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.
"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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
I was wondering about this when I read the article this morning, as I have never once heard of anyone who ate morels raw or even partially cooked. Is this some kind of new trend trying to follow the Japanese who eat puffer fish?
I wouldn't even eat raw button mushrooms like you suggested.
In the best case, they can't be broken down by our bodies, so all the nutrients wander through us and get wasted.
In the worst case, the agaritine found in them, which easily gets destroyed by cooking btw, may get classified from suspectedly carcinogenic to carcinogenic.
I’ve heard this but considering they are widely eaten without issue I’m not convinced it’s a real problem. Many foods contain carcinogens, but it’s the dose that makes the poison. Considering the history of raw consumption it would take research demonstrating a link to cancer outcomes to convince me they’re not safe.
That said, I think they taste much better cooked anyway.
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.
You’re 100% right. For the record these mushrooms were cultivated; not wild, but also from China which introduces its own concerns.
Jacob and Karsten Kirk, twins from Copenhagen, say they have devised a method to reliably grow morel mushrooms in a climate-controlled environment.
“When new buds emerge on trees and the ground warms with the advent of spring, foragers fan out through woodlands, scanning the leaf litter for morel mushrooms.
Arguably the most iconic of wild fungi, morels stand 3 to 6 inches tall and sport a signature cone-shaped lattice cap in shades of cream to chocolate brown. Prized for their nutty, earthy taste, they sell for as much as $50 a pound fresh and $200 a pound dried. They appear for just a fleeting few weeks — in New York, generally from late April to early June.
Experienced morel hunters return to well-guarded spots year after year, often exhibiting a form of selective hearing loss when asked where they collected their haul.
“There’s something about morels — they have a mystique that people are fascinated by,” said Gregory Bonito, a biologist studying morels and other fungi at Michigan State University. And unlike some wild mushrooms, which can be easily cultivated, morels have a quirky life cycle that makes them notoriously tough to grow, Dr. Bonito explained.
Cultivating morels isn’t impossible. Until 2008, at least one U.S. grower produced them commercially. And since about 2014, farmers in China have done it outdoors in the spring, but yields can be variable, Dr. Bonito said. He leads a small morel-farming project in Michigan and surrounding states funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. All the participating farmers but one grew at least one morel last year, he said, though this year’s numbers are ticking up.
But prospects for morels on demand appear to be looking up. In December, after four decades of research, Jacob and Karsten Kirk, twin brothers from Copenhagen, announced that they had devised a method to reliably cultivate hefty amounts of morels indoors, year-round, in a climate-controlled environment.
Good point. However the issue is a less developed food culture around these mushrooms than their mode of production/harvest. So I think the same logic applies here.
They're quite small, the females are often flightless and without limbs, they conceal themselves under domed scales for protection. They like to suck the sap from plants, some ant species will 'farm' them for the honey dew they secrete. Some species are pests and can infest and damage the plants they feed on, while others can be used commercially....checkout one of my other posts here The oldest fossils found date to the early cretaceous.
Some 'scales' or marks will be the plants version of a scab, where it's been damaged and has 'scabbed' over, the insect scales do look a bit more 'stuck on' and 'foreign' as in not created by the plant, if that makes sense? They can also be picked off, and the appearance is different to the plant surface.
I'm currently fighting scale insects on one of my houseplants (I think I'm winning), the adult females form the scale, and the nymphs/larvae are 'crawlers' (little white, woolly lines about 1-2 mm long), both can be physically removed by scratching them off, but the scale is tougher and water runs off it
This has some pictures of scale insect pests, and they look very different to plant tissue (and don't forget, they proliferate very quickly, so tend to show up in large, noticeable groups). Another thing is that the surrounding plant tissue will look yellowy/stressed when under attack instead of it's usual healthy, normal green
I first misread and thought these were some Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, the ones that feed on insects and make them climb to high places so the parasite can Burst open to spread its spores.
Sounds interesting, but after reading the abstract, I'm no closer to understanding the title than when I started. Could anybody with domain specific knowledge give us a little ELI5?
In plant/pathogen interactions there are two main groups of resistance.
Qualitative- A few genes that inhibit the pathogen almost completely. The pathogen is classified by these resistant genes into races. This is the type of genetics most of you learned with Punnet Squares in school.
Quantitative- what this paper is about. Many genes act in an complex interlinked fashion to control a disease. These genes can be located in groups or scattered around the genome. This has made creating usable molecular markers extremely difficult for breedings efforts. Traditionally you figure out molecular markers by running a few thousand of them and then using statistical models to correlate where the observed phenotype is linked to in the genome. It works really well for 1-2 gene traits. Not very well for 10+ gene traits.
This is basically the researchers saying "fuck it" we'll just sequence the entire genomes to figure this one out.
Great, now I’m gonna be looking even more like a crazy person when walking in the woods, as I crawl around sticking my face up to every Turkey Tail (Trametes Versicolor) that I pass looking for these. Jk, thanks for sharing!
You'll have more luck checking Trichaptum - I've never found them on Trametes yet.
There's also a similar looking species, Gliocladium polyporicola, which grows on Stereum hirsutum, so may as well check all the small shelf fungi!
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