The typical spices used in winter include nutmeg, cinnamon, clove and anise. These spices contain two groups of chemicals, the allylbenzenes and their isomers, the propenylbenzenes. It was suggested 40 years ago by Alexander Shulgin that these substances act as metabolic precursors of amphetamines. The biotransformation of these precursors to nitrogen-containing metabolites is reviewed. These r...

Recently, the natural spices and herbs such as rosemary, oregano, and caraway have been used for the processing of meat products. This study investigates the antioxidant activity of 13 spices commonly used in meat processing plants. The hot water extracts were then used for evaluation of total phenolic content, total flavonoids content and antioxidant activities. Our results show that the hot w...

Synthetic food additives pose serious threat to the consumers regarding food safety (which is a prime demand of the consumers). Herbs and spices as natural foodstuffs are the replacers synthetically formulated additives, leaving safety concern and providing prime quality food products. These naturally occurring additives have been traditionally used as medicine, flavoring agents and for the foo...

arsenic is a carcinogenic and toxicant element widely found in the environment and might be part of causation web of oesophageal cancer (oc), which has one of the highest incidence rates in golestan province, northeast iran. in this pilot study, we collected 10 sheep tail (donbeh) and 9 mixed spices samples, as widely consumed foods in the region, from main counties in the province and analyzed...

Background & Aims: Aflatoxins are a group of toxic compounds found in most plant products such as pistachio, corn, spices, wheat, and rice. This study was carried out to detect the presence of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) in samples of spices collected from Qaemshahr in Mazandaran province, Iran. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study on the presence of AFB1 in 18 samples of spices including chilli (...

Background & Aims of the Study: Iranian food diet contains nutrients and herbal spices. From the most important challenges in relation to these spices is their pollution with various heavy metals. Thus, this study aims to characterize the amounts of heavy metals in collected spices from Hamedan city of Iran during 2015-2016. Materials & Methods: 180 samples of commerciall...

In a broad sense, the name coffee is used not only for fruits of the coffee tree (cherry coffee), but also for processed fruit such as green (raw) coffee, roasted coffee, instant coffee, and coffee as a beverage. The grading and quality evaluation of coffee beans is based on uniformity, purity, the absence of damaged beans, and decisively on the organoleptic properties of the beverage prepared ...