriously immuno compromised then you could develop a respiratory illness for example there's a respiratory illness known as light go pear de gnosis which is inflammation of the lung tissue brought about because of the inhalation of a lot of mature puffball spores and puff balls can release billions if not trillions of spores that's a lot of spores and people who are immunocompromised can be seriously made ill through the inhalation of those spores there's another fungus known as schizo phylum commune which is the split Gill which has been shown to colonize certain individuals respiratory tracts after inhalation of the spores but these are in seriously immunocompromised individuals for the vast majority of people you could safely smell just about any wild mushroom that's out there number six once cooked any mushroom is safe to eat that is a myth now there are a lot of nuances to what I'm about to say because there are some toxic fungi whose toxic profiles are not reduced whatsoever whenever you cook them and there are some toxic mushrooms that are made edible after you do cook them and there are some toxic compounds that are rendered inert after cooking for example there's a compound known as a Gera teen it's a naturally derived phenol hydrazine compound that is found naturally occurring in the common button mushroom Agaricus bisporus this compound is considered to be a weak carcinogen but that compounds toxicity is mitigated after you cook that mushroom and whenever we look at some mushrooms that are considered to be toxic raw like the morel mushroom you can cook that mushroom and make it edible so morel mushrooms are toxic raw but they're rendered edible after you cook them and there are some other poisonous mushrooms that are poisonous raw but after special preparation they're rendered edible and I'm not going to get into the specifics of those ones but there are a lot of toxic fungi that remain very toxic even if you would cook them like destroying angel mushrooms Death Cap mushrooms deadly gallerina let the ODA mushrooms jack-o'-lantern mushrooms even if you cook them there's still very very toxic so once cooked not every mushroom is made edible it all depends in the mushroom it all depends in the process so you really have to learn each mushroom one at a time if they learn its edibility status one at a time number seven a silver spoon will turn black in the presence of toxic mushrooms this is clearly a myth but interestingly it's one I've heard people tell me over and over again asking me is this true is it true that if you put a silver spoon in a pot of mushrooms that are being cooked that the silver spoon will turn black if the mushrooms are toxic or if you put a silver coin in that pot of cooking mushrooms that if the mushrooms are toxic the coin will turn black well it's not true you can't put those things in a pot and a certain color change will tell you if the mushrooms are edible or not but what's interesting is that this myth goes back quite some time I'm not sure what the origins of this myth are but it goes back quite some time at least a century I was reading a book published in 1894 that was talking about this myth and debunk this myth and I'll quote the book and it says it has been believed for a long time and some persons believe it's still that a means to recognize whether a mushroom is hurtful or eatable is to use in a preparation of these plants a spoon of silver or a ring of gold if in the cooking of the mushrooms the spoon or the ring turned black it is hurtful if they remain clear it is innocent and this was from a book called about mushrooms a guide to the study of esculent and poisonous fungi again published in 1894 and this quote was actually from another book an older book it was a French book that was published in 1876 a similar meth in valle vite onions to a pot of unknown mushrooms and if the onion turns blue or brown then those mushrooms were poisonous and if the onion remains white then those mushrooms were edible now it sounds like who could believe this today in the 21st century but interestingly people still apply those general rules of thumb when attempting to identify a wild mushroom or at least to determine its edibility status for example a recent toxicology report 2012 so not too long ago in the journal nephrology dialysis transplantation reported on a 55 year old Italian woman who was admitted to the hospital with renal failure after consuming white mushrooms that she claims she had been eating her whole life and she tested the edibility status of it with a silver spoon and that silver spoon did not turn black so she ate them thinking that they were edible turns out it was destroying her kidneys and the mushroom turned out to be a nephrotoxic Amanita mushroom so you can't determine the edibility status of an unknown mush using a silver spoon or using a silver coin there are better ways to do it number eight if a mushroom bruises blue it's toxic that is a myth and now we're really talking about bull eat mushrooms these are terrestrial mushrooms to a large degree with cushiony caps with a poor surface on the underside a lot of these mushrooms form ekta mycorrhizal associations and some of these mushrooms bruise blue whenever you scratch them or whenever you slice them in half and various structures on the mushroom might turn blue and so I remember when I was learning how to identify beliefs early on I was told that if it bruises blue don't eat it because it's toxic well since then I've been eating a lot of bleep mushrooms that bruised blue including beautyrx boletus frost the eye which is frost bolete also lan malwa palate or Rosia which is another bleep mushroom that turns blue whenever you scratch it so it doesn't mean that a mushroom is toxic if it bruises blue but there are bullet mushrooms that do bruised blue and are toxic for many people for example there's a mushroom known as boletus hereon Ensis which grows mostly in association with hemlock trees it will slowly bruise blue in most instances and that has caused some serious illnesses in some people there's a genus known as rubra boletus which houses some toxic fungi that do bruised blue so just because a bleep mushroom bruises blue does not mean that it's edible does not mean that it's toxic all it means is that it bruises blue number nine if a mushroom displays bright colors it's toxic that is a myth there are a lot of brightly colored fungi that are edible a lot of brightly colored fungi might be poisonous a lot of brightly colored fungi could be considered medicinal as well so it all depends