Mushrooms can contain spores of Clostridium botulinum bacteria. Since the product is fresh, both the mushroom tissue and any native microflora would continue to respire; and it is expected that sealed packages would become anaerobic within a few days of packaging. Storage and preservation of fresh mushrooms is thus difficult.

Drying can be proved as one of the easy and effective method of preservation of mushroom. Various methods can be applied for drying of mushroom such as traditional sun drying, solar drying and freeze drying and cabinet drying, etc. and gamma radiation and vacuum packing can be used as hurdle technologies along with for stability of prolonged shelf life of the stored product.

Dried mushrooms can undergo color and textural changes rendering them yellowish or brownish color, while blanching and sulphiting may help whiteness retention to some extent. However, freeze drying helps to retain its characteristic shape and structure. Drying causes reduction of vitamin c but high content of dietary fiber, Fe, Cu, Mg, K but low of fat, Na and Ca. Hardness of mushroom dried at higher temperature is higher. 

For fresh mushrooms, Vacuum packaging can be used if storage temperature can be maintained at 4C or less from the time of packaging and provided the packaging is done in a sterile manner.


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Pratiksha Shrestha
pratiksha.shrestha2001@gmail.com