The 6 Deadliest Mushrooms

Some of your favorite mushroom recipes might use toxic ingredients! These are the top killers worldwide among fungi, from morels to webcaps.

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Sources:

[hughcaldwell]

My mum likes to tell the story of when I, a very small child, excitedly told her about eating some wild mushrooms I'd found. Seeing that she was not exactly thrilled, I hastened to reassure her that I'd shared them with my little brother.

[ulogy]

General rule: If you can't identify it without a shadow of a doubt, don't eat it.

The overwhelming majority of poisonings by funghi are amateur foragers.

[LordZeebee]

Honorable mention to the LBMs, or Little Brown Mushrooms.
There are just many different types of mushroom that are both small and brown that any experienced forager will dismiss the vast majority of them outright. It's just not worth the risk.
Remember kids, if you cannot be 1000% sure you're looking at the right mushroom then do not eat it. It's easier than you think to just go through the checklist of features, mushroom foraging is honestly super fun. But if you're not entirely sure it's better to toss it than to get violent diarrhea...

[kirb]

I appreciate you saying "not just a component in rocket fuel" because too many people go crazy about things being "chemicals"

[justastranger]

Fun Fact: Fly agarics can be cooked to eliminate the toxic substances and increase the muscimol content. Muscimol is the primary psychoactive component and led to the development of Ambien and related pharmaceuticals. The substance that breaks down into muscimol, ibotenic acid, is a fairly potent neurotoxin and so it's very important not to eat them raw. Muscimol itself is widely regarded as a fairly safe substance, though.

[venomous]

I fear a world where people can hear “disintegrate your muscles” and think it’s not serious

[SpadajSpadaj]

The problem with death cap is that people tend to pick young specimens of mushrooms. And while fully grown, death cap is distinctly different from field mushroom and parasol mushroom, very young specimens do look very similarily to one another and it's very easy to mistake them. So the simplest way to avoid poisoning in this case is to never pick young ones. Period.

[RGF]

When I was a kid growing up in the 1950’s - 60’s, my family would go into the Northeastern Pennsylvania woods in the early Fall to harvest mushrooms. My Uncle Andy was the expert. No one was allowed to harvest any mushrooms they found until Uncle Andy examined them and gave the OK. We collected the “good” ones in cotton sacks and took large quantities of them home where my Grandmother examined each and every one of them as the second and final arbiter of their safety. After this final inspection, some were dried, some were put up in canning jars, some were made into mushroom soup, and we all had a delicious supply of mushrooms throughout the winter.

[Serenity_Dee]

"Rhabdomyolysis"

my brain: "PRESENTING ☝️ to the emergency room"

[nerdlingeeksly]

Like a good hitman, the worst mushrooms to look out for aren't the flashiest or the most toxic, it's the ones you can't pick out of a crowd before it's too late.

[ahoj]

A French mycologist said: "All fungi are poisonous. Some are just more toxic."
About amanita phalloides, it's quite common in Europe. The problem is that symptoms take some time to appear (24 to 48 hours) and are commonly followed by a period of remission. The patient then swears he will never again eat mushrooms. Which is quite true as the final stage of the poisoning (fatal liver and kidney failure) follows shortly.

[thegreatpugtato]

Les Stroud has always said if your not trained in identification of that specific regions flora please don't eat it. Probably bad.

[jiioannidis]

"All mushrooms are edible; some mushrooms are edible only once" 😂😂😂

[TheBodo]

I love how the deathcap has such a deserved dramatic name in english, while in German it is called "Knollenblätterpilz" basically meaning bulb-leaf mushroom. Perfectly innocent :)

[spamware]

0:12 "And that snack becomes a trip" I see you SciShow ;)

[echognomecal]

10:10 Somehow I was unaware of kidneys' gnome hats.

[marilynlucero]

Next time I go out mushroom hunting I will ask myself.
"Do I want to keep my face? or want to shed a new one?"

[merleaddison]

Rule # 1. If you eat any wild mushroom, keep one fresh in case you have to go to the hospital, so they can identify it

[mackdog]

We used to go to the mountains and pick morels when I was a kid. Recently, my mom found something astonishing. At my grandparents house she found a single morel mushroom growing next to the foundation of my grandfather's shop. What makes this so amazing is that we live in the desert, and I doubt my grandmother would have been mushroom picking as she's 93 years old. I was flabbergasted to see it.

[cecesoclean]

i really really like the switch to a physical set! really updates the vibe of the show