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Even a certified mushroom expert cannot always recognize the toadstool. Meanwhile, many mushroom pickers consider themselves infallible and they are the most frequent victims of poisoning.
Many mushroom pickers believe that if animals eat any mushrooms, they are not poisonous. Meanwhile, the deadly spring toadstool is eaten by snails and does not harm them. Also, recognizing mushrooms by taste is a mistake, because, for example, toadstool mushroom is not bitter at all. It has a delicate sweet almond aftertaste.
The change in color of the mushroom after cutting is also not information. Poisonous mushrooms do not always change their color. However, the edible goats darken, and the toadstools remain light.
In addition, before the fungus reaches its mature form, it is easy to confuse it with another.
We poison ourselves every year
Every year in Poland there are from 500 to even 1000 poisonings with mushrooms, of which 30 to 60 cases are fatal. The most frightening thing is that this number is not decreasing, and 30% of all mushroom picking victims are children and adolescents. Poisoning mainly affects families where mushrooms are picked by people who claim to be experts.
This year, at the beginning of August, 16-year-old Dawid from Ciechanów came to the Children’s Memorial Health Institute, who underwent liver transplantation surgery. The boy himself picked and cooked mushrooms for himself, which he was sure were edible. Last year, a 48-year-old from Bydgoszcz confused young toadstools with geese. After the mushroom picking, the man arranged a dinner for his daughter and her friend. 18-year-old girl died. Last fall, all of Poland was struggling for the life of 6-year-old Tom from Tarnawiec, who was served a dish with a poisonous mushroom by his parents. Tomek has undergone two liver transplants.
– One small bite of the toadstool may be a lethal dose – says Dr. Marek Migdał from the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Therapy at the Children’s Memorial Health Institute.
Suffering on request
– Poles love mushrooms. Unfortunately, they try to treat their children with it. The youngest child who was admitted to the Children’s Memorial Health Institute due to mushroom poisoning was 9 months old. Parents mixed their own mushroom soup and served the baby from the bottle through the nipple – says Dr. Migdał.
Meanwhile, children are not allowed to eat any mushrooms because they simply cannot digest them. – Besides, why expose them to poisoning – adds Dr. Migdał.
It is not always possible to save a patient poisoned with toadstool. Not everyone succeeds in having a liver transplant, especially since there are many more donors waiting for a liver transplant. Last year, 217 liver transplants from deceased donors were performed in Poland, while at the end of December last year, the number of patients waiting for a transplant was 170.
Liver transplant and the associated costs of treatment in the first month amount to about a quarter of a million zlotys.
Doctors from the Children’s Memorial Health Institute do not hide their nervousness when a small patient poisoned with mushrooms comes to them. They emphasize that every year they appeal through the media not to give children any mushrooms. In the hospital, seriously ill children are waiting for a liver transplant, they have birth defects or have become seriously infected, over which the parents had no influence. – The suffering of a child poisoned by a fungus is the result of the irresponsibility of adults and could have been avoided – emphasize doctors.
Poisoner in the mask
The toadstool is the most dangerous among the lamellar fungi. – In its uneducated form it is identical to the field mushroom. This can confuse even a certified mushroom expert – says Dr. Agata Wolska from the Sanepid in Warsaw. Those who poisoned themselves with the toadstool were convinced that they had eaten a kite, a greenish goose, a dove or a field mushroom.
Ania from Słupsk tells about the death of her friend, whose mother bought morels at the market. Unfortunately, one of them turned out to be a toadstool.
The amanitin contained in this fungus destroys the liver, causing death. According to the toxicologist Dr. Piotr Burda, medicine does not know an antidote to this poison. – It is enough to eat one small toadstool, and the only salvation, and with great luck, will be a liver transplant – he explains. Amanitin decomposes only at a temperature of about 300 degrees Celsius. This means that in order to destroy it, you have to burn the fungus. He adds that the poison is very persistent. The marinated toadstool is poisonous even after 10 years.
Amanitin poisoning has a two-phase course. It begins with diarrhea and vomiting. If the doctor does not know that the patient has eaten mushrooms, he may suspect common indigestion. Unfortunately, there is no blood or urine test that could clearly indicate that the cause of the ailment was toadstool.
After vomiting and diarrhea disappear, the condition of the poisoned person seems to improve. Then, however, jaundice occurs. Liver tests show progressive damage to the liver. The doctor – not informed that the patient ate mushrooms – will first rule out infection with hepatitis A, B and C. Meanwhile, the patient develops brain edema, which is manifested by excessive excitability – screaming, motor agitation, and then loss of consciousness. Death usually occurs between the 4th and 10th day after poisoning.
How not to poison yourself with mushrooms?
Olszówka kills after many years
Today, not many people collect alder trees. But there are amateurs of these mushrooms. – I remember that my mother collected alders and cooked them for a very long time – recalls Dorota from Leszno. – First, my father ate, and if nothing happened to him after two hours, the rest of the family would sit down at the table. Krzysztof from Zielona Góra also says that the olszówka in cream served by his mother was really tasty. Eating olszówki with impunity is possible because the poison they contain acts as an allergen – we are not immediately allergic to it. This happens after contact with it, that is, after eating it. The body begins to produce antibodies, and the immune system reacts violently when the fungus is consumed one after the other. The antibodies attack the red blood cells, which can lead to their destruction, liver and kidney damage and even death. Olszówka, otherwise rolled krowiak, is a mushroom that grows from July to October. He has a reddish brown plain hat with an turned up edge and dark gills under the hat. Until the 70s, alder vodka was considered an edible mushroom after it was boiled several times and poured over water. – There is a superstition that cooking them over and over again deprives them of their poison. Unfortunately, the involutin contained in them accumulates in the body and gives the effects of poisoning, even after 10–15 years – explains Dr. Agata Wolska. However, it is impossible to say when this will happen. – You can eat alders five times in a row and nothing will happen, and for example, the sixth time will be our last meal in life, because the fungus will cause poisoning – he adds.
Risky gills
– It is best to collect tubular mushrooms, such as boletus, bay boletus, i.e. those with a layer of sponge-like tubes under the hat. There are no deadly poisonous substances among them – says Dr. Agata Wolska. He adds that it is not worth risking the taste of the popular chanterelles or chubai kania. A tasty chanterelle is a reusable mushroom, doctors joke. Our body does not digest it at all. All the chanterelles that we eat are excreted in the form in which we swallowed.
Experts advise to prepare the mushrooms for consumption immediately after harvesting. Stored in plastic bags or plastic bags, they undergo decomposition processes and can cause food poisoning. If the fungus is wormy, throw it away. Mushrooms must not be given to children or the elderly, because they are difficult to digest and – apart from their taste – they have no nutritional value.
Text: Halina Pilonis
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