Kontext

The decline in bee populations observed worldwide is directly affecting the quantity and quality of bee products, mainly honey. Currently, its production in the European Union (EU) fails to cover even half of the internal demand for honey, making the EU a major importer of the product. Thus, in order to operate in highly competitive markets, honey production in Catalonia needs to improve and increase, as the market has the capacity to absorb all the product is produces. Given that honey composition can be affected by dietary factors, it is plausible to hypothesise that the healthy compounds present in mushrooms could be passed on to honey and thus confer additional beneficial properties with a potentially favourable impact on human health. Therefore, another of the main objectives of this project is to characterise and quantify bioactive compounds in the fungi (or derived metabolites) that could appear in the honey and serve as indicators its health properties, such as beta-glucans, triterpenes, fatty acids, ergosterol, and the general metabolite profile of honey using an omics approach: metabolomics.
Taking into account the health potential of reishi and shiitake mushroom extracts and honey, in this project we also hypothesise that the addition of honey and mushroom extract(s) to a syrup could enhance basic aspects of the human immune system, such as the response to pathogenic bacteria.