Edible Mushrooms as Functional Ingredients for Development of Healthier and More Sustainable Muscle Foods: A Flexitarian Approach

Abstract

Consumers are increasingly interested in nutritious, safe and healthy muscle food products with reduced salt and fat that benefit their well-being. Hence, food processors are constantly in search of natural bioactive ingredients that offer health benefits beyond their nutritive values without affecting the quality of the products. Mushrooms are considered as next-generation healthy food components. Owing to their low content of fat, high-quality proteins, dietary fibre and the presence of nutraceuticals, they are ideally preferred in formulation of low-caloric functional foods. There is a growing trend to fortify muscle food with edible mushrooms to harness their goodness in terms of nutritive, bioactive and therapeutic values. The incorporation of mushrooms in muscle foods assumes significance, as it is favourably accepted by consumers because of its fibrous structure that mimics the texture with meat analogues offering unique taste and umami flavour. This review outlines the current knowledge in the literature about the nutritional richness, functional bioactive compounds and medicinal values of mushrooms offering various health benefits. Furthermore, the effects of functional ingredients of mushrooms in improving the quality and sensory attributes of nutritionally superior and next-generation healthier muscle food products are also highlighted in this paper.

Edible Mushrooms as a Natural Source of Food Ingredient/Additive Replacer

“…The interesting content of protein (19-40% on dry basis), dietary fiber in mushrooms [14,15,18,19], as well as the umami flavor and fibrous texture, has encouraged their use to replace animal protein in meat products [8]. Edible mushrooms are significant sources of protein, compared to most vegetables, accounting the eight essential amino acids the 25-45% of the total amino acids [14,19].…”

“…Edible mushrooms are one of the recently rediscovered sources of several functional ingredients [7,8]. They are known from ancient times and Romans regarded mushrooms as the "Food of Gods" [9].…”

Subcritical Water Extracts from Agaricus blazei Murrill’s Mycelium Inhibit the Expression of Immune Checkpoint Molecules and Axl Receptor

“…Mushrooms have been used empirically to treat inflammatory afflictions, infections, diabetic mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, and malignant tumors [3]. There is a huge number (1.5-5 million) of fungal species on earth, with approximately 12,000 of them being mushrooms [4][5][6]. However, only around 2000 species of mushrooms are edible and/or have medicinal properties [4].…”

“…There is a huge number (1.5-5 million) of fungal species on earth, with approximately 12,000 of them being mushrooms [4][5][6]. However, only around 2000 species of mushrooms are edible and/or have medicinal properties [4]. The present study focused on Agaricus blazei Murrill (ABM) or Himematsutake (Iwade strain 101), an edible mushroom of the Agaricaceae family that was originally identified in Brazil in 1960 [7,8].…”

In vitro Selection of Synbiotics and in vivo Investigation of Growth Indices, Reproduction Performance, Survival, and Ovarian Cyp19α Gene Expression in Zebrafish Danio rerio

“…), and sea cucumber as well as in poultry and swine in response to feeding Jerusalem artichoke-supplemented diet have been reported ( Sewaka et al, 2019 ; Abedalhammed et al, 2020 ; Jia et al, 2020 ). Another plant of interest as a source of natural prebiotics is the edible mushroom owing to its richness in bioactive substances, such as functional polysaccharides, terpenes, peptides, glycoproteins, mineral elements, unsaturated fatty acids, phenolic substances, vitamin E, and vitamin C ( Aida et al, 2009 ; Rathore et al, 2017 ; Safari et al, 2019 ; Ansari and Jadhav, 2021 ; Das et al, 2021 ). Mushrooms and their derivatives have been widely used in aquaculture for improvement of growth performance, hematological parameters, innate immunity, and diseases resistance in many cultured species ( Ahmed et al, 2017 ; Amiri et al, 2018 ; Hoseinifar et al, 2019a , b ; Safari et al, 2019 ; Rattanachan et al, 2020 ; Al-Maadhedy et al, 2021 ; Harikrishnan et al, 2021 ; Kumar et al, 2021 ).…”