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ShroomDoom
Friend of the Medicine
Registered: 06/07/04
Posts: 4,435
Loc: A Psychedelic State
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Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation
#6883246 - 05/07/07 03:37 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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is there anywhere i can find comprehensive info on this? also, is it safe to eat shrooms found close to a road, even if the road is just a dirt road with little traffic? this is a big new issue i have to consider before eating field shrooms again, any help is appreciated.
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PinheadX
Stranger thanyou
Registered: 04/25/07
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: ShroomDoom]
#6883538 - 05/07/07 07:19 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Considering the lifespan of a mushroom fruit to be just a few days to a couple of weeks, the concentration of any accumulated materials would be low, I would think. Also, you may take into consideration whether there are bushes or other thick growth between the road and field, as this would help to filter and block some of the exhaust from reaching the mushrooms in the first place. Also, contaminants in the soil will be absorbed by the mycellium according to the article I linked to below.
I wouldn't pick them beside a busy highway, but on a dirt road I would imagine there would be a negligible risk involved.
I found this by googling levels of heavy metals found in mushrooms
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/analsci/21/7/21_747/_article
Considering this was a study done on mushrooms in a forest in Portugal, the data may not be relevant to the US, but I thought it would at least give you a baseline.
-------------------- If you want to find psilocybin in species that are not yet known to be psychoactive, you should do chemical tests. That way you won't get sick and die all the time. - Alan Rockefeller Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
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ToxicMan
Bite me, it's fun!
Registered: 06/28/02
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: ShroomDoom]
#6883544 - 05/07/07 07:24 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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For those who hunt edible mushrooms it has been a good general rule for a long time that you should never eat mushrooms from roadsides. If the road is fairly new, a dirt road, and little traveled then it may be OK. The issue is that gasoline had lead in it for along time. So the soil near older roads can be contaminated with lead, which the mushroom mycelia will concentrate. Other possible sources of similar toxins are mine tailings and dumps.
Happy mushrooming!
-------------------- Happy mushrooming!
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ShroomDoom
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: ToxicMan]
#6884259 - 05/07/07 11:47 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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well this is a very old road that my field is nearby but its a dirt road, is there still a significant lead risk when consuming the mushrooms i find there, ToxicMan?
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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist
Registered: 03/10/07
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: ShroomDoom]
#6885416 - 05/07/07 04:56 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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A lot of good information on this subject is in Mycelium Running pp 99-107.
It includes a table listing many kinds of mushrooms and the heavy metals that they accumulate, and the approximate factor by which they concentrate these metals.
If you are interested in mushrooms near roads, you will want to avoid species that like to concentrate lead since they didn't stop using leaded gasoline very long ago. A few grams here and there won't hurt you much, but if you find a good edible patch right next to the road, it would be a good idea to eat them sparingly.
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xmush
Professor ofDoom
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#6885661 - 05/07/07 05:48 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Alan Rockefeller said: A few grams here and there won't hurt you much
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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: xmush]
#6885733 - 05/07/07 06:11 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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I was thinking that actives near the road would probably be acceptable because the amount eaten is quite small, compared with the much larger amount of edibles that people tend to eat.
Also the mushrooms in strophariaceae don't tend to accumulate heavy metals as much as many edibles, such as Coprinus comatus, which often grows near roads and accumulates all sorts of heavy metals.
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xmush
Professor ofDoom
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#6885885 - 05/07/07 06:55 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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I was just laughing to myself because if you meant a few grams of lead - yikes! But a few grams of mushrooms with very little lead in them - not as scary.
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mjshroomer
Sage
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Posts: 13,774
Loc: gone with my shrooms
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: ShroomDoom]
#6886423 - 05/07/07 08:48 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Dr. Tjakko Stijve is one of the world's foremost experts on trace elements and arsenic and radio celsium (sp?) isotopes in Fungi as well as an expert mycologist on edibles and toxic shrooms, both poisonous and magic.
He has published numerous papers on that subject. I have many in my library but I am totally swamped, working on about six papers, five on shrooms and one on the Cultivation and processing of Thai commenrcial tobacco, So I really do not have the time to scan and post them.
A lot of his original early work on this subject are probably in French. I read a little so I have an extensive library of his works.
I brought him here tot he USA from Switzerland to America in the early 1990s, and later brought Jochen Gartz on his first visit here and then ketamine guru and Oxford Scholar, Karl L. R. Jansen to America. But Dr. Stijve's articles should be around the internet, maybe more so his shroom articles.
http://www.psms.org/sporeprints/sp392.pdf
A short article on sugars in shrooms
mj
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ToxicMan
Bite me, it's fun!
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: ShroomDoom]
#6887118 - 05/07/07 10:51 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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As the others have noted, small quantities of these mushrooms are probably not harmful. The big problem with heavy metals, and lead is one of the worst, is that once they get into your body they don't go away. So the total amount of lead (or whatever) slowly builds up. The effects of heavy metal poisoning are pretty bad, so I avoid any potential sources. There are too many mushrooms out there that have pretty much no risk of that sort of poisoning for me to even accept a small risk.
Happy mushrooming!
-------------------- Happy mushrooming!
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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: ToxicMan]
#6887340 - 05/07/07 11:37 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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snoot
look alive ∞
Registered: 01/30/05
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#6888437 - 05/08/07 09:41 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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I'm not entirely sure how we're supposed to read the rest of that, but the first page was enticing. However that's a good example and one from the worst nuclear diseaster ever.
Obviously its going to come down to were the mushroom is inhabiting. The enviorment plays the biggest role in weather or not the fungus is healthy to begin with. pollution could be in there air the water, the soil. I mean you could be hunting someone's land and they could be dumping all sorts of sick stuff into some kind of drain field. Just gotta be carefull I guess. Non the less be observant, and look around. I personally have never encountered a problem. I myself dont hunt next to busy busy roads.
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∞ I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. - Simone de Beauvoir -
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sander
learning
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: snoot]
#6894111 - 05/09/07 03:14 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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the point being that yes mushrooms are really efficient absorbers. so if there are unwanted metal concentrations in their environment, chances are the fruiting bodies will also have these metal concentrations. my academic adviser is a fungal biologist and while i haven't taken her mushroom class yet i have talked to her about this, and she said that following Chernobyl they even had to ban eating venison because the deer were eating the mushrooms and the concentrations of radioactive isotopes were high enough, even in the cooked flesh, to be dangerous. I'm pretty sure (almost positive) you don't have to worry about atmospheric chemicals so much as soil chemicals. so you can look at the drainage patterns off the road and figure out where the possibly hazardous guys are. although vapors can certainly travel as far as they want, its the liquid spills on the road that would be potentially hazardous.
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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist
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Re: Wild Shrooms and heavy metal accumulation [Re: sander]
#6894292 - 05/09/07 04:17 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think it is the exhaust residue that has the lead in it near roads, so the immediate runoff is where the toxins are.
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