A woman who found an 11-pound mushroom while on a hike was able to feed her family for a week — but experts warn that doing so could be life-threatening.
Alissimon Minnitt, 27, of the village of North Marston, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom, recently spotted a large white object while out on a hike with her father, news agency SWNS reported.
Thinking at first that it was garbage, Minnitt soon realized she'd found an extremely large puffball mushroom. She foraged the mushroom and brought it back to her parents' house, she told the news agency. (See the video at the top of this article.)
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"I was so shocked when I realized it was a mushroom," Minnitt told SWNS. "It honestly was about twice the size of my head."
Minnitt weighed the mushroom when she got to the house, then went to work transforming the giant fungi into meals for the week.
She made four different items, which she documented and rated on her TikTok account.
The "spicy fried mushroom" dish received a 10 out of 10, she said.
A mushroom-based pizza – meaning the crust was replaced with a slice of mushroom – was an 8 out of 10, and she gave the same score to a mushroom pasta and "meat" balls dish.
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The best thing she said she made, however, was a mushroom "roast" similar to a meatloaf.
Minnitt gave that dish a "10,000 out of 10," saying it was the "perfect vegetarian meatloaf."
She also liked how it froze easily, saying it was a "big win."
"I was surprised by how much we were able to get out of it. The mushroom roast my mom made was so good, so I took some of it home frozen," she told SWNS.
While she was able to safely consume the mushroom she and her father found, wild mushroom foraging can be dangerous and people should exercise extreme care, according to experts.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says people should not eat wild mushrooms unless a trained mycologist (biologist who studies fungi) has identified them.
"Poisonous mushroom ingestions can result in serious illness and death," the CDC says.
Many toxic mushrooms resemble edible varieties, according to the website for the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia.
In the case of a puffball mushroom, which Minnitt found and ate, a similar-looking mushroom called an "earthball" is toxic when consumed, said the same source.
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To tell the difference between the two, a suspected puffball mushroom should be sliced in half from top to bottom prior to cooking.
"The outer rind should be as thin as an eggshell; if thicker, the fungus may be a poisonous earthball," said the museum.
Additionally, a "puffball" found to have a "small mushroom shape" inside could be deadly.
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"The specimen may be the 'egg' stage of a deadly or dangerous species such as the death cap," said the museum.
And while it may not necessarily be deadly, a person should not eat a mushroom that is yellow or brown on the inside, said the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. That coloring means "the specimen is too old and bitter to eat."
