Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Capacity of Chinese Medicinal Herb Extracts in Raw Sheep Meat

Abstract

Antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of 10 Chinese medicinal herb extracts were evaluated by dipping raw sheep meat in extracts, packaging the samples in polyethylene, and refrigerating them at 4 degrees C. The optimum concentrations of Codonopsis pilosula, Platycodon grandiflorum, Artemisia capillaris, Cinnamomum cassia, Rheum palmatum, Ziziphus jujuba, Gardenia jasminoides, Santalum album, Angelica sinensis, and Bletilla striata were 0.10, 0.10, 0.25, 0.10, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.10, 0.25, and 0.25%, respectively. Analysis revealed that test ingredients were more effective in reducing lipid oxidation and microbial counts in raw sheep meat. Correlation analysis revealed a significant negative linear relationship between the inhibition of hydroxyl and lipid oxidation, and inhibition of hydroxyl was the main factor affecting lipid oxidation. A. capillaris (0.25%), C. pilosula (0.10%), and P. grandiflorum (0.10%) were identified as the most effective antioxidants. S. album (0.10%), A. capillaris (0.10%), and C. cassia (0.10%) were the most effective antimicrobials. A. capillaris (0.25%), C. pilosula (0.10%), and P. grandiflorum (0.10%) increased meat redness significantly (P < 0.05) when compared with the control samples on days 0, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, and 11. The pH values of sheep meat treated with C. pilosula (0.10%) and A. capillaris (0.10%) were lower than those of meat treated with other extracts.

Antimicrobial herb and spice compounds in food

“…Individual extracts of clove, rosemary, cassia bark and liquorice demonstrated strong antimicrobial activity; but the mixture of rosemary and liquorice extracts was the best inhibitor against all four types of microbes (L. monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Lactobacillus sake) in modified atmosphere-packaged fresh pork and vacuum-packaged ham slices stored at 4°C (Zhang, Kong, Xiong, & Sun, 2009). Santalum album, Cinnamomum cassia, and Artemisia capillaris were the most effective antimicrobials in raw sheep meat (Luo et al, 2007). There are potential bio-preservative capabilities for application of clove and tea-tree oils to control Escherichia coli O157:H7 on blanched spinach and minced cooked beef (Moriera et al, 2007).…”

Medicinal orchids and their uses: Tissue culture a potential alternative for conservation

“…Other Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Shri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, etc. have been using orchids in traditional medicine since the ancient time till date (Basu et al, 1971;Kumar et al, 2000;Hernández-Romero et al, 2005;Luo et al, 2007).…”

Effect of an extract of Artemisia vulgaris L. (Mugwort) on the in vitro labeling of red blood cells and plasma proteins with technetium-99m

“…Insoluble (IF) and soluble (SF) fractions from plasma (P) were isolated, radioactivity was counted and the percentage of the radioactivity (%ATI) was calculated. Luo et al (2007) have demonstrated that aqueous and hidroalcoholic extracts of mugwort leaves present anti-microbial activity. If this activity was related with actions on the plasma membrane, this finding could be also related with effects on the membrane of red blood cells.…”

“…Mugwort leaves and stem are used medicinally as a bitter digestive tonic, uterine stimulant and antirheumatic (Hickey et al, 2004). Some reports have revealed that mugwort is a potent immunomodulatory (Schmid-Grendelmeier et al, 2003), antihypertensive , antinflammatory (Tigno and Gumila, 2000), antioxidant (Luo et al, 2007) and hepatoprotective agent (Gilani et al, 2005). Antitumoral activity has been reported to artemisic acid and artemisinin B extracted from mugwort (Sun et al, 1992).…”