Avoiding Mistakes-Safe Hunting Guidelines
Dining Ethics
- DO NOT EAT ANYTHING YOU CANNOT POSITIVELY IDENTIFY.
- Be cautious with white-capped mushrooms or mushrooms with white gills; this eliminates many hard-to-identify species, including several deadly species.
- Do not eat wrinkled, brain-like, or saddle-shaped mushrooms.
- Beware of any mushroom with a ring on its stalk or any mushroom that grows out of a cup or has an enlarged base.
- Avoid LBM’s. Species of Little Brown Mushrooms can rarely be determined by non-professionals.
- Avoid Boletes which have red pore mouths or which bruise blue or taste bitter.
- Do not eat any puffball that is not pure white and uniform in texture inside.
- Keep each species that you collect in a separate container.
- Whenever you eat a new variety, keep a few specimens in the refrigerator. In case of poisoning these can be identified through a poison control center.
- When eating a variety for the first time, eat only a small amount in case of an allergic reaction.
- Be aware that some mushrooms cause reactions when consumed with alcohol.
- Be aware that certain edible mushrooms have non-edible lookalikes, i.e., mushrooms which are similar in appearance, but poisonous.
Dining Ethics
- You must take responsibility for the wild mushrooms that you eat. Don’t blindly take someone else’s word on identification or edibility.
- Never try to force wild mushrooms on anyone who is unwilling to eat them.
- Do not intentionally trespass on someone else’s property.
- Don’t destroy habitats.
- Pick only what is necessary for your wants. If you do not want it, leave it intact so that someone else may admire or photograph it, or so that it may grow to produce more.
- Be 100% sure of your identification before advising others or eating mushrooms yourself. If you are unsure and are making a guess, emphasize to the person that you really don’t know.
- If you know someone who has unknowingly picked a poisonous mushroom, tell them.
