Are you planning to go mushroom hunting? Well, that is great but do not fall for these myths

The beginning of June is quite rainy, and that is good for mushroom as they are already growing pretty wild and in large numbers. If you went already, you have probably seen the very popular scarlatina bolete, lurid bolete and various types of russela mushrooms including leccinum, summer cep or the popular porcini mushroom. If you haven’t gone yet, you should definitely go. Are you not an experienced mushroom picker? Not a problem. Get an atlas of mushrooms or a smart application in your phone to help you out. Or you can take someone who is experienced and willing to help… You should definitely try avoiding some basic mistakes. There are several myths that are still believed and used to “tell” the toxicity of mushrooms. We shall list the most common ones in the following lines.

Snails do not eat poisonous mushrooms

The first myth says that if a mushroom is poisonous, various animals or insects will not touch it. That is not true. Both snails and insects have different metabolisms, and toxins harmful to humans can be completely harmless to animals.

Photo: Pixabay

Poisonous mushrooms are very colourful

Take for example the fly agaric, which is slightly poisonous, and looks beautiful. Everyone who finds a good one loves to take a picture of it. But other highly poisonous mushrooms are not that colourful and beautiful. For example, the fool’s webcab or the destroying angel…

Photo: Radek Štěpán

You can kill poison by cooking

Did you know that many edible mushrooms are poisonous when raw?Take for example the Neoboletus luridiformis, wood blewit or blushing amanita. They must be boiled for at least 20 minutes to get rid of the toxins. On the other hand, toxic substances contained in highly poisonous mushrooms are thermostable.
You cannot kill the poisons by cooking.

Photo: Pixabay

Silver turns black when in contact with poisonous mushroom

A total nonsense. No known poisonous mushroom can initiate such chemical reaction. If so, anyone would be able to identify poisonous mushroom rather easy. Unfortunately, that is not the case and you need to educate yourself.

Preview photo: Pixabay