ABSTRACT

The present study was conducted to evaluate the anti-microbial and proximate composition of sixteen different spices. The spices investigated were Monodora myristica, Coranarum sativum, Laurus nobilis, Curcuma longa, Piper guineese, Rosmarinus officinalis, Foeniculum villgare, Parinari excelsa, Chrysobalanus icaco, Zingiber, officinale, Trigonella foenum-gruecum, Cumin cyminum, Carum carvi, Rianodendum heudelotii, Afrostyrax lepidophylus and Afromomum subsericeum. The microorganisms used for the anti-microbial assay were seven clinical pathogens; Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Proteus vulgaris, Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterococcus faecalis; two of these were used for disc diffusion assay and seven for the minimum inhibitory concentration. Proximate analysis result revealed the moisture content of the samples ranging between 10.24- 24.67, dry matter 88.30- 89.76, ash content 3.54- 9.43, crude protein 7.52 - 17 18, fat 2.67- 7.95, crude fibre 6.46 - 9.52, and carbohydrate 123.29 - 137.62. The antimicrobial screening revealed that all the spices used in this study have good antibiotic properties against the various bacteria pathogens tested with maximum inhibition observed, in Parinari excelsa (24mm) and Cumin cyminum (24mm) in the disc diffusion assay and Curcuma longa (7.18glml) in the MIC. The result of this study showed that all the selected spices contained reasonable amount of nutraceutical values which suggest the application of the seeds as supplementary sources of antimicrobial agents and essential nutrients.