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[00:01.00]SARAH LONG:And this is Sarah Long with the VOA Special English program SCIENCE IN THE NEWS.
[00:07.32]Today,we tell about spices and some interesting ideas about these substances.
[00:14.27]BOB DOUGHTY:People have used spices in food for thousands of years.
[00:20.56]Some spices are valued for their sharp taste.Others are chosen for their smell.
[00:29.03]Spices are made from plants or vegetables.Common spices include pepper,cloves,ginger,mustard,cinnamon and dill.
[00:42.32]Spices come from different parts of plants.
[00:46.87]For example,cinnamon comes from the hard outer covering of cinnamon plants.
[00:54.47]The spice ginger comes from the part of the ginger plant that grows underground.
[01:02.41]Spice plants grow in many countries.
[01:06.69]The Molucca islands in Indonesia,for example,are famous for producing spices such as cloves,nutmeg or mace.
[01:17.77]Vanilla comes from plants growing in south America.
[01:22.32]Many people grow spice plants outside their homes.
[01:27.38]Then they dry the plants for later use.
[01:31.85]Some common spice plants can even be grown inside a house if they are placed in sunny areas near windows.
[01:42.14]SARAH LONG:Spices have influenced world history.
[01:46.30]For example,the Goth people of Europe defeated Roman forces in a battle almost two-thousand years ago.
[01:56.38]After the fighting ended,the leader of the Goths is said to have demanded five-thousand pounds of gold and three thousand pounds of pepper.
[02:09.47]Later,explorers like Marco Polo,Vasco de Gama and Christopher Columbus discovered new lands while seeking to expand trade with spice-growing areas in Asia.
[02:24.77]The Italian cities of Genoa and Venice became powerful because they were at the center of this spice trade.
[02:34.81]The spice trade was so important to national economies that rulers started wars in their struggle to control spices.
[02:45.93]BOB DOUGHTY:Spices are commonly used because they can make food taste better.
[02:52.49]Two researchers at Cornell University in the American state of New York say there is another reason for spice use in cooking.
[03:04.66]They say spices contain substances that kill or slow the growth of dangerous bacteria in food.
[03:14.49]It is a known fact that some spices destroy bacteria.
[03:20.60]Spices long have been used to keep food safe to eat.
[03:26.97]In the past,spices also were used to help protect the condition of dead bodies.
[03:35.96]The study reportedly was the first to investigate the idea that spices are used in cooking because they destroy dangerous bacteria.
[03:49.83]SARAH LONG:Researchers Paul Sherman and Jennifer Billing examined more than four-thousand-five-hundred directions for cooking meat or fish.
[04:02.34]They found these recipes in traditional cookbooks published in thirty-six countries around the world.
[04:11.51]The two researchers studied the spices used in the recipes and tested them against thirty kinds of bacteria.
[04:22.74]The researchers say people use spices because they make food taste good,and bacause spices protect people against disease.
[04:35.15]They say people who used spices many years ago lived healthier and longer lives because the spices killed disease-causing bacteria in their food.
[04:49.41]They say the use of the spices spread in some areas because the people who used spices shared these safer cooking methods with their children and friends.
[05:04.46]BOB DOUGHTY:Professor Sherman and Mizz Billing found that onion and garlic are used most often in areas where weather conditions are very warm.
[05:16.97]These two spices stopped almost one-hundred percent of the bacteria against which they were tested.
[05:26.74]Hot peppers stopped the growth of eighty percent of the bacteria tested.
[05:33.87]The researchers found that foods from warm climates contain more onion,garlic and hot peppers than foods from other areas.
[05:46.49]For example,eighty percent of the recipes from Indonesia called for garlic and onion.
[05:55.48]Seventy-seven percent called for the use of hot peppers.
[06:01.51]But the use of spices was not as common in cooler climates.
[06:07.86]Onions appeared in fifty-six percent of the recipes from Ireland.
[06:14.78]Garlic was called for in twenty-three percent of the Irish recipes,and hot peppers in only two percent.
[06:24.84]In Norway,no recipes called for garlic and only twenty percent called for onions.
[06:34.50]SARAH LONG:The Cornell University researchers found that countries with warm climates generally use many different spices in many of their foods.
[06:47.12]Countries with cooler climates use fewer spices in fewer foods.
[06:54.15]The researchers also found that spice use within large countries sometimes differed from one area to the next.
[07:04.31]Examples include the northern and southern United States,and northeastern and southwestern China.
[07:13.98]The study showed that the recipes from warmer areas used more spices than the recipies from cooler areas.
[07:24.42]These findings support the idea that the most effective spices are used mostly in areas where bacteria destroys foods quickly.
[07:35.94]Such areas generally are very warm.
[07:40.12]BOB DOUGHTY:Professor Sherman and Mizz Billing rejected other attempts to explain the large amount of spices in foods from,warmer climates.
[07:51.46]One possible explanation is that people in warm climates use more spices because spices cause their bodies to release sweat.
[08:03.30]It says the liquid from sweat may help to cool the skin.
[08:10.43]The researchers say that only one spice they studied,hot peppers,can cause sweating.
[08:19.41]Ant it is not one of the most popularly used spices.
[08:25.55]The researchers also note that hot pepper do not produce sweating in all people who eat them.
[08:35.90]SARAH LONG:Another explanation for the use of spices is that they hide the bad smell and taste of food already being destroyed by bacteria.
[08:48.41]The researchers rejected this idea.
[08:51.91]They say people who eat food with harmful bacteria would be more likely to get sick and die,so this method of cooking would not be passed on to others.
[09:05.31]A third explanetion for the increased use of spices in warmer climates is that people use spice plants growing near them.
[09:17.04]The study found that people do not use every spice grown in their local area.
[09:24.17]And,they do use many spices imported from other countries.
[09:29.53]For example,pepper is used in all thirty-six countries in the study,but it grows in only nine of them.
[09:40.58]BOB DOUGHTY:The American researchers say the smells and taste of spice plants probably have changed over time to protect the plants against bacteria,insects,and fungi.
[09:56.41]They say this is important because humans are affected by many of these same enemies.
[10:04.90]The bacteria and fungi that live on and inside dead plants can be harmful to humans.
[10:15.16]If spices kill such substances or stop their poisons,spice use might reduce the likelihood of developing food poisoning or other sicknesses.
[10:30.13]SARAH LONG:Not everyone agrees with some of the study findings.
[10:35.30]Critics argue that economic and cultural forces can explain spice use in many countries.
[10:44.08]Frederick Simoons is a retired American expert of world cultures.
[10:50.50]He says people very often explain things from the past in terms of modern knowledge.
[10:58.42]Mister Simoons notes that garlic was often banned for religious leaders because garlic has a strong smel
[11:08.09]He said such smells were not permitted in ancient times for people wishing to communicate with spiritual being
[11:19.32]BOB DOUGHTY:One interesting finding discussed by the Cornell researchers is the rate of food poisoning in Japan and Korea.
[11:29.98]Food poisoning affected about thirty of every one-hundred-thousand Japanses from Nineteen-Seventy-One until Nineteen-Ninety.
[11:42.59]But only three of every one-hundred-thousand Koreans had the problem during the same period.
[11:51.19]The researchers were surprised by this because both countries have similar climates.
[11:59.39]They noted,however,that Korean food is spicier than Japanese.
[12:05.92]They say Korean food also calls for more spices known to have anti-bacterial effects.
[12:15.69]The researchers do not know why Japanese recipes do not call for the more effective spices.
[12:24.47]But they say the spices used in Japanese cooking may have been enough to protect people from sickness in the past,but not now.
