Assessment of the Food Value of Trametes elegans Before and After Fermentation

Background and Objective: Mushrooms are known to be sources of food and bioactive compounds with pharmacological properties. Some mushrooms are edible, while some are not. In this study, the proximate, mineral, and amino acid composition of a wild macrofungus, Trametes elegans was investigated. Samples of T. elegans were collected from dead wood in the forest around FUTA and separated into three portions. Materials and Methods: Two portions were respectively subjected to liquid and solid-state fermentation. The third portion serves as a control. The proximate, mineral, and amino acid composition of the T. elegans subjected to the treatments above was assessed using standard methods. Experiments were performed in triplicate, and data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA with mean separation by Duncan’s test (SPSS 20.0) at p≤0.05. Results: The results of the proximate composition revealed a decrease in carbohydrates and an increase in protein after fermentation. Moreover, there were significant increases in the magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus content of T. elegans subjected to solid and liquid fermentation when compared with the raw. Potassium was the highest mineral found in T. elegans. Fermentation also has a profound effect on the amino acid content, with solid-state fermentation having the overall effect of increasing levels of essential and nonessential amino acids. The most predominant essential amino acid is leucine (4.06 g/100 g), and methionine is the least (0.69 g/100 g), while aspartic acid (5.07 g/100 g) and cysteine (0.28 g/100 g) are the most abundant and least abundant nonessential amino acids, respectively. Conclusion: In light of high protein, mineral, and amino acids as revealed in this study, T. elegans could be considered a good source of food supplement for animals.