The Taxonomy of Toxins: A Species-Independent Toxin-Based Framework for Mushroom Safety: Complementing Mycological Practice with Analytical Protocols for Foragers and Culinary Innovators

This essay proposes replacing today’s opinion-based mushroom edibility assessments with roots in the botany and science of Classical Rome with a science-based system. My proposed taxonomy places authority for determining edibility with an analysis of the toxins found in the mushrooms themselves. It shifts the authority for edibility assessments from opinion, what one or another mycologist personally decided is right, to the authority of replicable science. Edibility is not an opinion. Edibility, meaning that a mushroom is fit for human consumption at the point the cook serves it up, is determined by whether its toxins, if any, can be reduced in concentration to a safe level through a standard kitchen process. Whether this is possible is determined by the nature of its toxins, and how they are governed by general scientific principles, like those of Ficks Laws of Diffusion. This taxonomy takes the guess work out of knowing whether a mushroom is, indeed edible. It opens up hundreds, even thousands of mushroom species to the culinary exploration of foragers worldwide.