Although I wouldn’t call Amanita Muscaria “highly poisonous”, it’s definitely not safe to eat as a food (there’s some usage as a psychedelic in small amounts, and that involves a lot of vomiting).
The general message, I completely agree with, and wish more people would call out the All-Natural crowd for their horse shite.
It is safe to eat if you boil it and throw away the water- some people have apparently done this during times of food shortage. That puts it on the same sort of level of safety as, for example, kidney beans and cassava.
I didn’t know that. Interesting. I’ve only really read up on Amanita Muscaria for it’s Psychedelic uses, but it doesn’t look like it’d be very good for that compared to what else is out there. Seems to have a lot of unpleasant side-effects and seems to act more like a deliriant than a psychedelic anyway.
I have a bunch of Amanita Muscaria growing in my yard. The dog ignores it. I also have a bunch of Amanita Simethica Smithiana. The dog loves that, and managed to eat it once, requiring a stomach pump.
He’s been in kidney failure ever since. Fortunately, with a low protein diet, and being careful with how much calcium he gets, he’s okay. Nowadays he’s 12 (yellow lab, so he’s practically ancient), and his legs aren’t working so well.
Anyway, I’ve been on the warpath ever since to try and keep the yard free of the Simethica fruiting bodies, and have been trying to colonize their area with truffles from my local park instead. The truffles seem to be doing alright, but aren’t squeezing out the Simethica at all.
I tried it a couple of times, many years ago. It was an interesting experience, but, yes, the alternatives are rather more appealing. I found it more like being very very drunk, rather than mind-expanding.
It wasn’t particularly tasty, either, so I think you would have to be rather desparate to eat it for food.
I’ve read reports from people who survived eating various poisonous Amanita species, and most of the time, they say that the shrooms are really tasty. Simethica Smithiana in particular. Which is really ironic. Incredibly poisonous mushroom that looks just like a safe variety turns out to taste really good before your kidneys and liver shutdown forever.
Yeah, all of this plus I’ve heard the nausea varies significantly within the same species according to geography. The ones in north America are supposed to be less unpleasant than the ones in Australia but I’ve not tried.
Obligatory erowid link:
https://www.erowid.org/plants/amanitas/amanitas.shtml
Poison ivy is all natural.
That sounds like a fair definition of “poisonous.”
And all over my d**n yard.
Yes, death cap supposedly tastes like honey.
I try to avoid processed and plainly manufactured food
An apple that’s been picked off the tree and placed in a crate is one that’s been “processed.” That word means nothing.
Has she gone after “organic” yet?
I find this extremely doubtful, just in the sense that whenever I’ve eaten a psychedelic mushroom (amanitas or otherwise), my stomach paints the contents as invalid and dangerous near immediately, and while they’re full of umami, I just think stabbing pain and revulsion, even when extracted with tea and some lemon. How could you separate the taste as pleasant from the danger? Even on pizza!
Kidney beans and cassava aren’t psychoactive even when cooked, though. I wouldn’t consider them on the same level at all.
The article makes it sound like the logo creators weren’t aware of what kind of mushroom it is. That’s silly. I highly doubt they didn’t know it was a magic mushroom.
Anyway, the article is mostly good, but I do think that, while the movement swings too far, it has helped bring much more simple, whole foods to our tables in the past couple decades, and has made people aware that highly-processed packaged foods are generally worse for you. If the easiest way to make people aware of this is to use the shortcut of talking about “natural” food, so be it. The people who care about “natural” food are still probably healthier than the average American, even if they hold beliefs that aren’t always scientific.
I agree. At one level at least, the argument against “natural” is pedantic and merely semantic.
It’s like the arguments I often hear against “organic” – “Dude, all food is organic!” Well, yeah, but that’s not the point…
Usually I’ve only heard “magic mushrooms” in reference to psilocybes, not amanitas. Psilocybe mushrooms are pretty safe - it may be possible to overdo it, but silly unprepared teenagers eat the things frequently and are fine the next day - at worst, they might report that the trip was stronger than they expected, or unsuited to the set or setting.
Certainly, you don’t have to do careful research to avoid killing yourself with them as you do with amanitas…
You’re right, magic mushrooms are more typically used to refer to psilocybin. If you image-search “magic mushroom,” though, you’ll find plenty of examples of people using them to refer to amanitas. For some reason, when I was growing up there was a difference between “shrooms” and “magic mushrooms,” and I never really thought about it.
Here’s a short video by the BBC called “Magic Mushrooms and Reindeer” that is referring to amanitas.
