Technology

You’re really trusting your country’s food safety agency.

In most countries, some government entity is responsible for reviewing foods sold in stores for safety, and regulating what the packaging can say. So if a company wants to sell a new kind of mushroom in the stores, they have to get it analyzed for safety.

There’s many mushrooms that are perfectly safe to eat, but don’t taste particularly distinct, don’t store well, or just don’t respond well to farming. There’s also many more that are incredibly toxic, and look very similar to the safe ones.

I’ve done foraging as a hobby, and it’s fun to go out and find things in the woods. However, I pretty much only go for berries and leafy greens, as there’s very few truly dangerous flavors of those in my region. I also generally only take a handful at most, as I don’t want to damage the local ecosystem, or risk a mistake making me seriously ill.

For most people, it’s much safer to just go to the store and buy fresh looking produce. Most places of the world no longer have the habitat to support even a few people going out and regularly foraging for fresh produce. If you do find something you like, you can always take a sample of the fruit and plant it in your garden. This is also great for expanding native plants in your area, which provides food for local wildlife like birds.