Some piss-recycling trivia: when the chukchee and lapp peoples shamen take the fly agaric mushroom as a divination aid, then they would allow the less strongly constituted to take and consume their urine, because of two reasons. First, because uncured fly agaric is meant to be, and in every or near enough so report i've read from people that didn't cure it, it was a real gutbuster as well as physically rough all round. This is thought, and most very probably is because of the toxic ibotenic acid being present in addition to the sought muscimol, this on passage through the metabolic machinery of a human (or reindeer, which is thought to be how the tribesfolk learnt of its intoxicating properties, by watching reindeer go berserk over the mushroom, apparently all they need do to call in the animals is scatter bits of fly agaric mushroom on the ground and the deer flock to it) then it is metabolized to muscimol, which itself is excreted almost in its entirety, as it went in without being changed, in the urine, saving one the rough and ready nature of uncured Amanita muscaria. And because the mushroom could only be had seeasonally in limited quantity as could be found and picked, it was/is valuble to them so not everybody could afford to barter for some, so they.....shared...in other ways. Seemingly one portion would thus pass through many, before its activity is exhausted.
Quite happy to stick to picking my own and curing them for the following year and for the winter personally. NOT many reindeer to get them first on my local golf course of course, and I don't know about siberia, but in england they are plentiful enough during the fruiting season, indeed more or less to myself. I get the odd warning 'not to eat those, they will poison you' (only if you don't know hot to make use of them), nobody I know of uses them as an intoxicant, and actually I have never heard of ANYONE who uses them to season their recipes, in a purely culinary manner but me. I've met more than one hiker or dog walker on that golf course and its attached woodland that was first afraid for my safety, and then quite astonished to be told I was taking them home to make my special steak spice blend! fair enough I guess, they meant well in giving me the advice/warnings because all the mushrooming guidebooks and texts DO make claim that its either poisonous, or 'very' poisonous. And it IS lethal to dogs, and possibly to cats.
The books do make them sound a LOT more poisonous or dangerous than they are though. The ONLY actual DIRECT death due to ingestion I'm aware of was decades ago, an italian diplomat who mistook them for the much sought after and reportedly delicous Ceasar's mushrooms, Amanita ceasaria, so named for being a favourite of the roman emperor Claudius, who actually met his end by means of a dish of these that had been poisoned with the juice of the deadly poisonous A.phalloides, the deathcap. No guesses what that one does needed! This italian DID die from actual poisoning, but that was because he cooked and dined on a huge pile of the things. Aside from that, there have been deaths amongst campers who took the fly agarics as an inebriant, but that is not the fault of the mushroom, but the fault of someone not being careful in respect of WHERE and WHEN they took it, they froze to death whilst insensible, and would not have done so, and not have come to harm had that same set of people taken their mushrooms outside of a setting where they could come to harm from the climate. Not any different to driving drunk really, just a different intoxicant and environmental hazard, you don't drink a pint of vodka, rum, etc. if your about to step into a car and drive, and then expect to come out the other end just fine, not sensibly at least. No different at all. As long as one pays the proper respect to what one does with the mushrooms, then its all well and good. Act like an idiot, generally, one ends up suffering the consequence no matter what the cause.
Not had anyone ask me to spare them a bowl of steaming piss, yet, though. Have been asked NOT to, but thats not quite the same, is it?
