Nutritional Improvement of Sugar-Snap Cookies Supplemented with Ganoderma sessile and Pleurotus ostreatus Solid-State Fermentation Flours

Abstract

Wheat and rice are major sources of human nutrition worldwide. Solid-state fermentation(SSF) with lignocellulolytic mushrooms can enhance their nutritional value and increasetheir functional properties. However, this technology is not yet widely applied. In thiswork, whole wheat and brown rice hydrated to 60% were used as substrates for the ediblemushroom Pleurotus ostreatus and the medicinal Ganoderma sessile, which were incubatedfor 14 days at 25 ◦C in the dark. The fermented substrate biomass was incorporated intostandard sugar-snap cookie recipes, substituting 20% of the wheat flour. We evaluatedthe technological and nutritional properties of alternative fermented flours and cookies.Both the fermented flours and cookies exhibited increased soluble and total protein content,antioxidant power, and phenol content, indicating overall functional improvement. FermentedG. sessile flour also showed increased triterpenoid content. The physical quality ofcookies remained within expected ranges, demonstrating the feasibility of the application.These results highlight the potential of SSF as a method for nutritional and functional enrichmentof grains and extend the health benefits of mushrooms to populations relying onlow-cost, grain-derived carbohydrates. Further studies on digestibility and in vivo activityof metabolites are needed to confirm the potential health benefits of fermented flours.