The regular demand in all countries for spicy food to be available in fast food outlets and in restaurants has resulted in the world's spice market being dominated by two food groups: McCormick Inc of the USA and Burns Philip and Co. of Australia. The latter has become the largest supplier of spices to Europe by the acquisition of Ostmann in Germany, Euroma in the Netherlands, and British Pepper and Spice in the UK. Of course there are still some independent companies in Europe and the USA (Commonwealth Secretariat, London 1996, Guidelines for exporters of Spices to the European Market).
On the world market about 20 major spices are traded. The spices are included under raw crude medicinal plant materials in export-import data. Such plant material is supplied for many countries but the world leaders are China, with India second (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2001, A Guideline to the European Market for Medicinal plant and Extracts). Regarding the area of cultivation of spices, India must be the world leader, when one considers the need of its own vast population.
Many spices are finely ground and blended together in making, for example, a good curry powder. However, the bulk of the spices are also processed individually to yield spice oils, oleoresins and concentrated spice extracts. These are used in many products of the food industry and also as pourable sources, eg. curry and chilli sources or relishes, etc. for the fast food chains.
The specifications of these spices and the products obtained from them have to be agreed between the producer and the buyer and strictly maintained. For the control of the ultimate quality, sophisticated technical data are laid down requiring appropriate analytical procedures, also define, at all the stages before plant material or the final product reaches the market. The specification may range from the plant variety to be grown, the method of cultivation, the herbicides and pesticides permitted, methods of harvesting and of drying, storage and the prevention of insect and fungal attack. Also the level of heavy metals, herbicide, pesticide and mycotoxins in the dried plant material. the method of subsequent processing including the solvent to be used etc., until the final product is eventually reached, when it has its own specification also fully defined.
Ancient Asian literature is a treasure of information related to the problems of health and diseases, promotion and care, social, cultural, spiritual and religious, climatic, seasonal and environmental aspects including economics. One such important antiquity, besides the Ayurvedic treaties like Charaka Sushrita, Vhagbhat (Asthanga Hridaya), Samhita and Bhowprakash are particularly, is the India Vedic literature, which are four in numbers. The vedic literature (2500 BC) is the source of information that contributes to the development of Ayurveda where different parts of the plants have been mentioned to be used as medicines. In ancient India, natural herbs were consumed either as food or used as medicines in order to maintain proper sanitation, health and hygiene and increase longivity of life.
In medieval Asia, besides fine textiles and ivory, spices were considered to be highly important. In this respect, India has been considered as the "Kingdom of spices". In ancient economics, spices were ranked with precious inventories of royal possessions. Pepper was regarded as 'Black gold of India' and 'King of spices', while cardamom as the "Queen of spices'.
TRADITIONAL USES OF SPICES
Spices were used in perfumes, offerings, medicine, preservatives, flavours, cultural marks, cosmetics, insecticides, and as condiments. Natural red and yellow colours prepared from red chilli, turmeric and saffron respectively were used as dyes.
Spices have been used since ages in tribal and folk medicines and different traditional forms of ancient medicine like Ayurvedic, Unani and Sino-Tibetan systems. In Ayurveda specially, spices contributed a major amount for the treatment of major disorders of the body. Homoeopathic medicine has been using spices as one of the major ingredients in most of their preparations. In this respect, some major spices like chilli, pepper, ginger, garlic, bishop's weed, cumin, coriander, turmeric, mustard, asafoetida, fenugreek, onion, fennel, anise, cinnamon, tamarind etc plays a major role. Some of the traditional uses of spices in Asia and different parts of the world are summarised in Table 1.
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