on the species I eat a lot of brightly colored mushrooms chicken of the woods is one perfect example is a genus known as the rustle of genus which houses a lot of ecto mycorrhizal fungi with beautiful brightly colored fruiting bodies many of them are edible the edibility of many is unknown and some of them are considered to be toxic the related lactarius genus houses many edible mushrooms with brightly colored fruiting bodies the Ganoderma genus is a genus of medicinal fungi and those caps are typically lacquered and red in color but they can display colors like orange and yellow as well but the reverse is also true just because a mushroom a light-colored fruiting body or a mild colored fruiting body like white that doesn't mean it's edible doesn't mean it's toxic there are many white toxic fungi many whites edible fungi as well so color doesn't determine edibility of a wild mushroom number 10 mushrooms should not be consumed with alcohol now this is a myth to a large degree but there are some nuances with what I'm about to say so definitely pay attention in the majority of cases most wild mushrooms are well tolerated when consumed with alcohol but there are some exceptions and I understand that many people watching this video have probably consumed a lot of wild mushrooms in conjunction with alcohol with no ill effects so when I say that most wild mushrooms are well tolerated when consumed in conjunction with alcohol that must mean that there are a few wild mushrooms that aren't well tolerated and that's because some wild mushrooms only a few contain a compound known as co-prime and co-prime is a toxin that interferes with alcohol metabolism and causes disulfiram like effects and disulfiram is a drug that's used to treat people who suffer from chronic alcoholism by making them very sensitive to alcohol so the effects of consuming alcohol with co-prime containing mushroom species includes rapid heart rate palpitations nausea flushing of the face tingling of extremities and headaches so which mushrooms contain co-prime while perhaps you've heard of the common ink cap mushroom also appropriately called tipplers Bane Copan OPS's at Tremont area this mushroom is considered to be edible and generally safe to consume when cooked and eaten without alcohol however it should not be consumed within 48 hours prior to or after consuming alcohol because the common ink cap mushroom contains copra and a related compound known as benzo co-prime and ingestion of this combination can cause very unpleasant disulfiram like effects now copra OPS's at German Taria is not the only wild mushroom that contains copra and benzo co-prime other wild fungi that are taxonomically placed in the same genus the copra OPS's genus and in the sections at Tremont area and also in the section by KCI are known to contain copra and benzo co-prime so those are fungi to watch out for but for the vast majority of people and vast majority of edible mushrooms are generally accepted as safe to consume in conjunction with alcohol but be aware that individual sensitivities always exist some people just can't consume for example chicken of the woods with alcohol or morel mushrooms with alcohol or hen of the woods with alcohol individual sensitivities do exist number eleven pulling up a mushroom by its roots is a poor harvesting technique this is a myth for many reasons first mushrooms don't have roots in the true sense of the word root mushroom fruiting bodies are attached to mycelium which is the vegetative network of the fungus which is largely unseen it's in the substrate in the soil or in the tree or in an insect and you might want to pull up a mushroom or at least dig around the mushroom and get the whole thing out of the ground if you want to properly identify a wild mushroom because many key identifying features can be seen at the bottom of a mushroom of course you'll want to cut a mushroom if you're just trying to harvest for the table to ensure a clean harvest but for identification purposes in many cases you want to get the whole mushroom up out of the ground and peer-reviewed research suggests that poling or cutting a mushroom really has no discernible effects on future yields of fruiting bodies nor on species richness within a given area so Polling cutting seem to be pretty comparable as far as their effects are involved on mushrooms but again if you want to clean harvest for the table for an edible mushroom I'd recommend cutting the mushroom but to get a proper identification pull it up or dig around the mushroom to get the whole entire thing number 12 you can transplant mushrooms this is a myth you cannot just cut a mushroom or pull up a mushroom take it to a new location put it in the soil or put it in a substrate and expect it to thrive in that area and the take root there because remember mushrooms don't have roots they arise from mycelium and so if you would pull up a mushroom let's say a Morel put it in a new area and see new mushrooms there the next year it would probably be because you dispersed spores to that new area or you can pull up mycelium in some instances for example in wood chips take that to another area with wood chips and if the conditions are right you might see new fruiting bodies eventually in the area maybe not the next year maybe the year after that but as far as transplanting a mushroom by cutting it or pulling it up putting it in the ground and expecting it to take root that is a myth number 13 harvesting mushrooms in mesh bags or baskets is essential for spore dispersal now this is a good sentiment and I understand the thinking in the theory you know you put actively sporulating mushrooms in your basket you walk through the woods or it's in your mesh bag and these spores are just being dispersed and you're helping to spread that species around the woods and it sounds very good and I understand the sentiment is there good intentions but keep in mind that whenever you do harvest mushrooms and the vast majority of cases millions of spores have already been released in some cases the vast majority of spores have been released and so you're not really gonna make that big of an impact by walking around the woods trying to disperse those spores through your basket or mesh bag if the mushroom is actively sporulating at the time of your harvesting then walking around the woods you'll be having the spores on your clothes and so you will be distributing the spores whether you're thinking about it or not so I see this all the time online people jump on each other's backs just because you're not harvesting in