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Nowadays, as the pandemic has reshaped snacking behaviors, and consumers have become more health-conscious, the need for the incorporation of "healthy snacking" in our diets has emerged. Although there is no agreed-upon definition of "healthy snacking", dietary guidelines refer to snack foods with high nutritional and biological value. The aim of this study was to chemically characterize and determine the nutritional value of an innovative UVB-irradiated and baked snack from Pleurotus eryngii mushrooms. P. eryngii is an edible mushroom native to the Mediterranean basin. We applied proximate composition, amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and macro and trace elements analyses. Also, we computed indices to assess the nutritional quality of food, and we evaluated the sensory characteristics of the mushroom snack. We found high nutritional, consumer, and biological values for the snack. More specifically it was low in calories, high in fibre and protein, low in lipids, without added sugars, and high in ergosterol and beta-glucans. Additionally, it had some vitamins and trace elements in significant quantities. Its NRF9.3 score was considerably high compared to most popular snacks, and the snack exhibited high hypocholesterolemic and low atherogenic and thrombogenic potentials. In conclusion, as a result of UVB-irradiation and baking of P. eryngii mushrooms, the snack's nutritional and biological value were not affected; instead, it provided a "healthy snacking" option.

The influence of genetic (species, strain) and environmental (substrate) factors on the volatile profiles of eight strains of Pleurotus eryngii and P. ostreatus mushrooms cultivated on wheat straw or substrates enriched with winery or olive oil by products was investigated by headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS). Selected samples were additionally roasted. More than 50 compounds were determined in fresh mushroom samples, with P. ostreatus presenting higher concentrations but a lower number of volatile compounds compared to P. eryngii. Roasting resulted in partial elimination of volatiles and the formation of pyrazines, Strecker aldehydes and sulfur compounds. Principal component analysis on the data obtained succeeded to discriminate among raw and cooked mushrooms as well as among Pleurotus species and strains, but not among different cultivation substrates. Ketones, alcohols and toluene were mainly responsible for discriminating among P. ostreatus strains while aldehydes and fatty acid methyl esters contributed more at separating P. eryngii strains.

Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy was used to monitor the infrared absorption spectra of 79 mushroom samples from 29 Pleurotus ostreatus , P. eryngii and P. nebrodensis strains cultivated on wheat straw, grape marc and/or by-products of the olive industry. The spectroscopic analysis provided a chemical insight into the mushrooms examined, while qualitative and quantitative differences in regions related to proteins, phenolic compounds and polysaccharides were revealed among the species and substrates studied. Moreover, by using advanced chemometrics, correlations of the recorded mushrooms' spectra versus their content in glucans and ergosterol, commonly determined through traditional analytical techniques, allowed the development of models predicting such contents with a good predictive power ( R 2 : 0.80-0.84) and accuracy (low root mean square error, low relative error and representative to the predicted compounds spectral regions used for the calibrations). Findings indicate that FTIR spectroscopy could be exploited as a potential process analytical technology tool in the mushroom industry to characterize mushrooms and to assess their content in bioactive compounds.