US Treasury Secretary Accidentally Ate Magic Mushrooms in China -- Now It's a Trend

"I went with this large group of people and the person who'd arranged our dinner did the ordering," Yellen told CNN. "There was a delicious mushroom dish I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later."

The dish, called Jian shou qing ("see hand blue"), is made with Lanmaoa asiatica mushroom, which are known to be hallucinogenic.

CNN spoke with Dr. Peter Mortimer at the Kunming Institute of Botany this week, who confirmed "Lanmaoa mushrooms are considered poisonous as they can be hallucinogenic."

"However, scientists have not, as of yet, identified the compounds responsible for causing the hallucinations," Mortimer continued. "It remains a bit of a mystery, and most evidence is anecdotal. I have a friend who mistakenly ate them and hallucinated for three days."

However, Yellen insisted, amid a fit of laughter, to CNN: "I can tell you that none of us were affected by the mushrooms."

"I read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I'm sure they were at this very good restaurant, that they have no impact. But all of us enjoyed the mushrooms [and] the restaurant, and none of us felt any ill-effects from having eaten them."

According to social media in China, Yellen's partaking of the dish has caused many restaurants to sell out of the item.

The restaurant chain -- called In and Out -- she visited claimed on Weibo, per The Guardian, there was such a demand that there was a corporate shuffling in response: "Two weeks after that meal … colleagues from headquarters in branding, personnel, finance, etc. collectively transferred to another job and turned into mushroom cutting workers."