Armand Uzan feared for his life when he fell violently ill after eating a yellow Boletus he found on Oka beach, about 60 kilometres northwest of Montreal, a few years ago.
“When you throw up like that, you wonder when it’s going to stop,” he said.
Despite a passion for foraging mushrooms that dates back to childhood outings with his father, he said the experience taught him that, no matter how well you think you know mushrooms, you have to be wary when consuming them.
Quebec doctors are also urging caution, as they’ve seen a recent spike in mushroom poisonings across the province.
Dr. Guillaume Lacombe says he regularly meets patients struggling with poisoning caused by the consumption of toxic mushrooms picked from all over Quebec. He finds that the phenomenon has grown since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people began exploring the outdoors more.
“There has been an increase in the number of calls and in the number of patients presenting to emergency departments,” said the emergency specialist at the Centre hospitalier régional de Lanaudière and toxicologist at the Quebec Poison Control Centre.
The centre has received 256 calls this year, from Jan. 1 to July 25, to report exposure to mushrooms, with people developing symptoms in 43 per cent of the cases.
While deaths related to the consumption of wild mushrooms in Quebec are rare — fewer than five per year — the number of amateur mycologists continues to increase, therefore increasing risks.
Chapeau les bois, a “mycrobrewery” that makes beers using wild Quebec mushrooms, says demand for its introductory courses on wild-mushroom picking has grown tenfold compared to pre-pandemic numbers.
“Things have changed a lot. Over the past 10 years, interest in forest products has exploded. Even if we’re lagging behind other countries, particularly in Asia, we’re making great strides,” said François-Xavier Fauck, co-owner of the company and president of the Association pour la commercialisation des produits forestiers non ligneux (ACPFNL).
In response to the uptick in popularity of wild-mushroom picking, Dr. Lacombe says foragers should never eat a mushroom they can’t identify with certainty and should always be trained by an expert.
“Mushroom picking can be a super interesting hobby, so I’m not telling people not to do it, but rather that there can be risks. You really need to get informed and not act as a mycologist if you don’t know anything about it,” said the toxicologist.
According to his findings, most inedible mushrooms will cause gastrointestinal symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea. Severe poisoning is rare, but can have long-term consequences.
Beware of social media ‘experts’
Mycology groups have exploded on social media since the start of the pandemic. However, due to the many amateurs claiming to be experts on the edibility of mushrooms, David Fortier feels it’s his responsibility to constantly moderate exchanges.
“The first question people are going to ask on these mushrooms groups is: ‘Is it edible?’ We should be trying to redirect them so that their question is: ‘What is it?'” he said.
“There are a lot of beginners out there and they often come up with all kinds of answers. There are over 3,000 species of mushroom in Quebec,” said Fortier, who is completing a master’s degree in natural products chemistry at Université Laval in Quebec City.
Despite the risks, Uzan says his experience at Oka beach hasn’t discouraged him from taking an interest in wild mushrooms.
In fact, the incident prompted him to become better informed and he’s enjoying rediscovering his passion for the science he once studied with his father.