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Wild mushroom warning to autumn foragers
As the autumn foraging season gets underway, a wild mushroom safety message has been issued by the Health Protection Agency's poisons experts.
Risk of poisoning
The National Poisons Information Service (NPIS) is sounding the alarm. Every autumn it receives queries from clinicians needing help to treat those who have picked and consumed sometimes dangerously toxic wild mushrooms.
The 2010 autumn wild mushroom season began in late August. It is expected to run, in some parts of the UK, for several more weeks. But there are dangers as some types of mushroom are so poisonous they can prove fatal if eaten.
Professor Simon Thomas, Director of the NPIS unit in Newcastle, has warned that anyone going mushroom picking needs to be very careful before consuming their crop.
He said: "Environmental and weather conditions in recent months have resulted in there being a bumper crop of wild mushrooms in many parts of the UK during this mushroom season. This has encouraged people to forage for wild mushrooms and include these in their diet.
"It is important to note that the toxins contained within some of the most dangerous varieties of wild mushrooms are generally not destroyed by cooking."
Foraging dos and don'ts
The Food Standards Agency has issued advice for wild food foragers:
- do make sure you can identify what you've found - use several features (check leaf, flower, berry colour and shape, season, and so on). If you're unsure, don't eat it
- do wash your harvest well, wherever you have collected it
- do keep a sliver of mushroom, berry or leaf aside so it can later be identified if you do have a stomach upset
- don't allow children to pick or eat wild food unsupervised
- don't eat an unhealthy looking plant or fruit – if it appears burnt, bruised or has any sign of mould, for example
- don't eat plants and berries growing on old industrial sites, busy roadside verges or where the ground is visibly contaminated with oil or ash
- if you go foraging, only take what you need so that there is enough of the plant left to reproduce
- it is illegal to uproot any wild plant without the permission of the owner or occupier of the land
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