Another reason to eat spicy foods: cilantro, a herb key to many cuisines and central to salsa, can kill food poisoning bacteria, researchers said on Tuesday.
U.S. and Mexican researchers said they had identified a compound in cilantro that kills harmful Salmonella bacteria…
The compound, called dodecenal, is found in the fresh leaves and the seeds of cilantro, also known as coriander.
In lab dishes dodecenal was twice as effective as the commonly used antibiotic drug gentamicin against Salmonella, a frequent and sometimes deadly cause of foodborne illness.
“We were surprised that dodecenal was such a potent antibiotic,” Isao Kubo, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley who led the study, said in a statement…
Kubo’s team also found a dozen other antibiotic compounds in fresh cilantro that showed some activity against a variety of harmful bacteria. [Reuters]
Reuters. “Salsa Spice Fights Bacteria, Study Finds.” Reuters. 25 May 2004. <www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=5254456> (25 May 2004).