a mesh bag or a basket but keep in mind that insects are great spore dispersal agents the wind animals as well and you just naturally just walk into the woods you've got spores all over you so mesh bags are great and baskets are great and I like harvesting in baskets because it ensures a clean harvest but as far as spore dispersal just being out in the woods and touching various things I'm helping to ensure that the species that I'm going after are being dispersed through my activity out here number 14 harvesting mushrooms in plastic bags is a dangerous practice I would consider this a myth now look plastic isn't my number one choice for harvesting mushrooms I don't like to use a lot of plastic to begin with as far as harvesting mushrooms I like brown bags and wax bags mesh bags I like baskets as well I like things that aren't necessarily made of plastic however if that's all you got rather than beat yourself up over it rather than being embarrassed that all you have is a plastic bag just put the mushrooms in the plastic bag and get them the thing is you don't want to store mushrooms for too long in plastic bags but if it's all you've got in the wood instead of just piling them into your t-shirt and walking three miles out of the woods put them in the plastic bag that you have if you only have a plastic bag you'll be fine just get them home and don't store those mushrooms in the plastic bag because plastic does hasten spoilage and that's where the theory that plastic is a dangerous practice when harvesting mushrooms comes from you can harvest mushrooms in plastic bags if you don't have anything else it's fine but I wouldn't necessarily store mushrooms long-term in plastic but again my first choice would be baskets mesh bags wax bags Brown bags and all you have is plastic that's fine with me number 15 mushroom hunting is a dangerous practice this is a myth now we are getting into Micah phobia the fear of mushrooms the fear of fungi it is rampant here in the United States in the 21st century the general population fears mushrooms fears the hunting of wild mushrooms fears the consumption of wild mushrooms because we fear what we don't know we are not taught here in North America particularly in the United States anything about wild mushrooms anything about the fungal Kingdom growing up I was taught nothing about it even at my university level biology class still we didn't learn anything about mushrooms we skipped right over that you talked funny animals we talked about bacteria we talked about plants but we skipped over the fungal section so it's easy to fear what we don't know how did I get over that fear I just learned I just learned as much as I possibly could I hung out with people who made me feel comfortable around mushrooms and so whenever it comes to wild mushrooms out of all the mushroom species worldwide interestingly only a small percentage of them are very toxic now yes mushroom fatalities do exist every single year mushroom fatalities are reported we read about them in the newspaper we read about them online we hear about them through our mushroom clubs so I don't want to say that we shouldn't fear mushrooms at all ever because the small risk is there there is a small risk with mushroom hunting however there's a great reward without a risk there would never be a reward and the reward is insane the reward is massive and it's that you get to connect with your land you get to connect with the fungal Kingdom in the most into way by ingesting it by going out foraging something that grows in the land where you live in putting it into your body and making it a part of you and that's a beautiful thing so the antidote to Micah phobia is learning its knowledge and last but certainly not least number sixteen there are hard and fast rules to determine whether a mushroom is edible or not clearly this is a myth obviously this is a myth based on everything that we talked about there are no hard and fast rules that you can apply to mushrooms to determine whether they're edible or not other than just learning each species one at a time I get asked the question often a few times a week hey Adam how do I know which mushrooms in my woods are edible how can I tell just some kind of chemical that I can apply can I scratch it can I smell it is there anything about it that'll tell me that it's edible or not there's some kind of thing that I can apply to it well if you could do that then you would have a billion dollar idea if you could devise some kind of kit that I'll tell you for mushrooms edible or not on the spot just like that you'd be very very successful person but I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon for every single species of fungus because nature's way too mysterious for that way too complex way too intelligent and it demands so much more of us at the same time if the man's that you'd be intelligent at the same time it demands that you learn each species one at a time that you learn the edibility status of each mushroom one at a time so there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to the edibility status of a mushroom you can't look at a particular feature say yep it's edible yep it's medicinal yep it's toxic you just got to learn them one at a time so that was an assortment of myths surrounding the foraging the harvesting and the consumption of wild fungi of course we could have covered a couple of more but those are some of the main ones that are out there today and whenever you're learning about wild mushrooms you'll often read some things that might go against your experiences or might not sit well with you intuitively and I'd encourage you to look into those issues more deeply and not take everything at face value don't even take everything that I say at face value look into issues more deeply you know the last thing that I want anybody to do is to be turned off and turned away from foraging for mushrooms because there's just too many rules and it's not fun anymore yes it's important to be safe to be responsible but it's also important to have fun thanks for watching this video have fun foraging wild mushrooms [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Learn Your Land

Views: 410,010

Keywords: Adam Haritan, Learn Your Land, Mushrooms, Mycology, Foraging, Fungi, Fungus, Medicinal Mushrooms, Wild Edibles, Plants, Botany, Gardening, Primitive Skills, Permaculture, Hunting, Fishing, Trapping, Nature, Outdoors, Backpacking, Hiking, Pennsylvania

Id: QoSyD8jIN14

Length: 24min 53sec (1493 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 19 2019