# Do you pick Beefsteak mushrooms?



## David G Duncan

Apparently some people pick Beefsteak mushrooms and are able to enjoy eating them, while others find them to be poisonous.

How dangerous is it to pick Beefsteak mushrooms?


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## StumpJumper

They are poisonous to everyone. The poison builds up in your body and never leaves. Once you get so much you are dead. *FACT*


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## outsider

Not sure what it is, but there is supposedly a chemical in beef steaks that is used in manufacturing jet fuel .
And as was allready posted , you never know when you will be eating the fatal dose!!


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## YPSIFLY

I know someone that does, but now that I think of it, he's about the biggest idiot I know.

I have also heard of the chemical that is found in jet fuel. A Benzine related chemical?


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## Airoh

I ate them a few yeares ago. A few shroomers told me they ate them. Then I was told someone from the area I pick them ate some bad ones. So I don't chance it anymore. WHo knows for sure. Better safe than sorry.


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## Brian S

I know a couple ol' timers that eat them. No way for me. I think there is a variation of that mushroom that grows further south that isn't poisinous. Gyromitra carolinas, or something like that. Is the one in the pic is a gyromitra esculenta? I may be completely screwed up on the names, its been awhile.


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## David G Duncan

The following was taken from a Michigan Morel Mushroom website.

"The potentially dangerous beefsteak morel has an irregularly lobed and wavy, reddish brown cap and a yellowish white (often pinkish white) stem.

The stem is not hollow, though there may be air pockets within the flesh. As the mushroom gets older, the ridges and lobes darken to nearly black.

The poison in false morels is MMH, or monmethylhydrazine (a chemical also found in rocket fuel). Its toxicity may be cumulative (you may eat false morels safely for years and then, one day, croak after one bite). Clearly, MMH is not to be messed with. "


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## Banditto

There was a scientist collecting them for research about 5 years ago. We picked a couple bushels of them and sent them down... never heard what happened with that guy, but it was a something to do with drug research.


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## udo hoffmann

Fact..., "beefsteak mushroom" refers to 
*Fistulina hepatica * which is totally edible...

the other one you are talking about is the " FALSE MOREL" *Gyromitra esculenta* which "IS" toxic unless cooked and even then potentially still deadly.


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## multibeard

I did until a friend almost died from eating them.


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## Petronius

udo hoffmann said:


> Fact..., "beefsteak mushroom" refers to
> *Fistulina hepatica * which is totally edible...
> 
> the other one you are talking about is the " FALSE MOREL" *Gyromitra esculenta* which "IS" toxic unless cooked and even then potentially still deadly.


This is the problem when people use the same name to refer to two different things. It can cause confusion when someone says they eat a certain mushroom and another confuses it with a different one. The Fistulina hepatica (beefsteak) is eaten in Britain, Ireland and North America. It is not the same as Gyromitra esculenta (beefsteak). They don't even look the same.
Cooking Gyromitra esculenta does not make it safe. Boiling the hell out of it might make it safer but why bother when there are other mushrooms to choose from?


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## Liver and Onions

http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Mushrooms.Folder/BeefsteakMushroom.html

This is a confusing. The OP, David refers to both the beefsteak and false morel. I believe he is saying that they same thing, only that it goes by 2 names. 
Unless I'm totally wrong, the two are not the same and look nothing alike . For sure I do not eat false morels. 
Since I only pick morels, I don't eat the beefsteak either, looks I could though.

L & O


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## Waif

An example only! reddish pictured shroom on tree is an *Fistulina hepatica. Beefsteak.
Convoluted brain looking one pictured is an Gyromitra esculenta. A false morel.
Often in the past talking to others, the convoluted brain one was often mistakenly called a beefsteak by them. Too many times! Leave them things be uneaten.
Now ,a false morel to me is one with a cap.(picture of drawing)
With true morels the stem is a solid continuation with cap, no separation ..
Now I got to figure what button I hit to change style of letters......


*


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## Petronius

Liver and Onions said:


> http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Mushrooms.Folder/BeefsteakMushroom.html
> 
> This is a confusing. The OP, David refers to both the beefsteak and false morel. I believe he is saying that they same thing, only that it goes by 2 names.
> Unless I'm totally wrong, the two are not the same and look nothing alike . For sure I do not eat false morels.
> Since I only pick morels, I don't eat the beefsteak either, looks I could though.
> 
> L & O


This is where the problem is. People will call the false morel (Gyromitra esculenta) a beefsteak. If you heard some say that the beefsteak was safe to eat, do you know which fungus they are referring to?


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## VivienSM

I love Mushrooms and if are not afraid of poison you will never be poisoned. That always told my mother and she was right.


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## Downriver Tackle

Our neighbors used to eat them until they found out they were related to a bunch of health problems the wife was having. She was having all kinds of heart and liver problems all of a sudden, AND was getting these nasty black lump ulcers on her stomach. Ended up being toxins from the false morels/"beef steaks" they eat accumulating in her body. Supposedly ate them for years with no issues.


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