IN CULINARY terms they are poles apart: one is a staple of Italian cuisine, the other an essential accompaniment to roast turkey. But put oregano and cranberries together and you have a potent antibacterial agent that could cut the risk of food poisoning from infected seafood.
So say Kalidas Shetty and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, who have been experimenting with different ratios of cranberry and oregano extract to kill Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a seafood-dwelling bacterium that can cause two-day bouts of stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea.
While both plants are known to contain phenolic compounds with…
