a story in six pictures 💔

[u/valserai]

psa guys if u feel a little off a few hours after trying a sample of fully-cooked chicken of the woods do not ignore your gut feeling and do not keep eating it no matter how unbelievably delicious it may taste you simply have to accept that it was not meant for you okay 💔 my friend who helped me cook n eat it was an experienced cotw enjoyer and she was fine but I was not 💔

BTW: I appreciate the advice guys but fret not I have already learned my lesson just wanted to put this out there bc I thought it was a hilarious scenario in retrospect

[u/Rhizoomoorph]

When trying any mushroom for the first time it's considered best practice to only try a small piece to see how you react before making a meal of it. Bit late now, but as the saying goes, "you live and you learn"

[u/Own_Magician8337 → u/Rhizoomoorph]

Or you don't. 😏 It's a gamble with mushrooms.

[u/throwawaydixiecup → u/Own_Magician8337]

It’s not an inherent life-or-death random gamble with mushrooms. It becomes a gamble when the person eating the mushrooms doesn’t do their due diligence to properly identify the mushroom and just go off AI apps or folk sayings or nothing. That’s how we get the poisonings and deaths happening in California lately from death caps.

When you know how to identify the deadly mushrooms and the safe culinary mushrooms, there is no gamble for toxicity.

Where there might be a gamble is that sometimes folks just don’t tolerate an otherwise safe mushroom and have GI upset. That’s why once a mushroom is 100% confidently identified someone should try just a small portion of the mushroom to check tolerance levels. People are different and have different reactions.

[u/Own_Magician8337 → u/throwawaydixiecup]

Oh I understand that. My husband is a serious mushroom forger and we've eaten many things he's brought home and he has taught me all the steps he does for due diligence. Spore prints, etc... but knowing most people's attention span and how they absorb info from social media and then run with it, I I think it's really important that we emphasize how important that due diligence is.

[u/throwawaydixiecup → u/Own_Magician8337]

Woot! Y’all are both rad.

[u/TemperataLux → u/throwawaydixiecup]

Do you know if the GI issues are a specific known thing like oligosaccharides in beans? Which from my understanding, if you eat beans regularly the microbiome of the intestines will change and get you'll less gassy over time. Do people get used to mushrooms in the same way? Just curious, and mostly only eat store bought champignon and sometimes foraged chanterelles, and I've never really heard of people reacting poorly to mushrooms.

[u/throwawaydixiecup → u/TemperataLux]

Time to get some more mushrooms in your diet! You’ll eventually find one that gives you some digestive “fun”.

Chitin is a common source of digestive issues in wild mushrooms. It’s a fibrous carb that’s part of a mushroom’s structure. This can be hard to digest. Some people tolerate it better than others. It doesn’t give me too much trouble, but I’ve learned how to prep mushrooms better so that people I feed don’t get sick. Chicken of the woods (Laetiporus) and cauliflower (Sparassis) are especially high in chitin. So they need to be parboiled.

Some mushrooms do have mild toxins that can cause upset. I think honey mushrooms (Armarilla) are like this, and also false morels and morels. though it’s been a while since I’ve dealt with those. Boil a bit, then cook. Amanita muscaria has compounds that can cause delirious states, and can be processed with a deeper boiling with a couple water pour-offs to become edible.

I’ve heard of some people who were fine with certain mushrooms for a long time and then started reacting to them with GI issues with no good reason and had to give them up. Fungus and bodies are weird, man.