Are my worm infested shrooms safe to eat?

[Okami]

A friend and picked about 150-180 liberty caps over Saturday and Sunday. We left them out to dry above a radiator and left the window above them open to allow air flow and we thought they'd mostly dried but then noticed the bottom of the container we transported them in had little white worms/maggots. Apparently according to a amateur mycologist my friend knows we just didn't dry them out enough and he gets that all the time with the edible mushrooms he collects, we simply have to dry them out completely and they'll bugger off. Do you guys think its safe to eat? Neither of us have done shrooms before, I wouldn't want to be ill throughout my first shroom trip.

 

[Solipsis]

Probably fungus gnats. Is it really a question of health safety, so whether you will become ill or not? I'd say you should not necessarily worry about the gnats or their larvae, or other worms... but the general fact that you let them spoil. Taking too long to let them dry and not storing them refrigerated either often results in other nasty stuff like bacteria and other fungi growing on or inside them, especially inside if the worms penetrated the surface and exposing the inner tissue.

Who can be sure about whether you get sick or not? I think you can probably expect to have them hit your stomach way harder, and feel discomfort of trying to digest them. Even fresh mushrooms are not extremely easy to digest - I think because of the fibers, edible mushrooms should also be cooked if I am not mistaken - so adding contamination to that? No thanks I wouldn't want that feeling during my first trip, even if it is not really true poison we are talking about.

 

[foolsgold]

i remember being told years ago that the magots are full of trippy goodness . told them to fuck off im not eating them tho

 

[Okami]

We didn't leave them that long we got them in the morning and left them to dry over night. It might have been because a couple that we picked were already starting to decompose. I told him we should have taken them out! Will try to find more, around where I live but its unlikely had to go on a 3 hour train ride to collect these fellas.

 

[watsons torment]

check the Mushroom-Season-2011-UK thread in EADD where this has been discussed in detail, you will see that it is very common and nothing to worry about, dry the mushrooms on some paper and the little fellas will wiggle out and die.

enjoy your liberty caps

 

[Solipsis]

Hm look at that. Well I'm probably the one who's spoiled then, you make different quality judgments depending on your options. Without many tripping alternatives yeah maybe you might find this worth it. But otherwise, maybe some extra patience and making the best of autumn couldn't hurt, you can make a beautiful day of it instead of considering it a chore that is best completed. Again, I can see how that would feel different.