1123

submitted 2 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

128 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Idk if op meant to fearmonger, but mushrooms are hardly ever toxic and hardly ever fatal.

It is now thought that of the approximately 100,000 known fungi species found worldwide, about 100 of them are poisonous to humans.[14] However, by far the majority of mushroom poisonings are not fatal,[15] and the majority of fatal poisonings are attributable to the Amanita phalloides mushroom

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_poisoning

That said, definitely be safe and if you arent sure, dont eat it.

[-] Whelks_chance@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

I'm less interested in the total number of species, and more interested in my likelihood of holding one

[-] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 1 month ago

I see about 5 unknown mushrooms for every one known deadly one (death cap, growing under the canopy of an oak)

[-] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world -3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

100/100000 = 1 in 1000 or 0.1% chance its gonna poison you

[-] TwentySeven@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Possibly, but which species are more common? Maybe poisonous mushrooms are 0.1% of the number of species, but 10% of the number of mushrooms growing.

[-] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world -1 points 2 months ago

"Maybe"

Why not look it up like I did instead of postulating and nothing more?

[-] TwentySeven@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

My point is that you did not account for how common each species is

[-] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world -1 points 2 months ago

Neither did you

[-] lemming@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago

That didn't sound right, my experience that depending on luck and season, somewhere between 50 and 90 % of big mushrooms I come across in a forest are poisonous or at least disgusting. I admit it's a very wild estimate and I'm very far from knowing all the mushroom I come across, but still, that seems like a big contradiction. So I followed your link to the primary article.

I suspected that they might only count potentially lethal mushrooms, but no, it indeed seems they count even those that only make you nauseous. The problem is in the other number. The 100 000 means all funghi, it includes for example all yeasts. Most funghi don't create mushrooms that anyone would consider picking. So the ratio you calculated below is WAY off.

I would also like to note that the number 100 seems to come from a very simple PubMed search. Basically, if nobody wrote a paper about someone being sick after eating a mushroom, they wouldn't find it. I don't think that would mean that many foraged mushrooms would be missed, but it is a limitation worth knowing about.