How can I tell if a mushroom is poisonous?

Question

Assume I have found and want to eat a to me unknown kind of mushroom. Is there some way to find out if that mushroom is poisonous by looking/smelling/soaking it?

Answer 1

No as per: "There are no outward characteristics that all poisonous mushrooms have in common, so picking and eating wild mushrooms requires the utmost caution. To be absolutely safe, the only mushrooms you should eat are those found at supermarkets and restaurants!

All the old wives’ tales about how to tell if a mushroom is poisonous – such as whether it tarnishes silverware or turns blue when bruised – are dead wrong.

There’s a saying that there’s no such thing as an old, bold mushroom hunter."

Answer 2

There's a process in the US Army Survival manual on how to determine which plants are suitable for eating and/or hygiene purposes, but even it states:

WARNING

Do not eat mushrooms in a survival situation! The only way to tell if a mushroom is edible is by positive identification. There is no room for experimentation. Symptoms of the most dangerous mushrooms affecting the central nervous system may show up after several days have passed when it is too late to reverse their effects.

Answer 3

You cannot tell, and there is no specific single method.

This is definitely one of those things that cannot just be described on a Q&A site like this.

Start studying, without eating.

Find an expert and train your eyes and other senses.

Graduate to gathering and have someone else confirm your identification prior to cooking.

Even those experts do sometimes make mistakes, there are just so many kinds of fungi.

As my Scout-master used to say "You can eat any mushroom you want. At least once..."

Good Luck - be careful

Answer 4

The only way to know if a mushroom is poisonous is to have a mushrooms book, or (better) to be an expert.
There are some methods that allow you to distinguish two similar mushrooms, but there isn't a method to know if a mushroom is poisonous/toxic.

Answer 5

Feed the unknown mushroom to someone you don't like. After they die and you get put on trial for murder, the prosecutor will put some fancy biologist on the stand to recite some long string of latin sounding words that are the name of the mushroom. Ta-da! You now know the name of the mushroom and that it is poisonous.