Don’t pick and eat wild mushrooms: Toronto Public Health

Wild mushrooms from Alberta Photo: immy Jeong/Edmonton Journal

Most kids learn not to eat wild berries or mushrooms at the cottage or camp, but the rise of “urban foraging” has supplanted common sense with a foodie fad.

One Toronto resident was recently hospitalized for consuming a possibly fatal mushroom, and the growing number of “urban foragers” has prompted the local health unit to warn against eating mushrooms they pick themselves.

“Toronto Public Health wants to remind the public not to pick and eat mushrooms found growing in the wild,” said Dr. Howard Shapiro, associate medical officer of health with Toronto Public Health, in a statement. “Some varieties may look similar to mushrooms that are safe to consume, but are in fact poisonous.”

A Barcelona doctor holds the deadliest mushroom in the world, amanita phalloides, which he picked in the hills above the city in 2005. (Joe Ray/Getty Images)

The unnamed Torontonian ate an amanita mushroom (bisporigera species). It can be deadly but also looks like an edible mushroom.

Many fungi can be poisonous but sometimes their effects take days to show up. Toronto Public Health says symptoms can include “nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhea. More severe symptoms include sweating, convulsions, hallucinations and coma.”

Foragers are often amateur cooks or even professional chefs who want to connect to the natural bounty around them — it’s a great principle but in casual practice can be deadly.

“It can be difficult to determine if mushrooms growing in the wild are edible or poisonous. Our advice is to not take the risk.”

Picking wild dandelion greens or fiddleheads can be perfectly safe — as long as you go far enough off the beaten path to avoid dog pee or harsh chemicals — but the craze is spreading to more dangerous wild foods like mushrooms.  A Toronto Public Library blog about the benefits of foraging notes greens can be a good idea, but “don’t get into foraging or mushroom picking without doing some research first, otherwise you could get into a lot of trouble.” It cites culinary tours in Toronto that can walk hopeful foragers through the safe and not-so-safe plants.

An event last summer at Habourfront Centre in Toronto even explained how to forage for mushrooms, though most experts say it’s not something that can be learned easily.

“While it may be tempting for some residents to forage for wild mushrooms, it can be difficult to determine if mushrooms growing in the wild are edible or poisonous. Our advice is to not take the risk,” said Dr. Margaret Thompson, medical director of the Ontario Poison Centre at SickKids Hospital.

If you want to go wild, there are lots of professional foragers that can fill your fungi needs, without the side of poison.

So a Toronto mesclun mix may sound like a good Saturday project for an urban foodie, but you might want to remember your ’90s PSAs and think twice before you put it in your mouth.