Edible Mushroom: Processing, Nutritional Properties and Potential Risks
A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158).
                
                    Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 April 2026                     | Viewed by 125
                
                
                
            
Special Issue Editors
Interests: edible oil and value-added products; microbial production of functional carbohydrates and glycoconjugates
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Ensuring the safety, quality and functionality of edible mushrooms is a global priority as demand surges for plant-based, minimally processed and sustainable foods. At the same time, the sector faces emerging challenges such as post-harvest losses, bioactive deterioration, microbial and chemical contaminants, and limited regulatory harmonization.
This Special Issue, “Edible Mushroom: Processing, Nutritional Properties and Potential Risks”, assembles state-of-the-art research and multidisciplinary perspectives that bridge mushroom science, food technology, nutrition, toxicology and regulatory affairs. Topics of interest include the following:
- Innovative processing and preservation: Low-temperature drying, pulsed electric fields, high-pressure processing, fermentation, extrusion and 3D printing to retain texture, colour and bioactives while curbing spoilage.
- Functional ingredients and health claims: β-glucans, ergothioneine, vitamin D2, lovastatin and novel peptides; mechanisms of immunomodulation, antihyperglycaemic, neuroprotective and prebiotic effects.
- Mushroom-based functional foods and nutraceuticals: Fortified flours, meat analogues, beverages, encapsulation strategies and synergistic formulations with probiotics or medicinal plants.
- Safety and risk assessment: Mycotoxins, heavy metals, allergenic proteins, cyanogenic glycosides; occurrence, mitigation via bioprocessing, predictive toxicology and omics tools.
- Sustainable valorisation: Biorefinery approaches for spent mushroom substrate, circular packaging with chitosan or pullulan films, life-cycle and techno-economic analyses.
Prof. Dr. Fengjie Cui
Dr. Xiangyong Meng
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- edible mushrooms
- mushroom processing
- functional ingredients
- β-glucans
- ergothioneine
- mycoprotein
- mycotoxins
- food safety
- functional foods
- sustainable valorisation
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