Chemical Composition and Anti-oxidant activities of Some Edible Mushrooms of Western Himalayas of India

The present investigation was conducted to assess the chemical composition and anti-oxidant properties of six local edible macrofungi i.e., Agaricus bisporus, Coprinus atramentarius, Ganoderma lucidum, Morchella esculanta, Pleu-rotus ostreatus and Verpa bohemica. The proxi-mate composition of these macrofungi with re-spect to protein, carbohydrate, fat, moisture and ash contents {limit values (%); average} revealed to be 25.56–36.18, 39.96–50.01, 1.40–2.70, 4.12–11.07 and 8.02–13.87, respectively. The element content (mg/100 g d.w.) in macrofungal samples ranged from 1950–2260 for K, 120–460 for P, 8–10 for Ca, 20–60 for Mg, 28–76 for Na 5.2–84.2 for Fe, 1.07–8.66 for Cu, 4.25–9.46 for Zn, 1.29–3.49 for Mn, 0.35–0.55 for Ni, 0.112–0.218 for Pb and 0.008–0.089 for Cd. The edible wild mushrooms were assessed for their anti-oxidant activity in three different solvents and antioxident proper-ties of methanol-, ethanol-and distilled water-extracts studied by 1, 1-diphenyl 2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging method. Maxi-mum antioxidant activity was shown by Agaricus bisporus (87.0%) in methanol solvent and mini-mum activity in Ganoderma lucidum (83.5%). Hence, these nutrient contents revealed that mushrooms were low energy, healthy food and may also be used as a protein supplementary diet. This paper sums up diverse beneficial health effects of mushrooms to humans, in the form of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, food and drugs and medicines.