Yep. Years ago I interviewed someone for a radio program here in the Netherlands. This was a forest ranger, on the topic of people foraging for mushrooms. It was the hip thing to do at the time.
He explained how wildly dangerous it is for average people to do. Especially when looking up things online.
He showed me two images that looked basically identical. He explained to me that one mushroom was edible and delicious. And that it could be found in the forests in the United States. The other, identical looking mushroom can be found in European forests. That one liquifies your internal organs and causes you to shit yourself to an agonising death.
He explained that each year a handful of people die from eating it. Because they looked up a guide online, and failed to understand that there’s regional differences between edible and deadly mushrooms. And by the time they got medical attention, there was nothing that could be done.
I’m not a fan of mushrooms anyway, but I’d certainly never be dumb enough to go pick some myself. That shit’ll get you killed.
my conclusion is that they’re a feature of our evolution that helps the species identify dangerous things, either they eat a mushroom and explode and the rest of the tribe can go “holy fuck don’t eat that mushroom” or they go alone on a run through the forest and get mauled by a tiger and the rest of the tribe goes “holy fuck a tiger time to leg it in the opposite direction while it’s busy eating Fred”
Yep. Years ago I interviewed someone for a radio program here in the Netherlands. This was a forest ranger, on the topic of people foraging for mushrooms. It was the hip thing to do at the time.
He explained how wildly dangerous it is for average people to do. Especially when looking up things online.
He showed me two images that looked basically identical. He explained to me that one mushroom was edible and delicious. And that it could be found in the forests in the United States. The other, identical looking mushroom can be found in European forests. That one liquifies your internal organs and causes you to shit yourself to an agonising death.
He explained that each year a handful of people die from eating it. Because they looked up a guide online, and failed to understand that there’s regional differences between edible and deadly mushrooms. And by the time they got medical attention, there was nothing that could be done.
I’m not a fan of mushrooms anyway, but I’d certainly never be dumb enough to go pick some myself. That shit’ll get you killed.
I just buy them in a growkit, that way they are fun an enjoyable
In France you can take them to a pharmacy and they will be able to determine the mushrooms for you
The local pharmacist in my parent’s village died from accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms ☹️
Should’ve done the French Pharmacists’ education instead :p
It’s very trusting to let a professional from an unrelated profession make life or death decisions for you
It’s part of their education, not only what is edible, also what to do/prescribe when mushrooms are ingested that cause malicious symptoms.
So it’s most literally part of their profession.
I will never understand impulsive people who just DO things, with little thought or worry of consequences.
my conclusion is that they’re a feature of our evolution that helps the species identify dangerous things, either they eat a mushroom and explode and the rest of the tribe can go “holy fuck don’t eat that mushroom” or they go alone on a run through the forest and get mauled by a tiger and the rest of the tribe goes “holy fuck a tiger time to leg it in the opposite direction while it’s busy eating Fred”