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Mushrooms and you -perfect together Stuart Lieberman, Esq., Its a family backyard gathering. While no one was watching, junior picked one of those poisonous mushrooms off the ground and started eating it. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, the first thing to do is don't panic. I think that is much easier said than done. The Academy suggests that you collect the offending mushroom and take it with you to your child's physician. Carefully dig out the entire mushroom, root and all. If you are not sure which mushroom was consumed by junior, take all of the candidates with you to the doctor's office. We are instructed by the Academy that you should promptly see your doctor or go to an emergency room if an in office visit is not going to work out. While feeling sick (the child, that is), stomach cramps, vomiting and watery or bloody diarrhea are all symptoms of mushroom poisoning, the symptoms really do not matter. The point is that you should not play doctor. Junior should be professionally evaluated no matter how he is feeling. Of course, there are many kinds of mushrooms. By far, most are not poisonous. Mushrooms were originally cultivated in France, perhaps starting with Louis XIV. They were first grown in caves near Paris. The Brits followed suit not long thereafter. Larger scale mushroom growing started in the late 1800s on this side of the pond. Traditional white mushrooms, like all mushrooms, are grown from spores, not seeds. They are fungus, not fruit, after all. A mature mushroom will drop as many as 16 billion spores in its lifetime. Mushrooms have no chlorophyll and therefore receive no nourishment from anywhere other than their growing medium. In the case of commercially grown mushrooms, the medium is called compost. This kind of special compost is a scientifically formulated variety of straw, corn cobs, cotton seed, cocoa seed hulls, gypsum and nitrogen supplements. Compost is first prepared, then it is pasteurized. Next, "spawn" is worked into the compost and the growing takes place. Spawn is the fungus equivalent to fertilizer. The compost fills up with a mushroom root structure after a few weeks. Peat moss is applied after the roots develop. Ultimately, small white protrusions form and push through the peat moss, a process called "pinning." It is these pins that become mushroom caps. The entire process leading to marketable mushrooms takes around four months. If you really are into mushroom, you might consider growing them yourself, perhaps for profit. The Pennsylvania State University, College of Agriculture, has broken down the science of mushroom growing into six steps:
The information provided in this column is written by Stuart Lieberman,a practicing environmental attorney, and is for general information purposes only. It is not legal advice and should not be used in place of legal advice.
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