Effects of antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of spice extracts on raw chicken meat quality

The antimicrobial and antioxidant effects of two spice extracts and their combination on raw chicken meat during storage for 15 days at 4 °C were studied. Raw chicken meat was treated with BHT (positive control), rosemary (RO), cloves (CL), and their combination, and the results were compared to those obtained for raw chicken meat without any additive (negative control). The antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of spice extracts were determined. The total phenolic and total flavonoid contents of rosemary was lower than those of cloves. Cloves exhibited a higher DPPH radical scavenging activity than that of rosemary. However, the ferrous ion-chelating effect of rosemary was significantly higher than that of cloves. The pH, instrumental colour (CIE L*, a*, b*), total viable counts (TVC), lactic acid bacteria (LAB) counts, Enterobacteriaceae counts, Pseudomonas spp. counts and 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were determined at 3-day intervals over a period of 15 days. The bacterial counts of T-RO-CL samples were lower than those of control samples during storage. T-RO-CL samples maintained significantly (P < 0.05) higher L*, a* and b* values during storage. The TBARS values of T-RO-CL samples were the lowest among the samples. These results demonstrate that spice extracts are highly effective against microbial growth and lipid oxidation and show potential as a natural antioxidant in raw chicken meats.