A charity in Australia has repeated a warning against picking and eating wild mushrooms. The Food Safety Information Council’s annual message comes as mushrooms are starting to appear around Australia with it being Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Lydia Buchtmann, Food Safety Information Council CEO, said foraging for food is… Continue Reading Consumer Education, For Consumers, For Foodies, World, Australia, Coroner’s Court, Death Cap, Food Safety Information Council, wild mushrooms Food Safety News
A charity in Australia has repeated a warning against picking and eating wild mushrooms.
The Food Safety Information Council’s annual message comes as mushrooms are starting to appear around Australia with it being Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.
Lydia Buchtmann, Food Safety Information Council CEO, said foraging for food is becoming popular, especially through promotion on social media, but gathering wild mushrooms can be dangerous.
“Last May, a 98-year-old Victorian woman died after eating death cap mushrooms picked from her own garden. Her son also ate the mushrooms but recovered. The poison in one death cap mushroom, if eaten, is enough to kill a healthy adult. Also, in April 2022 a young child was hospitalized in the Australian Capital Territory after consuming a death cap mushroom,” she said.
“Don’t take the risk of foraging for other wild food as mushrooms are not the only risk. Gathering wild food is also a risk for foodborne illness from contamination with animal feces and parasites.”
Coroner on fatal case
In May 2024, Loreta Maria Del Rossi died seven days after consuming a meal made with mushrooms foraged from her own garden.
Victorian State Coroner, John Cain, found that Del Rossi died from multi-organ failure due to poisoning from amatoxins — the toxin found in death cap mushrooms.
Del Rossi, who lived with her son, grew her own vegetables and regularly collected wild edible grasses such as dandelion and milk thistle. In April, she found wild mushrooms growing in the front yard and told her son that she would collect, clean, and test them. They then consumed the mushrooms and did not experience any negative effects.
In May, Del Rossi found more mushrooms growing in the same patch of yard and prepared them for dinner again. That night Del Rossi and her son fell ill and were taken to the hospital for treatment. While Del Rossi’s son survived, her condition deteriorated and she entered palliative care.
Cain praised the Department of Health for publishing a health advisory on the consumption of wild mushrooms but said additional public awareness is needed. He recommended that the Department of Health and Victorian Poisons Information Centre design and run an annual advertising campaign, released in autumn, to warn Victorians about the dangers of wild mushrooms.
Wild mushroom advice
Death cap mushrooms can appear at any time of year but are more common a week or two after heavy rain. They have been found in the Canberra region, Melbourne, Tasmania, and Adelaide. They are not native to Australia and often grow near oak trees in warm wet weather.
People born overseas, especially in Asian or European countries, should be aware the mushrooms can look like edible mushrooms they may have gathered in their native countries.
The toxin in death cap mushrooms is not destroyed by peeling, cooking or drying. Symptoms of poisoning include vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramps and usually appear 10 to 16 hours after eating. These symptoms may ease for two to three days before a terminal phase of three to four days begins. Without effective medical intervention people may go into a coma and die after two to three weeks of liver and kidney failure.
If consumption of a death cap mushroom is suspected, don’t wait for symptoms to occur but go to a hospital emergency department and take the mushroom if possible. Australia also has a Poisons Information Centre.
There are other wild mushrooms in Australia that have caused fatalities or can make people ill with abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea. They include the Cortinarius (webcap) and Galerina species, and the ghost mushroom, which is commonly mistaken for oyster mushrooms. The yellow stainer which resembles a field mushroom, is the most commonly ingested poisonous mushroom in Victoria and New South Wales.
Many accidental exposures to poisonous mushrooms are in children younger than 5 years old. Pets can also be affected. Apps and Google searches should not be relied upon to identify mushrooms.
From July to October 2024, 32 serious cases of mushroom poisoning were reported to poison control centers in France out of 1,179 reported cases. In 2023, Tox Info Suisse, the Swiss poisons information center, reported 98 documented mushroom poisonings.
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