Beneficial Effects of Spices in Food Preservation and Safety

Spices have been used since ancient times. Although they have been employed mainly as flavouring and colouring agents, their role in food safety and preservation have also been studied in vitro and in vivo. Spices have exhibited numerous health benefits in preventing and treating a wide variety of d...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Davide Gottardi, Danka Bukvicki, Sahdeo Prasad, Amit Kumar Tyagi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-09-01
Series:Frontiers in Microbiology
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fmicb.2016.01394/full
Description
Summary:Spices have been used since ancient times. Although they have been employed mainly as flavouring and colouring agents, their role in food safety and preservation have also been studied in vitro and in vivo. Spices have exhibited numerous health benefits in preventing and treating a wide variety of diseases such as cancer, aging, metabolic, neurological, cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases. The present review aims to provide a comprehensive summary of the most relevant and recent findings on spices and their active compounds in terms of targets and mode of action; in particular, their potential use in food preservation and enhancement of shelf life as a natural bioingredient.
ISSN:1664-302X