as pointed out elsewhere, no strych in the mushrooms. "you wish"...
i read somewhere as a handy guide, something like this, and i take it to heart: my mushroom safety thoughts: "don't"
90% or so of the mushrooms that grow in the world, are edible, and good for you, and so on. very few are "magic".
90% of the mushrooms you SEE, are the other 10%, the bad deadly kind.
what does that mean? what? math is hard!
it means that pretty much most of the mushrooms you will find, in your backyard, the woods, and so on, are the bad kind. the good kind don't reproduce as fast, or are eaten pretty much immediately by fauna because "good stuff", and you're lucky to find a few things.
chances are if you eat those bad ones, you will have serious, life altering bad times, and die. more or less. if you are VERY VERY VERY lucky, you will merely wish you were dead, and might die anyway. quite a few nominally edible ones will ruin your life if you eat them with alcohol - so never do that as a rule (even magic ones i'm told)
charming names like "avenging angel" (google it), just to name my favorite deadly. you get pain. your get BAD pain. eventually so bad you will probably die from that
but if you get over it, ah, relief. that was your liver dying. now it's rotting inside you. a week later you die. cool.
as i have never done substances (i know, right?) i can only read about other people's experiences. so called "santa mushrooms" (mario! it's amanita muscaria) aka oatmeal toppers and you know, those pretty red ones with flakes on top... you eat those, you fly. 98% chance you'll also have supreme stomach upset and diarrhea, and other stupid things. even worse with alcohol. but, people do it. now, the smart people let their shaman eat them first. then you drink his pee. no, really. it removes the impurities
hey, some survivor guys probably got their taste for pee that way. other tribes let the reindeer eat them, and wait for yellow snow... flying reindeer? mmm. there's whole books on this somewhere.
now, for the actual edibles. there's maybe 3-4 maybe 5 kinds that are deadly easy to not frakk up. chicken mushroom. hen of the woods. white puffball. chanterelles. morels. oyster. but it depends on your region and knowledge and environment. get a teacher. learn YOUR area. never eat mushrooms outside your area, unless you are freaking damned sure. chicken mushroom and white puffball might be the only one really hard to mess up, as the analog look-a-like while not bad, also tastes like crap
but get a teacher. know the seasons. know the OUT of seasons bad ones. go slow. take notes. notes are good when you are in the emergency room screaming
get a teacher. get a teacher. get a teacher.
there are dozens of edibles in Europe that children learn growing up. easy peasy, as there's nothing that looks like them there that is bad. then they come to the USA. we have those analogs, and people then end up needing liver transplants, or they die in agony. good times!
as i mentioned above, even with choice edibles, i think red caps for example, if you drink booze with them at the same time, they release toxins that will make you sick. probably won't kill you, but you won't like it, and you won't do it again
EVEN THEN, there are mushrooms that one day are fine, and one day are not. your teacher should tell you these things. if they don't, you might want a different teacher. i know a local expert, and he gives mushroom walks and talks. i'm pretty good at snooping out finds, and he's pretty happy taking "samples"
even so, i would not eat what he is eating. doesn't seem worth the risk.
there are some excellent mushroom guide books, and reading them is eye opening. which is one of the main reasons why arm chair learning is a fine thing. i won't touch that shit. i buy my mushrooms at the store, or on pizza.
yeah, so don't. esp you youngins. esp if you wanna be and old one.
