Practical Methods to Make Mushrooms the Best Dietary Source of Vitamin D2

摘要

The development of methods to enhance the levels of bioactive components in foods in order to improve their nutritional and/or medicinal value is an important and diverse field of study. In particular, practical methods have been developed to enhance the levels of selenium and ergothioneine in mushrooms and their products to produce the best sources of these compounds in a plant-based diet. Perhaps, the most important in terms of human health is the ability to create a predetermined level of vitamin D2 in mushrooms from ergosterol through ultraviolet light treatment. In this paper, we will examine the knowledge in this field presented in the literature and from original research. Vitamin D plays an important role in human health by acting to regulate calcium and phosphorus levels in the blood and also by its plausible role in the prevention of a multitude of disease states. Mushrooms are known to have very low levels of naturally occurring of vitamin D2 but very high levels of ergosterol, which upon exposure to UV irradiation is converted to vitamin D2. Several studies have examined the role conventional continuous UV irradiation has in this process. However, this process has been shown to be somewhat time consuming for a potential commercial setting. We have pioneered the use of Pulsed UV light to do this rapidly and effectively. Mushrooms with over 100% of the RDA for vitamin D can be produced in one second of postharvest exposure to a Xenon Corp UVB bulb without any adverse effects on product quality. This paper examines the factors and limitations of the current understanding of this phenomenon.