Cilantro Kills Harmful Bacteria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) May 26, 2004 - Another reason to eat spicy foods: cilantro, an 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. They hope it can be developed into a safe food additive that could help prevent food borne illness.

The study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, shows why salsa, a staple of Mexican food, and many other spicy foods seem to have innate antibacterial activity. It fits in with other studies done over the years that show popular spices can keep food from spoiling.

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.

But it is not potent enough to fight food poisoning in naturally occurring amounts, Kubo said.

"If you were eating a hot dog or hamburger you would probably have to eat an equivalent weight of cilantro to have an optimal effect against food poisoning," Kubo said.

Kubo's team also found a dozen other antibiotic compounds in fresh cilantro that showed some activity against a variety of harmful bacteria.