How toxic is Horses hoof fungus to handle

[wildrover]

Quick question.
How toxic is horses hoof fungus?

Don't worry I don't want to eat the stuff.
Just maybe turn it into Ammadou.
How careful do I need to be?

What I'm thinking of is if I'm in the field and perhaps I don't have access to proper handwashing facilities.

Am I correct in thinking the Chinese infuse it to make a kind of tea?

 

[maddave]

It's perfectly safe to hold and work with. The chinese eat and drink most things don't they??

 

[xylaria]

All mushrooms can be handled even the very poisonous ones.

I don't know about tea from horses hoof, i have drunk a drink made from ganoderma. It was supposed to taste like coffee, it tasted like macro aro brand coffee, which is possibly the most disgusting "coffee" on planet.

 

[wildrover]

Thanks for the replies.
I maybe should be more clear
I've messed about with fomes before and am still here to tell the tale.
I know it can be handled .

It was more of a question of it's use in the field where I would expect to be able to rinse my hands (and knife) off but may not be able to scrub my hands.

I'm sure that the mention that it gets on rogers mushrooms website say's that it tastes bitter

 

[spiritofold]

I was walking about in the woods with handfulls of the stuff yesterday, I was chopping it about to see what it looked like etc, and ended up with all sorts of crap on my hands. Not ill yet

 

[Toadflax]

It is interesting that Rogers Mushrooms gives the taste of many of the species described, including some poisonous ones, with the statement that provided you only taste with the tip of your tongue and then give your mouth a good rinse afterwards, you should suffer no ill effects. I'm assuming that this is a reliable source and that the statement is therefore true...

...however, I'm not sure that I would want to taste a potentially deadly species. For example, if we take perhaps the worst case example, I wonder how much Death Cap you would need to eat to become ill (or more specifically how little you could eat and not become ill) - i.e. could you taste Death Cap using the tip-of-the-tongue method as described in Rogers Mushrooms and survive? Not that I'm going to try it myself...


Geoff

 

[Tor helge]

One learn something new every day.
I didn`t even know the Horse hoof fungus was poisonous .

I have however handled the fungus several times and so has others without injury. And I will also do it in the future.

Tor

 

[gregorach]

It's not poisonous. As far as I know, it's not even slightly toxic.

 

[xylaria]

It is interesting that Rogers Mushrooms gives the taste of many of the species described, including some poisonous ones, with the statement that provided you only taste with the tip of your tongue and then give your mouth a good rinse afterwards, you should suffer no ill effects. I'm assuming that this is a reliable source and that the statement is therefore true...

...however, I'm not sure that I would want to taste a potentially deadly species. For example, if we take perhaps the worst case example, I wonder how much Death Cap you would need to eat to become ill (or more specifically how little you could eat and not become ill) - i.e. could you taste Death Cap using the tip-of-the-tongue method as described in Rogers Mushrooms and survive? Not that I'm going to try it myself...


Geoff

You need to swallow a teaspoonful to reliably do yourself in. I don't routinely taste wild mushrooms, only certain groups like milk caps and russulas. I know that deathcaps are tasteless, but that is taking the word of good field field guides like rogers and I am no hurry to try out tasting death caps. However horses hoof has no known toxicity and I would be quite happy to put a small piece of it in my mouth,as I am pretty sure no harm would come of it. I don't wash hands after handling it, in fact i don't wash my hands after handling death caps either. As the amount of fungi that remains on hands after handling is so small it would so far below what is required to cause poisoning, so there is no risk.

Some wild plants and the odd fungi can leave a bitter taste on hands after handling, I would wipe my hands after handling if this is the case. After tasting some fungi the bitter taste can be quite persistent indeed. The other week a tasted a russula drimeia (sardonia), it was the worst tasting thing have ever had in my mouth, so bad that water couldn't get rid of the taste, so I took a unripe blackberry and ate that, that actually worked. If anything out there causes that type of problem a sharp taste like sorrel, dock rowan or unripe edible fruit normally fixes it for me.

Horse hoof shouldn't cause any problems from handling. Don't handle any unknown member of the carrot family without washing you hands though, they can cause very nasty rashes indeed, and some are very toxic if ingested.

 

[wildrover]

Thanks again for the replies.
I didn't think it was toxic, but wasn't sure
As I have said I have handled the stuff with no ill effects so far.

I collected some the other day and it occured to me that I didn't know for sure