Abstract
One of the world's oldest spices, cinnamon is also one of the most popular. Species of the genus Cinnamomum offer a variety of extractable oils with aroma and flavor characteristics of importance to the flavor industry, so differentiating cinnamon samples for culinary-based applications is very important. Cinnamon also has reported health benefits associated with specific phytochemical constituents, but its composition can vary greatly depending on species and source region. A substantial amount of the research reported on cinnamon does not provide thorough documentation of the source and taxonomic identification of the study material, a very common issue with studies of food and medicinal plants. In the interest of providing some clarity to the discussion of the health benefits and culinary attributes of the different cinnamon types in the marketplace, we offer the results of a long-term chemotaxonomic study of cinnamon samples sourced from different regions of the world and link those chemical data to classical taxonomic identification of the source plants. We provide details of the effective use of an automated chemotaxonomic analytical method to differentiate cinnamons from various geographic regions. Also included are chromatographic data for the polyphenolic/procyanidin fractions of each species, as cinnamon type-A procyanidins are often the purported source of biological activity in cinnamon and cinnamon extracts.
Highlights
One of the world’s oldest spices, cinnamon is one of the most popular
We describe the automated chemotaxonomic chromatographic analytical method based on the SherlockTM Microbial Identification System (MIS; 17) used in their characterization
Commercial cinnamon and cassia are derived from four principal species of the genus Cinnamomum from southern and southeastern Asia
Summary
One of the world’s oldest spices, cinnamon is one of the most popular. Species of the genus Cinnamomum offer a variety of extractable oils with aroma and flavor characteristics of importance to the flavor industry, so differentiating cinnamon samples for culinary-based applications is very important. Cinnamon has reported health benefits associated with specific phytochemical constituents, but its composition can vary greatly depending on species and source region. In the interest of providing some clarity to the discussion of the health benefits and culinary attributes of the different cinnamon types in the marketplace, we offer the results of a long-term chemotaxonomic study of cinnamon samples sourced from different regions of the world and link those chemical data to classical taxonomic identification of the source plants. We provide details of the effective use of an automated chemotaxonomic analytical method to differentiate cinnamons from various geographic regions. Cinnamon’s purported health benefits, e.g., antidiabetic (1–5), antimicrobial (1, 2), antioxidant (1, 2), and anti-Alzheimer (6), have heightened the interest in this spice and led to increased sales and a considerable amount of research in the past decade (1, 2). We describe the automated chemotaxonomic chromatographic analytical method based on the SherlockTM Microbial Identification System (MIS; 17) used in their characterization
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