Mushrooms as Functional Foods

This book provides a comprehensive review of the recent literature on edible and medicinal mushrooms. The book integrates the recent research conducted on the biological and chemical aspects of mushrooms when being utilized as a functional food. Topics that are covered in this book range from the agricultural production of mushrooms to the use of molecular biological techniques like functional genomics; from nutritional values of newly cultivated mushroom species to the multi-functional effects of the unconventional form of mushroom (sclerotium); from the mechanistic actions of the physiological benefits and pharmacological properties of bioactive components in mushrooms to the regulations of their uses as functional foods and dietary supplements in different parts of the world. A full-color insert provides photographs of mushroom species to aid in identification and classification.Â