Unveiling mushrooms' nutritional benefits helps generate consumer demand

Mushroom News, Oct, 2006 by Sally Cummins

While it is well established that consumers buy mushrooms because of their taste and versatility, nutritional value is increasingly impacting their purchase decisions. According to the Food Marketing Institute's 2005 U.S. Grocery Shopping Trends Report, the number of shoppers concerned about the nutritional content of their food nearly doubled from 2000-2005, and close to half of shoppers feel their diets could be healthier.

The Mushroom Council has and continues to support nutrition research to investigate mushrooms' nutritional profiles and health benefits. This research is leveraged for a strong nutrition communications platform to give the media a new reason to cover mushrooms, and in turn catch the consumers' interest and give them one more reason to buy mushrooms. In the past year approximately 50 percent of all media coverage related to mushrooms included some type of nutrition information.

The Council's 2007 nutrition communications program focuses on the robust nutrient package mushrooms provide. On August 18, 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service announced the completion of their Mushroom Council-funded analysis of the nutrition profiles of seven varieties of mushrooms (USDA 2006). This data will serve to update the USDA's Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, which is the foundation of most food and nutrition databases in the United States, used in food policy, research and nutrition monitoring. The information in this database will be leveraged in all future Council-driven outreach about mushrooms including an upcoming editor event, press materials, consumer health presentations and health professional meetings. In the week following its release, the nutrition profile article was reprinted at least 18 times and generated more than 170,000 impressions.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Other recently covered Mushroom Council-funded research that serves to support the nutrition communications platform is the Penn State study that showed mushrooms' antioxidant levels are comparable to many brightly colored vegetables. The study has generated more than 24,000,000 impressions (DuBost and Beelman 2006).

Working together, the nutrition research and nutrition communications programs will continue to shed light on mushrooms' nutritional profile and health benefits for the media, consumers and health influencers.

REFERENCES:

DuBost, J. and Beelman R. Quantification of Polyphenols and Ergo-thioneine in Cultivated Mushrooms and Correlation to Total Antioxidant Capacity Using the ORAC and HORAC Assays. Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting. Orlando, FL. June 26, 2006. http://www.psu.edu/ur/2006/mushroomantiox.html

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Service. Bliss. R. Nutrient Data on Mushrooms Updated. August 18, 2006. http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2006/060818.htm?pf=1. Based on Nutrient Content and Nutrient Retention of Selected Mushrooms. Haytowitz, D.B. Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting. Orlando, FL. June 26, 2006. http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Articles/ift2006_mushroom.pdf

Sally Cummins

EDELMAN

Mushroom Council

PR Consultant