Nutritional and antioxidant potential of some wild edible mushrooms of Nagaland, India.

Mushrooms are known to mankind since early human civilization and are gaining importance because of their nutritional and medicinal properties. Till date 37 wild edible mushrooms are reported from Nagaland. In this study, nutritional analysis including total phenolics, flavonoids and antioxidant activity was done for ten popular WEM species. Total protein content was found to be high which ranged from 62.27 g/100 g (-) to 18.77 g/100 g ( var. ); total carbohydrate content ranged from 38.44 g/100 g () to 5.31 g/100 g (); reducing sugar content ranged from 7.81 g/100 g () to 2.33 g/100 g (). Crude fiber ranged from 11.1% (-) to 1.71% () and ash content ranged from 10.66% () to 3.12% ( var. ). The highest phenolic content was observed in (18.7 g/100 g) and highest flavonoid content was observed in (9.3 g/100 g). All the ten mushroom species exhibited antioxidant activity against DPPH free radical, but highest activity was recorded in (47.5 μg/ml, IC50). Hence, mushrooms are valuable natural resource to mankind and should be exploited judiciously for the betterment of society.