ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the importance of bioactive secondary metabolites derived from edible mushrooms in the nutraceutical industries. Since origin, man has mostly lived in a hunter-gatherer society, depending on the biodiversity of their surroundings for their sustenance. Mushrooms have probably been eaten for as long as people have walked on the surface of the Earth. Since origin, man has mostly lived in a hunter-gatherer society, depending on the biodiversity of their surroundings for their sustenance. Mushrooms have probably been eaten for as long as people have walked on the surface of the Earth. Mushrooms are widely popular due to their high protein content and unsaturated fatty acids. Additionally, mushrooms are also known to be a good source of soluble fibre, particularly ß-glucan. Mushrooms possess a wide variety of carbohydrates, such as pentoses, hexoses, methylpentoses, disaccharides, sugar alcohols, amino sugars and sugar acids.
