Nutritional analysis results of commercially available and cultivated cloud ear Mushrooms - food development for disaster and space food applications: first report

The 2025 edition of the Dietary Reference Intakes for Japanese has raised the recommended vitamin D intake from 5.5 micrograms to 9.0 micrograms. The reason for this is that more and more people are taking measured to protect themselves from the sun on a daily basis, and also to prevent osteoporosis. Therefore, the goal of this study was to develop a new food product (disaster food or space food) using wood ear mushrooms, which are known to be high in vitamin D. First, we began by analyzing how much vitamin D and calcium wood ear mushrooms contain, and we report on this. We requested the Japan Food Research Laboratories, Nagoya branch. To measure the vitamin D and calcium contents of commercially available Chinese wood ear mushrooms and wood ear mushrooms cultivated using commercially available Japanese mushroom beds. As a result, the vitamin D content of commercially available wood ear mushrooms was 83.5 µg/100g, and the calcium content was 108mg/100g. The vitamin D content of cultivated wood ear mushrooms was below the detection limit (0.7 µg/100g or less), and the calcium content was 49.5mg/100g. Vitamin D is not only required to be taken together with calcium to prevent osteoporosis, but is also an important nutrient because it regulates immune function, inhibits cell proliferation and differentiation, and suppresses inflammation. However, this analysis has revealed that the foods we eat, thinking we are getting vitamin D, may actually contain no vitamin D or only trace amounts. In the development of future disaster and space food, it is necessary to clarify the nutritional analysis values of the wood ear mushrooms to be used before processing them into food.