US Treasury Secretary Yellen ate 'magic mushroom' in China. Then this happened

United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen accidentally ate a magic mushroom during her recent trip to China's capital city Beijing. Speaking to CNN on Monday (August 14), Treasury Secretary Yellen described her experience with the aftereffects. She had gone out with a group of people for dinner at the Yunnan restaurant called In and Out (not the burger chain), and said, "The person who’d arranged our dinner did the ordering."

“There was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later,” Yellen told CNN. The treasury secretary added that she had “read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I’m sure they were at this very good restaurant, that they have no impact.”

'None of us felt any ill effects'

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Yellen also told CNN that she and others at the dinner did not feel any side effects after consuming the magic mushroom. “But all of us enjoyed the mushrooms, the restaurant, and none of us felt any ill effects from having eaten them,” she said.

Last month, Yellen was in China for a four-day visit to China. Yellen praised her trip as having put US ties with China on a "surer footing."

The Lanmaoa asiatica mushrooms

Yellen's meal at In and Out, which specialises in Yunan food, started trending online, with related posts racking up six million views. According to the CNN report, the dish which the treasury secretary ate is made from Lanmaoa asiatica mushrooms, parts of which turn blue when bruised or sliced.

Dr Peter Mortimer, a professor at Kunming Institute of Botany, told CNN on Tuesday that Lanmaoa mushrooms are considered poisonous as they can be hallucinogenic. Apart from the mushrooms, a local food blogger said that they spotted Yellen’s group eating another local fare, grilled fish with herbs, stir-fried pickled Yunnan wild greens with potato slices, and cold rice noodles.

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