Spice It Up: The Effect of Spices on Bacteria

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to determine if spices have the ability to inhibit the growth of bacteria that commonly cause food poisoning. Methods/Materials Three different types of bacteria, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Bacillus cereus, and Escherichia coli, were incubated on a total of 72 nutrient agar plates. Eight different spices were each mixed with sterile water and applied to these plates. Bacterial colony counts on these plates were then recorded and compared to the control group which had the bacteria and sterile water only. In a second portion of my project, the effect of the same spices applied to diffusion disks on pure bacterial cultures was also measured. Results I found that cumin, lemon juice, cloves, and salt had the greatest inhibitory effect on the bacteria Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis. Salt, cinnamon, oregano, and garlic had the greatest inhibitory effect on Bacillus cereus. For all three bacteria species, pepper was the poorest inhibitor. Conclusions/Discussion This experiment showed that spices do have the ability to inhibit bacterial growth. Certain spices were found to be more effective than others. Bacillus cereus was found to be more resistant to spices than Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis.

Competition history

• CSEF 2009 Microbiology · Entry J1724

Resources

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