Mushroom picker warning in bumper season

With TV chefs urging us to rummage through the hedgerows for “natural” food, this year’s bumper crop of mushrooms – brought about by the wet summer – has triggered a surge in urban foraging.

But where there is free food there could be danger.

By the end of September there had been over 200 enquiries about mushroom poisoning across the UK, a third more than this time in 2009. The figures, from the National Poisons Information Service, show the increase is a quarter more than 2008.

Poisoning is not the only potential hazard. Helping yourself to forest freebies could also land you in court.

At Epping Forest, which starts in north-east London and stretches into Essex, wardens operate a zero tolerance approach.

One explained that one Sunday earlier this year his colleagues seized 47 kilos of mushrooms in one swoop. Their main concern is commercial pickers who arrive in organised teams to strip out large areas of forest.

In one haul, witnessed by Channel 4 News, they found that half of the mushrooms picked were poisonous.

The autumn season lasts until the first frost hits, which means the joys and the dangers of foraging will continue for several weeks yet.