As monsoon rains set in, wild mushrooms picked from forests and sold in local markets become a seasonal favourite in Chhattisgarh, but a failure to correctly identify them can turn deadly. Two separate food poisoning incidents have been reported from Chhattisgarh's Kondagaon and Balrampur districts, where members of two different families fell seriously ill after eating wild mushrooms plucked straight from the forest. In all, 16 people across the two families were affected, and 13 of them had to be admitted to hospital as their condition worsened. In the local language, this wild mushroom is known as 'Futu'.
Devangan family in Kondagaon's Palari village falls ill
The first incident occurred in Palari village in Kondagaon district. Some members of the Devangan family living there had gone into the nearby forest on Sunday and brought back wild mushrooms. That night, the mushrooms were cooked into a vegetable dish for dinner, and 8 members of the family sat down together to eat it. After the meal, everyone went to sleep, but around 2 am, all of them suddenly began suffering severe stomach pain. This was quickly followed by vomiting and diarrhoea. As the family's condition deteriorated rapidly, neighbours stepped in to help, arranging a private vehicle late at night to rush everyone to the district hospital. Those taken ill included 2 children, 3 women and 3 men.
Doctors said 5 of the patients had been affected the most severely by the poisoning and were admitted to a special ward for treatment, while the remaining 3 were discharged after receiving primary treatment.
Another family taken ill in Balrampur's Syahi village
The second incident was reported from Syahi village in the Wadrafnagar area of Balrampur district. Here too, a family suffered food poisoning after eating a vegetable dish made from wild mushrooms. A total of 8 members of the family, including 3 children, fell ill. As complaints of stomach pain and vomiting increased, all of them were immediately admitted to the Wadrafnagar civil hospital, where they are being treated under doctors' supervision. Experts have said that in both cases, the patients' lives were saved because they were rushed to hospital in time, and that the poisoning could otherwise have turned extremely dangerous.
How to spot a poisonous mushroom, according to an expert
Mushroom expert and agricultural scientist Dr AK Singh said that many poisonous mushrooms that grow in forests during the rainy season look almost identical to ordinary, edible mushrooms, which is exactly why people end up eating them without realising the danger and fall ill. Dr Singh warned that if a mushroom appears unusually shiny, brightly coloured or slimy to the touch, it should never be eaten under any circumstances. He also pointed out that some people eat mushrooms as an accompaniment while drinking alcohol, calling this the most dangerous habit of all, since it allows the mushroom's toxins to mix directly into the bloodstream and spread through the body far more quickly. As another simple way to identify a poisonous mushroom, he explained that if it turns the cooking vessel black or produces strange foam while being cut and boiled, that mushroom should be considered toxic and unsafe to eat.
