this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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From the responses, the team learned that the ALS patients were not the only mushroom foragers in town, but they shared an affinity for a particular species that local interviewees without ALS said they never touched: the false morel.

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[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 84 points 1 week ago

The false morel contains gyromitrin, a toxin that sickens some number of foragers around the world every year; half of the ALS victims in Montchavin reported a time when they had acute mushroom poisoning. And according to Spencer, the human body may also metabolize gyromitrin into a compound that, over time, might lead to similar DNA damage as cycad seeds.

Fascinating.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 57 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Bruh, Gyromitra esculenta has been known to be toxic for decades. These people have literally been poisoning themselves. You might think they're tasty, but they're not so tasty as to be worth ALS.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sure it's toxic, but not to ME

[–] exasperation@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

I can change her

[–] blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 44 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The morel of the story is...

[–] brrt@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeh, there’s not mushroom for interpretation.

[–] EvilBit@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] brrt@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That’s nice to hear. Usually I need to grow on people.

[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I know what you mean, can be a real truffle sometimes

[–] EvilBit@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Amanita minute to get ready for some real talk in this thread.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I lichen you guys.

[–] ElJefe@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago
[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

False, there is no morel

[–] lostoncalantha@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I feel like nothing good comes from mushroom foraging yourself unless you’re an expert. Seems very risky.

[–] shittydwarf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 1 week ago (2 children)

My mycology professor in university told us he had a doctorate in mushrooms and still wouldn't ever forage for wild ones

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Your mycology professor sounds like they've not really experience outdoors as much as in a city (and specifically a classroom).

I was picking shrooms around the same time I got my first puukko, so idk, four to five years of age.

https://yle.fi/aihe/a/20-137224

[–] shittydwarf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 week ago

The implication was that some of the lookalikes are impossible to identify and wildly dangerous

[–] MintyFresh@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Or maybe he thought that was the wisest thing to tell a group of 18-20somthings. Not a demographic known for cool deliberation or self preservation. There's a reason the draft starts at 18 but you can't rent a car til you're 25.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

So they decided to lie about not foraging for mushrooms?

Doesn't really make sense to me.

Honestly, a professor of mycology not being able yo to forage mushrooms? Just where do these people live that there's no solid edible shrooms which have no fatal similar looking ones, like chanterelles or winter chanterelles?

Idk, maybe in the US there's similar species in areas with them so it's kind of a gamble, but we don't, so foraging is a-okay.

As long as you know how and what to forage for in the specific area you are, you should know whether you can or can't forage edible shrooms easily.

I wouldn't be certain I've found penny buns although I know how to ID them, roughly, but because of the phenotypical variation and not remembering all the strains which are similar, I wouldn't confidently forage those. I don't recall there being anything too poisonous that's close to it, but still.

[–] vxx@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago
[–] Flemmy@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago

I still remember that X-files episode where they were investigating a mind controlling fungi that released a mind altering spore if you inhaled it.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 15 points 1 week ago

If you know what you're doing, you get incredible deliciousness.

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

There are plenty of forageable mushrooms with no look-alikes. If you're cautious and thorough, it's not particularly risky.

And by thorough, I mean:

  • actually learning to properly identity mushrooms before you ever consider eating them
  • learning from someone else with experience
  • verifying that what you're learning is correct in a book (for your specific region) and on the internet
[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 19 points 1 week ago

And these days, that means making sure it's a book written by someone who knows what they are doing, rather than AI auto-generated bullshit.

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

It's the same as using wild herbs. You have to really know what you're doing. It's not impossible to learn, though. First you need to know an expert and learn some basic species that are hard to misidentify. Then you can just stop there or continue.

False morel, despite the name, is not really something you'd confuse for a morel. If the only description I gave you of a morel was 1 sentence long, maybe you'd grab a false morel by accident, but if you've ever seen a picture, or any longer description than that, you wouldn't confuse them.

These people know which mushroom they are foraging.

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'd be surprised if this was the case, but:

Does this mean that ALS is entirely caused by external factors like the chemicals found in these mushrooms?

Better still, is it entirely caused by these mushrooms?

If so, that's amazing news for humanity.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 13 points 1 week ago

Definitely not 100% external. A chunk of cases are known to be genetic.

And these people were eating a mushroom known to be mildly poisonous.

[–] engene@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

Scary stuff! 😱