HERB - Article of interest(spices)

[Kathleen Keeler]

Greetings
 the latest issue of BioScience (journal of the American Institute of the
Biological Sciences) includes
"Darwinian gastronomy:  why we use spices." by Paul W. Sherman and Jennifer
Billing.  (BioScience 49 (5)":453-464 , June 1999).

Guess I'd better do a summary, not just say "its out there!"

They analysed 93 cookbooks for traditional recipes from 36 countries (2
cookbooks/country atleast) and quantified the use of spices and herbs in 60 to
284 meat-based recipes per country.  Of 4,578 meat-based recipes, 93% called
for at least one spice (using the term broadly to include herbs).  Average of
3.9 spices/recipe, range of 0 -12.
    Why?  They argue because spices kill microbes. They make predictions from
their antimicrobial theory:
1) spices should be antibacterial and antifungal.  All 30 spices for which they
found data in the literature kiled or inhibited at least 25% of the bacterial
species on which they were tested, 15 spices did that for 75% of the bacterial
species on which they were tested.
2) spices should be used more in hot climates than cool ones.  They plotted the
number of spices per recipe against the mean annual temperature of the country
of the regional cookbooks: they found that indeed, spice use increased with the
mean annual temp. of the country.
3) a greater proportion of hot country bacterial should be inhibited than cold
country bacteria--yes for strongly inhibiting spices, no so for milder spices.
Additional analyses suggest that the cuisine of hotter countries potentially
has greater antibacterial activity.
4) within a country, low elevation or low lattitude foods should be more spiced
than high elevation or high latitudes.  They had latitude data only for China,
where it worked, and for the US, where it didn't. They found no elevational
data to compare.
5) Quantities used in cooking should be effective to kill bacteria -- yes.  The
effective chemical should survive cooking (or be added after cooking):
generally yes.

    They point out that most spices are safe in small quantities, carcinogenic
or teratogenic (birth defects) at high quantities.  And are especially
dangerous to small children and pregnant women.  They note that these effects
may explain why colder climates use fewer spices--the benefits are few because
bacteria grow slowly at low temperatures, and so the benefits don't offset the
problems due to eating spices.

  They deal with alternate explanations:  spices to conceal that food is
spoiled?  They think people who ate spoiled food, with a disguised taste or
not, are risking illness:  better to avoid spoiled food altogether.  Or spices
provide nutrients otherwise not available. Maybe, but then why are there
patterns of more in hot climates?  Or: people use spices to show off they are
rich. The authors find generally people use more of local than distant spices,
more of effective antibacterial spices than less effective ones, regardless of
price.  etc.

    They thought using spices came about in human history because people who
spiced their meat and so ate more healthily would likely be healthier and so
become the local leaders who others followed or imitated, so spice use would
spread.  Adding additional spices the authors suggest was a response to the
development of resistance to one spice by a pathogen.
And there are lots of good little facts and a list of references to papers on
spice use and spice chemistry I expect to find useful.

Cheers
Agnes

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