The New Way To Protect Our Foods – Cinnamon
Yep…you read it right – cinnamon.
Cinnamon is being acknowledged as a way to protect our foods from molds and fungus. It turns out that cinnamon kills microbes. As an example of the impact of cinnamon, researchers took bread that was already tainted with mold and covered it with wax paper made with 6% cinnamon oil. The cinnamon wax paper inhibited mold growth by 96% and prolonged freshness by up to 10 days.
A separate study reported in the International Journal of Food Microbiology found that adding a few drops of cinnamon essential oil to carrot broth inhibited the growth of bacteria for 60 days. The results were so powerful that the researchers called cinnamon a viable “alternative to traditional food preservatives.”
Maybe it’s time to eliminate some of the chemicals that are going into our foods, and to preserve them with cinnamon. So…anyone want a hot chocolate with cinnamon or apple cider with cinnamon?
(Reported in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, August 13, 2008)