Can a Silver Spoon Detect Poisonous Mushrooms? Myths and Facts
Many popular beliefs about poisonous mushrooms are no use for spotting the danger. We go through six of the most-searched questions, from the silver spoon to the largest fungus known.
A silver spoon does not detect poisonous mushrooms
In many households, people checked whether a mushroom was poisonous with a silver spoon. If the spoon turned black, the mushroom was thrown away. This method detects nothing.
Silver tarnishes on contact with sulfur compounds. These are the same compounds found in a boiled egg or a clove of garlic. The death cap, Amanita phalloides, is responsible for most mushroom deaths, and it does not blacken silver. It works like a smoke detector that beeps at burnt toast and stays silent during a fire.
Cooking deadly mushrooms does not remove the poison
With deadly mushrooms, cooking is no help. Amatoxins survive boiling, frying, freezing and drying. It is like salt in a broth: however long it boils, the salt is still there.
Other mushrooms, on the other hand, do need cooking. Raw or undercooked morels cause digestive problems.
Neither animals nor taste are a warning sign
An animal eating a mushroom does not mean it is safe for people. Slugs nibble on death caps with no ill effects. It is the case of chocolate and dogs, but in reverse: the same substance, a different metabolism and the opposite result. A nibbled mushroom is not a green light.
Nor is it true that poisonous mushrooms smell bad or taste bitter. Survivors of death cap poisoning remember it as tasty.
On top of that, the danger arrives late. Symptoms begin six to twelve hours later, sometimes up to twenty-four. Vomiting and diarrhea come first. Then a deceptive improvement follows while the liver is being damaged. That is why emergency departments ask for the remains of the mushroom: knowing the species changes the treatment. In Spain, the Toxicology Information Service can be reached on 91 562 04 20.
What grows on logs is not always safe
Galerina marginata is small and brown. It lives on dead wood and contains the same amatoxins as the death cap.
It shares stumps and color with the sheathed woodtuft, which is edible. Telling them apart is difficult.
The largest known fungus is in Oregon
It is an Armillaria ostoyae, and it lives in the Malheur National Forest, in Oregon's Blue Mountains. It covers about 965 hectares, almost ten square kilometers. Above ground, all that shows are clusters of honey-colored mushrooms at the base of the trees.
The big part is underground. Black strands that look like shoelaces spread beneath the bark and through the soil, from root to root. The US Forest Service took samples kilometers apart, and they were genetically identical: a single individual. Mushrooms are to the fungus what apples are to the apple tree: the fruit, not the organism.
Its estimated age ranges from about 2,400 to more than 8,000 years. Researchers attribute this to the dry climate of those mountains. Very few spores germinate, hardly any rivals emerge, and the same individual spreads for millennia.
Online, it is often called the largest living thing on the planet. By area, it no longer is: in 2022, a Posidonia seagrass meadow of about 180 square kilometers in Shark Bay, Australia, was described as a single individual.
This fungus is a parasite. It rots the roots of firs and other conifers until it kills them. The patches of dead trees visible from the air mark where it has spread. Its mushrooms are only considered edible when thoroughly cooked, since they cause stomach upset when raw, and even then some people cannot tolerate them.
Frequently asked questions
Can a silver spoon tell you whether a mushroom is poisonous?
No. Silver tarnishes on contact with sulfur compounds, and the death cap, responsible for most mushroom deaths, does not blacken it.
Does cooking mushrooms remove the poison?
Not in deadly mushrooms. Amatoxins survive boiling, frying, freezing and drying.
When do symptoms of death cap poisoning appear?
Six to twelve hours after eating it, sometimes up to twenty-four. After the vomiting and diarrhea, a deceptive improvement may follow while the liver is being damaged.
What number can you call in Spain for mushroom poisoning?
The Toxicology Information Service, on 91 562 04 20. It is advisable to bring the remains of the mushroom to the emergency department, because knowing the species changes the treatment.
Informative article written with the help of AI tools from the verified script of the video. The video is in Spanish.