Myths about mushrooms Mushrooms: edible and inedible
The kingdom of mushrooms is diverse, they are divided into edible, conditionally edibleand inedible. Edible mushrooms are about 150 species, and in the forests of Russia there are about 20 species: podberezoviki, boletus, white, russula, chanterelles, maslata and others.
Conditionally edible fungi contain a large amount of resin-like substances harmful to the body, and therefore they must be subjected to long-term heat treatment. Conventional edible fungi include
mushrooms, valui, bitter bush, freckles , etc. This includes a fungus that is not toxic, but if it is eaten simultaneously with alcohol, it causes poisoning. Poisonous mushrooms: fly agaric, stitches, morels, pale toadstool, false honey agarics, satanic mushroom.
But even edible mushrooms can be toxic under certain conditions. This happens when they are collected near industrial plants( fungi actively absorb harmful industrial emissions, such as mercury, lead, cadmium, etc.), near roads, chemical plants, motor roads.
NOT ALL POISONIC MUSHROOMS DIRECTLY POISONING! !!
The poison of some begins to act after 15-20 minutes, the incubation period of others can last up to 48 hours. The second - the most dangerous. These include a pale toadstool, a greedy white( spring) and smelly mushroom, morels and stitches, fly agarics.
Pale toadstool is a chameleon mushroom. It is often confused with champignon, green leaf, freckles. To distinguish a pale toadstool from these fungi, it is necessary to know that the first has a sack-shaped vagina at the base of the stem( deep-setting into the ground) and a thin fringe ring in the form of a cuff in the upper third of the leg. Pale toadstool grows in July-September. He likes forests and parks.
The first symptoms of poisoning pale toadstool begin to appear after eating 25 g of fresh mushroom after 5-7 hours.
The severity of poisoning depends on many factors: the age of the poisoned, the number of eaten mushrooms, endurance of the body.
When poisoning pale toadstool affects all body systems: nervous, cardiovascular, respiratory. Kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract are severely affected.
Symptoms of fungal poisoning
Usually, after 5-6 hours after poisoning with pale toadstool, nausea, severe vomiting, cramping pains throughout the abdomen, frequent loose stools with a trace of blood( stool similar to rice broth as with cholera), severe weakness, motor anxiety, which is replaced by a state of stunnedness. The mortality rate when poisoning pale toadstool varies between 50-95%.
The same clinical picture develops when the is poisoned with enigmatic fly agarics, , which is often mistaken for mushrooms( to distinguish them from each other, it must be remembered that the color of the plates in fly agaric is from white to greenish yellow, and in mushrooms - from pink to chocolate-brown).
Morels, stitches. Poisoning by these fungi resembles poisoning with a pale toadstool, but the poison is weaker. When poisoning with morels and lines, patients complain of abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, blood in the stool, sometimes convulsions.
REMEMBER: BY CRAZING THESE MUSHROOMS, DIES TO 50% OF THE DENIED.
A special group of poisonous mushrooms are the fly agarics, satanic mushroom, false honey agarics, swine. All of them contain very toxic substance muscarine and its compounds.
When poisoning with fly agaric, satanic fungus and false honey agarics, the symptoms of poisoning manifest themselves quite quickly - after 15 minutes - two hours.
The main symptoms of poisoning with these fungi are: nausea, vomiting, frequent, almost continuous diarrhea, weakness. With severe poisoning, dehydration of the body develops, convulsions appear, collapse and the patient dies from cardiovascular insufficiency.
Mushrooms containing muscarine give characteristic symptoms( muscarinic syndrome) in case of poisoning: a feeling of heat, abundant tear-, sly- and sweating, pains in the intestinal region( such as intestinal colic).
First aid for poisoning with mushrooms
- Urgent gastric lavage with a large amount of water with activated charcoal;
- give the patient activated charcoal every 15 minutes;
- cause vomiting in any way( even if vomiting was abundant);
- gastric lavage - definitely!
- call an ambulance;
- enema with the addition of chamomile infusions( tablespoon of flowers for 500 ml of water);
- after enema give any laxative, available in the house;
- to warm the patient, give strong coffee, tea, rub the body with a cloth. Cold compress on the head, hot-water bottle and abdomen;
- to wait for the arrival of the "First Aid".
When poisoning with mushrooms, you should not take alcohol , as it promotes a faster absorption of fungal poisons!
Patients with fungal poisonings must be rushed to the hospital or emergency room, as the minutes and hours can solve the patient's life.
Folk remedies at home
The following home folk remedies for fungal poisoning are for purely informational purposes, remember, they can not replace or be an alternative to professional medical care.
Herbalists and healers recommend poisoning with mushrooms the following herbal remedies( as antidotes):
Tannin ( two teaspoons per glass of water).Take 10-15 drops of solution every hour. A good effect is provided by enemas made of tannin( 1 teaspoon of tannin per 500 ml of warm water);
Tea with wine is a remedy that our grandfathers used to poison mushrooms. Tea is better to take green.
" Mustard , taken in white wine or vinegar, even and cabbage juice, counteracts the poison in case someone can eat poisonous mushrooms"( "Full common Russian medical").
" Cock litter , cooked in vinegar and taken with poisoning, absorbs all the poison"( Dr. Papus "Practical Magic").
First aid for
When poisoning with mushrooms, should be consulted at the earliest opportunity of .In anticipation of it you need:
- Rinse the stomach. Give the patient a pale solution of potassium permanganate( 1-2 liters) and induce vomiting. Repeat the procedure until "clean water".
- Take activated charcoal, enterosorbents, give the patient a salt laxative( 2 tablespoons of salt to a glass of water).
- Restore the loss of fluids with a rehydron solution( sold in pharmacies) or at least salted or mineral water, sweet tea. You need to drink as much as you like. I sat on the toilet - drink a glass of solution.
- No way to "treat" alcohol! It will not help, but it will hit hard on the liver. Diarrhea will ever stop anyway, and the intestines will recover, but the liver will not forgive for anything.
Remember: vomiting and diarrhea after a meal with mushrooms is a signal that you need a doctor's help. If there is even the slightest suspicion, let it better not be justified, than you from false modesty harm your own health.
Myths about mushrooms
There are a lot of supposedly "proven" ways to avoid poisoning with mushrooms that are transmitted from generation to generation. .. and can cost you life.
- No need to collect mushrooms that have an unpleasant smell, because it is supposedly the hallmark of all poisonous mushrooms. Guided by this "rule", an inexperienced mushroom picker can put a deadly poisonous pallid toad into the basket, since at a young age it does not smell at all or smells like a champignon.
- Insects do not eat poisonous mushrooms. Look closely and you will see that insects and bare slugs readily eat edible and poisonous mushrooms.
- The onion or garlic head, placed in a pan with the boiling mushrooms, will become ripe due to the presence of at least one poisonous mushroom. In fact, the stirring of onions and garlic occurs under the action of the tyrosinase enzyme, which is found in both edible and poisonous mushrooms.
- Instead of onions, place a silver spoon in a pot with mushrooms. If it gets dark, then there's a poisonous mushroom. Stupidity. Darkening of silver occurs under the influence of amino acids containing sulfur, which in one or another quantity is contained in all fungi.
. Source:
- . G.Nasgov. Official and traditional medicine. The most detailed encyclopedia.- Moscow: Izd-vo Eksmo, 2012.
