Incorporation of iron and zinc–enriched Pleurotus mushrooms into bread towards enhancing nutritional composition, antioxidant activities and probiotics growth

Food formulation and supplementation are inspiring strategies to promote dietary patterns and therapies to maintain healthy life style. In this study, bread was fortified with mineral-enriched mushrooms powder. Nutritional composition, consumers’ acceptability, antioxidant potentials and probiotics viability with the formulated bread were determined using standard methods. Pleurotus pulmonarius and Pleurotus ostraetus harvested from Fe − and Zn-enriched substrate showed concentration-dependent uptake of Fe and Zn. Bread samples BPPFe 100 and BPOFe 100 had similar ( P > 0.05) iron contents of 16.98 mg/100 g and 17.30 mg/100 g, respectively, while bread without mineral-enriched mushroom had the lowest ( p < 0.05) iron content of 4.44 mg/100 g on dry weight basis (DW). BPPZn 100 and BPOZn 100 had the highest Zn of 24.00 mg/100 g and 24.52 mg/100 g, respectively and these values were higher than bread without mushroom. Protein contents of bread fortified with mushroom and bread with mineral-enriched mushrooms increased up to 16.80–17.10% when compared to unfortified bread (9.30%). PCA biplot associated key amino acids like arginine, aspartic acid, serine, lysine, threonine, and tryptophan to bread fortified with Fe − and Zn-enriched mushrooms. The addition of minerals-enriched mushrooms into bread increased the phenolic and flavonoid contents with reduced IC 50 (µg/mL) against 1, 1- diphenyl-2-picryhydrazyl (DPPH), iron (Fe 2+ ), and hydroxyl (OH − ) radicals. Incorporation of mineral-enriched edible mushrooms into baked bread enhances its protein, amino acids, and bio-functional activities. Therefore, fortifying bread with Fe and Zn-enriched Pleurotus mushrooms can be an effective strategy to provide functional foods with dietary health benefits to consumers.