article · Sustainability
Global food production faces severe pressures from climate change, land degradation, water crises, and desertification, driving the search for alternative food sources. Edible mushrooms represent a promising next-generation food due to their rich nutritional profile, including proteins, dietary fibre, vitamins, minerals, and diverse bioactive compounds such as polyphenols, polysaccharides, and terpenoids. Extracted bioactive ingredients offer potential for incorporation into health-promoting supplements, displaying biological properties that include anticancer, antidiabetic, antiviral, antioxidant, and immune-enhancing activities. Effective utilisation requires sustainable handling practices, clear distinctions between edible and poisonous species, and techniques such as biofortification to boost nutrient density. Further investigation remains necessary to determine the economic sustainability of extracting these bioactive compounds and to explore their efficacy against emerging diseases.
Conventional agriculture is increasingly threatened by environmental challenges such as land degradation and water scarcity. Edible mushrooms offer a nutrient-dense alternative food source that can support food security under changing climatic conditions. In addition, their bioactive compounds provide opportunities to develop health-promoting supplements capable of addressing chronic illnesses, supporting immune function, and combating emerging viral infections.
The findings point to potential applications for nutraceutical manufacturers, functional food developers, and biotechnology companies producing dietary supplements and therapeutic ingredients. Methods such as nano-biofortification also present opportunities for commercial mushroom growers seeking higher-value yields. Because the research outlines broad biomedical potential and highlights the need for economic assessments, these applications appear to be at an early stage, requiring dedicated process-cost analyses and disease-specific validation before market deployment.
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Global food production faces many challenges, including climate change, a water crisis, land degradation, and desertification. These challenges require research into non-traditional sources of human foods. Edible mushrooms are considered an important next-generation healthy food source. Edible mushrooms are rich in proteins, dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other bioactive components (alkaloids, lactones, polysaccharides, polyphenolic compounds, sesquiterpenes, sterols, and terpenoids). Several bioactive ingredients can be extracted from edible mushrooms and incorporated into health-promoting supplements. It has been suggested that several human diseases can be treated with extracts from edible mushrooms, as these extracts have biological effects including anticancer, antidiabetic, antiviral, antioxidant, hepatoprotective, immune-potentiating, and hypo-cholesterolemic influences. The current study focuses on sustainable approaches for handling edible mushrooms and their secondary metabolites, including biofortification. Comparisons between edible and poisonous mushrooms, as well as the common species of edible mushrooms and their different bioactive ingredients, are crucial. Nutritional values and the health benefits of edible mushrooms, as well as different biomedical applications, have been also emphasized. Further research is needed to explore the economic sustainability of different medicinal mushroom bioactive compound extracts and their potential applications against emerging diseases such as COVID-19. New approaches such as nano-biofortification are also needed to supply edible mushrooms with essential nutrients and/or to increase their bioactive ingredients.
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DOI: 10.3390/su14094941
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