This is why, while I do sometimes like looking up mushrooms to see if they're edible, I never actually eat them

(I look it up to see how paranoid I should be when walking my dogs)

this guy ended up with cyanide poisoning. because he was told he'd found a chaga mushroom when instead he'd cut a wood burl off of a cherry wood tree

Yeah, that's the dangerous middle ground of people knowing enough to know vaguely that chaga mushrooms exist and are edible, but not knowing enough to tell a mushroom from a piece of wood

But I'd say the people who told him it was chaga were worse than him

I did go through the replies and apparently this guy did go to the hospital and did live, at least

................................

I think the only time I would eat "wild" mushrooms is at a restaurant or bought from a commercial vendor.