Authorities warn people to eat only shop-bought mushrooms after wet weather creates ideal growing conditions

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

At least eight people in New South Wales have been admitted to hospital after being poisoned by wild mushrooms, prompting a warning from authorities.

The NSW Poisons Information Centre said five of those were the result of intentionally eating mushrooms foraged from fields.

“If not properly identified, mushrooms picked in the wild can make you very ill and could be lethal, so people should only eat shop-bought mushrooms,” Genevieve Adamo said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Cooking or boiling wild mushrooms does not make them safe to eat.”

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Recent rain across NSW has created perfect growing conditions for wild mushrooms, but it’s difficult for most people to distinguish between edible and poisonous varieties.

Some poisonous mushrooms in Australia look similar to edible wild mushrooms in Europe.

In 2018, the centre received 218 calls about wild mushroom exposure and 70 people were admitted to hospital with poisoning.

Almost 40 calls were made this past week alone.

The National Food Safety Information Council on Wednesday warned poisonous mushrooms were not limited to NSW.

“While this latest spate of wild mushroom poisonings wasn’t from death cap mushrooms, be aware that the poison in one death cap mushroom, if eaten, is enough to kill a healthy adult,” council chair Cathy Moir said in a statement.

“Deathcap mushrooms can appear any time of year but are more common during autumn a week or two after good rains.”

They had been found in Canberra, in and around Melbourne, in northern Tasmania and in Adelaide, Moir said.