STUDY ON TOTAL PHENOLIC CONTENT IN SOME ROMANIAN FOREST MUSHROOM SPECIES, BEFORE AND AFTER HEAT TREATMENT

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to study the phenolic compounds in ten forest mushroom species to see if and to what extent the thermal processing can modify the content of these compounds. The biological material consisted of ten forest mushroom species, colected from Suceava county area: Agaricus campestris, Morchella esculenta, Cantharellus cibarius, Armillaria mellea, Lactarius deliciosus, Boletus edulis, Pleurotus cornucopiae, Russula vesca, Sparassis crispa, Ramaria aurea. The experiment consisted in mushrooms thermal processing (boiling for 30 and 60 minutes, and roasting for 10 minutes at 160°C), followed by the analysis of Total Phenolic Content (TPC) which values were compared to the ones obtained from raw samples. As compared to raw material, the boiling process led to a significant increase of percent of TPC between 13.71% and 31.91% (after 30 min. of boiling) and between 12.33% and 61.36% (after 60 min. of boiling). As compared to raw material, the roasting of mushrooms for 10 minutes (at 160°C) led to significant increases of the phenolic compounds between 29.31% and 95.23% in all samples. High TPC values recorded by some species may be explained by the specific tissue structure of these species, which promotes a penetration and a more intense heat action on bound phenols.