In his book The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, Tom Sine shares the story of his parents’ friends and their love for gathering wild mushrooms. One weekend this couple came home with several baskets of mushrooms. Realizing the impossibility of being able to consume all the mushrooms by themselves, they decided to invite others over to their house for a mushroom party. The turn-out was terrific, and they had a wonderful time eating mushroom crepes, omelets, and soufflés. They ate until they could not eat another bite and then scraped the leftover mushrooms into the cat’s dish.

Around midnight, as the guests were getting ready to leave, someone went into the kitchen and noticed the cat sprawled out on the floor in convulsions. Next to the cat was an overturned dish of mushrooms. The guest screamed,…