Antimicrobial activity of 5 essential oil of common ingredients (Piper nigrum, Allium sativum, Salvia rosmarinus, Thymus vulgaris and Cuminum cyminum) on Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and 2 fungi collected from moldy bread (Aspergillus sp. and Cladosporium sp)

Food preservation is essential for increasing shelf-life of food products yet give rise to several health concerns. Besides, the concern of antibiotic resistance also give rise to the need of investigating new antibiotics. Therefore, the potential of plant essential oils () were investigated by different researchers. However, more information is required to prove EO has a steady inhibition effect as there are different MIC reported. Black pepper EO, garlic EO, rosemary EO, thyme EO and cumin seeds EO were chosen to investigate as their antimicrobial activities were reported and common in our diet which make them suitable to act as food preservatives and favour-increasing agents. From the result, garlic EO shows the strongest and board antimicrobial activity while thyme EO shows a weaker antimicrobial activity than garlic EO. Black pepper EO and rosemary EO show selective inhibition on gram-positive bacteria and fungi while cumin seeds EO only show inhibition on fungi. This study reviews the antimicrobial activities of EOs and garlic EO is the most suitable to act as food preservative and antibiotic among the 5 EOs tested.