Except he is a promoter of taking methylene blue for health benefits, a synthetic blue dye.

Is this the “jerky” that is repeatedly mentioned in the files?

I’ve foraged and consumed many of the species in my region, but I do not forage amanitas or lookalikes for this exact reason. I don’t care how good matsutake is, I’m not consuming that without independent verification. In Italy they have state officials who will check your mushrooms, in the US we have these mushroom AIs that are bound to get someone killed eventually.

I’m in the Northeast US. There is a lot of overlap in species but there are also a lot of differences. I wouldn’t say there is any region in the world that is safer than others. What makes it safe vs dangerous is how much time you spend learning about your region and safe practices.

I forage mushrooms. I think there is both a healthy fear and an overreaction to how dangerous it really is. A novice can forage for something like chicken of the woods because it is an obvious species that has no deadly lookalikes. However there are mushrooms even I still avoid despite knowing exactly what they are because they have poisonous lookalikes.

What’s really surprising is people seem to think foraging plants to be safer despite there being plants with edible lookalikes like poison hemlock that can kill in minutes.

In the end, a little bit of practice, focus, and understanding safety, mushroom foraging, and plant foraging, is actually much less dangerous than one would imagine. Still, if you don’t know what you are doing you should never eat a mushroom or plant that you aren’t 100% certain is what it is. Never munch on a hunch.

> spends centuries conquering the world for spices

> doesn’t even use them

There are plenty of Texans who vote left or can be persuaded to as well. I’ve learned recently that Texas politics are way more nuanced than I realized. The good Texans that want to work together should be invited into the coalition.