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Deadly morel mushroom outbreak highlights big gaps in fungi knowledge (arstechnica.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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On Thursday, Montana health officials published an outbreak analysis of poisonings linked to the honeycombed fungi in March and April of last year. The outbreak sickened 51 people who ate at the same restaurant, sending four to the emergency department. Three were hospitalized and two died. Though the health officials didn't name the restaurant in their report, state and local health departments at the time identified it as Dave’s Sushi in Bozeman. The report is published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (16 children)

The author of this article seems to be as ignorant as the chefs behind this incident.

Morels are known to be toxic until cooked. I’m surprised there was no explicit mention of this in the article.

In general, the boilerplate advice is to never consume raw mushrooms, even from species known to be edible, unless they are explicitly known to be edible raw. Button mushrooms are the only one I can think of. It’s likely other species are edible raw too, but it’s better not to gamble if it’s unproven.

People preparing or consuming wild foods should make sure to do the proper research. That is the only safe way to practice foraging. Very sad that people died because of this.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

"Morels are more likely to cause intestinal distress if eaten raw, although even raw, they can be tolerated by some people," the agency wrote. Morels should be cooked before eating, as cooking can destroy bacterial contaminants. "For that matter, all mushrooms, wild or cultivated, should be cooked to release their full nutritional value because chitin in their cell walls otherwise inhibits digestion," the USDA writes.

The article mentions multiple times that cooked mushrooms are safer than raw ones.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Safer because “bacterial contaminants” and “full nutritional value”. These things may be technically true but they mislead by the larger omission that the real issue is their established toxicity.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The article also points out that there were people who ate the raw sushi with no adverse affects, so mentioning "their established toxicity" seems like it would be just as misleading.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I wish food irradiation became popular. If only people weren't so irrationally afraid of any word that sounds like the word "radiation", then we would be able to safely eat all kinds of foods fully raw without any chance of getting sick from a microorganism.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I thought food irradiation went out of favour because the microbes became resistant? I have no idea where I heard that so maybe it's just people's irrational fear of "radiation".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Nope, that's false

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