Are mushrooms a good source of antioxidants for active food packaging?

Active packaging is gaining considerable attention by consumers and food industry due to its unequivocal advantages such as improvement of food quality and extension of food shelf-life. In this frame, active packaging with antioxidant properties is one of the new packaging concepts that comprise greatest developments. Recently, in order to look for sources of natural antioxidants, a vast range of foods and food by-products have been evaluated. The aim of this work was to evaluate the content on phenolics and flavonoids of edible mushrooms of different species and cultivated according to different methods in order to check their potential use in active packaging. The total phenolics content (TPC) and total flavonoids content (TFC) was evaluated.This work is part of the Project No. 34076/2013 submitted by company iFungHealth - Fungi Innovation Solutions for Health, Lda. by tender SI I&DT (Individual Project Companies) funded by the Mais Centro (Program Regional Operational Center) integrated in the QREN (Strategic Reference Framework National) and the European fund FEDER (European Regional Development Fund) as published by the Tender Notice nº 07/SI/2012 and approval.N/