CEDAR RAPIDS - A federal food safety rule last year made it nearly impossible to buy wild morel mushrooms. Nothing prevented anyone from going into the woods finding their own and cooking them. But selling morels to someone else legally almost required a degree as a plant pathologist.

But wild mushroom fanciers can soon buy and sell at all sorts of outlets. That’s because Iowa lawmakers have created a morel inspector certification program to allow the sale safely.

Winifred’s chef David Meyer knows his wild mushroom from years of experience—both cooking and searching in the woods. But the change in federal food safety rules took morels off his menu last year. He couldn’t legally buy from someone who didn’t have an expert certification.

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