Tokyo Family of 4 Suffer Food Poisoning after Eating Poisonous Mushrooms despite Checking on Internet Image Search

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:52 JST, September 29, 2023

A family of four in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, suffered food poisoning after eating poisonous ‘panther cap’ tengutake mushrooms, the Tokyo metropolitan government said Thursday.

On Sept. 18, the family picked the mushrooms at a park in Saitama Prefecture and ate them after frying them, according to the metropolitan government. They used an image search function on the Internet to check whether the mushrooms were edible, but did not realize that they were tengutake.

The family members, aged 11 to 49, experienced symptoms such as confusion and vomiting. Two family members were taken to hospital, but all have since recovered.

This was the first mushroom-caused food poisoning in Tokyo since 2011.