Transported a guy recently who did something (IMHO) that was very stupid. He ate two wild mushrooms.....

From looking at the guy and his suroundings, you could tell he was physically fit and the 'outdoor' type. He admitted to being a hiker and gave the air of having the knowledge that he knew what he was doing.....lol... He ended up calling poison control because 2-3 hours before calling 911, he had eaten 2 wild mushrooms that he found (in his yard I believe)and he not had vomiting and diarrhea.

Now from what I remember, People always told you NOT to eat any wild mushrooms....they did allow for one caveat and that was 'unless you were absolutely certain what kind they were'... and even with that statement, they would usually follow it up with something like....but even then it is not a good idea.....don't know what happened to him (ultimately) so can't report on that.....but has the 'instruction' changed?

I have looked into wild edibles and even those I am positive of I have leave me thinking.....is it REALLY safe.....?

I can't stand the texture of mushrooms and can not eat them anyway, but was curious if the instruction has changed at all.....

Morel mushrooms are very distinctive. Beyond that I have yet to learn and I do not experiment. A local mycology professor does occasional mushroomhunts and I hope to go on more of them.

Unless you REALLLLYYY know, leave the 'shrooms alone.

You should not eat anything that you do not know for certain.
That applies to all plants and animals, not just mushrooms.

Knowing them includes whether it is edible and which parts and at what times of the year.
You know about shellfish, you might know about red tides and dangerous seasons for clams. You also need to know about local pollution sources and local algae blooms.

With fin fish you have the same thing. Some fish fresh from the sea can have toxic flesh or internal organs. We don't think of fish as being deadly poison but that is the truth concerning some of them.
Look up Fugu or Ciguatoxin poisoning for a couple eye openers about fin fish.

About the parts of the plants or animals I give two examples.
Potatoes are good food, but only the tubers are food and the rest of the plant is poison, and if the tubers turned green from being exposed to light they are as deadly as the leaves are. Seals are edible meat, but if you eat too much seal liver you get poisoned because they are too rich in Vitamin A.

Then there is the problem of how individuals react. Peanuts can kill people with allergies to them. Plenty of foods safe for me are deadly to some people.
There is even a lot of stuff on the supermarket shelf that can kill you.
So you should not eat anything you can't ID properly and know well.

To eat a wild mushroom without knowing what it is, well that is just begging for Darwin's Rules to be applied specifically to you.

Even Ron Hood mis-identified (and was temporarily put down) by a wild mushroom.

I've worked with some Russians for whom mushroom gathering was a hobby (actually a common social activity) and for the life of me I could never tell what they were looking at to determine edibility.

Dismissing a whole class of wild foods because you don't have time or interest to learn them makes common sense, but avoiding a potential resource because of fear of the unknown might not.

If you look at the list of poisonous mushrooms and compare them to a list of all mushroom species there are not very many of them.
If you look at a list of known edible mushrooms there are not a whole lot of them either.
There is an awful lot of mushrooms which are regarded as inedible or unknown edibility because they are to tough, to slimy, to small or taste horrible.
So the thing is to learn which ones are worth bothering with and concentrate on them.
You might want to be aware of the most dangerous ones so you can avoid them, but if you follow the don't eat unknown stuff rule you are OK picking stuff you know to be good.

I would like to add that if you compare poisonous to safe species the mushrooms are a safer kingdom than the green plants are.
The number of poisonous plants in relation to safe plants is much higher than it is with the mushrooms, and some of them are poisonous in much more interesting ways.

Edit: I think Dweste is pointing out that you should get some education about them so you can use them safely.

You got it.

Mushrooms have almost no nutritional value and some are rather impressively dangerous so the risk/reward is somewhat skewed toward you being screwed.

Mushrooms are a very good source for proteins, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium selenium and fiber.
These nutrients are often deficient in greens or tubers.

Mushrooms get a much worse rap than they deserve.

What mushrooms lack are fats and oils, and most other wild foods lack fats and oils too.

For you to get fats you need things like nuts, some of the oil seeds like sunflower or animal sources like meat, fish, insects, grubs and other bugs.

Again, the truly and impressively dangerous ones are easy to learn, and the worthwhile ones are easy to learn too.

You should be able to learn the top 5 edible mushrooms in your area pretty easily. One field trip with the local mycological society in the spring, again in midsummer and once more in the fall would likely set you up quite nicely.