Beheshti University, M.C., Tehran,Iran



Spices are used all over the world to prepare foods mainly because of their flavoring properties however , these are grown and harvested in warm, humid areas of the world where the growth of a wide variety of microorganisms is readily supported. The aims of the present work were to evaluate the hygienic quality of some spices,in the chain stores of Tehran .

We collected 151 packed samples of three kinds of spices, black pepper, turmeric , cinnamon in the chain stores of Tehran .we investigated to determine their microbial status based on ISIRI.we found these results: average of total aerobic mesophilic count for turmeric was 3/6 × 10⁷ cfu/ gr , black pepper: 7× 10⁶ cfu/gr .cinnamon: 1/92×10⁴ cfu/gr average of coliforms count was: tumeric : 6/26×10³ cfu/gr , black pepper : 8/83×10³ cfu/gr ,cinnamon:4/7×10³ cfu/gr. Feacal coliform tests for 3 kinds of spices were: turmeric 13% , black pepper34% ,cinnamon 6% ,average of yeast and mold count was for turmeric:1/23×10³ cfu/gr, black pepper : 2/94×10³ cfu/gr and cinnamon 2/9×10³ cfu/gr. We compere our results to ISIRI standard and we found that ,some of them were out of standard limit, therefor: it is suggested to provide legislation on the sanitary and hygienic quality of spices in our country.