mushrooms: how do researchers give out accurate facts about mushrooms?

Question

i want to know how researchers and universitys and such give out information about something how do they determine if a mushroom is poisons without using the books and an old mans experiance
how do they say ok we have this chemicals and that chemical and 15% of this in the following mushrooms i'm just curious if i find a mushroom how can i make sure that it's edible or not and is there a handheld device and can digitaly detect chemicals inside it?

Answer 1

There's quite a bit being done right now in the field of fungal taxonomy -- classification of fungi. As someone who has studied a lot about fungi (at the university level, no less), the truth is you just have to learn from experience. Lots and lots of experience. There is no magical handheld device you take into the woods to analyze the mushroom. What we do is just pick the mushroom, look at it with our eyes, maybe under a scope, then hand it to the professor to confirm our suspicions. And yes, we tote our mushroom keys (identification guidebooks) to the forest when we forage. My favorite key is 'Mushrooms Demystified' by David Arora.

In general, just don't eat what you pick if you aren't totally sure. A lot of Agaricus genus mushrooms look similar -- some of them are fabulous in a salad, others will make you vomit.

A lot of delicious mushrooms look pretty distinct, like the chanterelle or the oyster. They're easy to spot, pick, cook and eat. And heck, a lot of poisonous mushrooms are distinct, too. Amanita phalloides, the DEATH CAP, is green-tinted on the top with white gills. Takes only 20 grams of the stuff to destroy your liver.

So, uhh, yeah. You just can't be sure unless you have a lot of experience in the field, and getting there is often by low-tech means: looks and books.

Answer 2

~Science is a very tricky thing. Researchers spend many years learning how to study and group different plants and organisms. They also learn special researching techniques that help them to classify these organisms and figure out how they live and survive. The successful scientists publish thier findings in reference books and journals for others to read. After a while the findings become common knowledge and reproductions of these publications become accessable to the common person (such as yourself) in text books and on websites such as wikipedia.com.

Answer 3

they break them down to their chemical componants and know which ones are poison to humans and other animals. If you get a mushroom identifying book and trust your judgement to only get mushrooms that are exactly what you see in books then maybe you wont get poisoned, but as far as i know there is no mushroom sniffing machine.