malte

Yes, here's a source from Atlas of Danish Fungi: https://svampe.databasen.org/taxon/10061 It's an online version mirroring Fungi of Temperate Europe, one of the most comprehensive mycological guides ever published.

I follow mycological authorities on this issue instead of judging on my own from the scientific articles. The consensus in the fungi community where I come from is that agaritine and the phenylhydrazines it creates in the gut are at the least suspect and potentially damaging to the liver. The official advice is to keep intake low until we know better and to not eat Agaricus raw (you shouldn't eat mushrooms raw anyway).

Interesting. We're getting close to actual research territory here and it seems your hypothesis is something that could be worth testing. Until then, I find it plausible and I'll probably continue using moderate amounts of lacto-fermented Agaricus on the assumption that the agaritine is released into the brine and then subsequently degraded.

I ferment all kinds of mushrooms, cultivated and wild. Part of my job is to forage so I come across different kinds. Some develop very interesting flavors, others are just good and a few are terrible (Flammulina velutipes, for example). The most available mushroom we have is white button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) and it gives a nice sour-salty, concentrated mushroom umami liquid.

All agaricus mushrooms, regardless of species, contain agaritine. This has been well-known in mushroom circles for a while and the official advice is to moderate your intake because it is potentially very problematic and doesn't totally break down when cooking, but raw is definitely there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaritine

Mycophagy is a pretty experimental endeavour still and there's lots we don't know. So the available knowledge can sometimes be scarce. Most I know I have directly from local mycologists and our fungi association that sometimes reports on the science. Fermenting mushrooms is even more obscure where I come from, so very few people have good knowledge on this.

OK, I'm trying to follow your logic. My understanding is that you assume: (1) When the mushrooms are alive, they will continue to produce agaritine, (2) When the mushrooms are dead, they will stop producing agaritine, (3) When they are dead, they will release the agaritine to the brine so that the compound will be affected in a similar way to the papers above. Both (1) and (2) seem very plausible. I'm less sure about (3), but am I following you well?

I assume those articles studied the degradation of pure agaritine in various milieus. It's interesting how both water, air and sour pH degrades agaritine. If I was doing the primary research myself, it might indicate some new experiments to try and test. My question has to do about the agaritine content in mushrooms that are subjected to fermentation. That agaritine might behave differently when contained in a mushroom. What answer to my question does the articles give you?

Thanks for taking the time to do a "quick search". It seems like you did quite a lot of reading. I have a bit of difficulty following some of the reasoning. Can I ask if you used an LLM chatbot to assist you in your answer?