Herbs and Spices as Natural Food Additives

摘要

Herbs and spices not only provide flavour, colour, appearance, delicacy and freshness to different food products, but impart medicinal properties for controlling various physical ailments like headache, back pain, itching, sun burn and many other skindiseases. Spices are also used for inhibiting gastric troubles and healing fire burns, wounds, cuts, and insect bites with minimum pain. They exhibit stimulating, carminative as well as strong antiseptic properties. A number of phenolic compounds and essential oils present in the extracts of spices andherbs are mainly responsible for their medicinal and healing properties. The uses of herbs and spices in dairy and food products may also be vindicated from their nutritional, medicinal, antimicrobial and calorific values.