Phytochemistry, Ethnobotany, Biogenesis, and Pharmacological Wonders of Cumin Seeds

Introduction

A member of the Apiaceae family, Cuminum Cyminum is a flowering plant indigenous to eastern India and the Mediterranean (Zohary & Hopf, 2000). It is an herbaceous and medicinal crop. Cumin is tiny thin annual herb with grayish brown color having dried white fruit. They are occasionally mistaken for nigella, another seed used in Indian cooking. An annual plant, cumin grows best in sunny regions with more than 2000 mm of yearly precipitation. It can flourish up to a thousand meters above sea level. Planting them should be spaced roughly 0.75 meters apart. Little umbrella-like white or pink flowers occur in groups on short stems. There are two primary varieties of cumin: black cumin seeds, which are popular in Iran, and white cumin seeds, which are the more common form. Compared to white cumin seeds, black cumin seeds are smaller and smell sweeter. After black pepper, cumin is prehistoric and most widely utilized seed spices globally.(Elsyed & Abdelsalam, 2017).

Figure 1.

Cumin seeds

Similar to fennel seeds, its seeds are elongated, oval shaped schizocarp and possess a strong, bitter flavor when chewed. The seeds are around 5 inches long and have a thicker middle part with lateral compression. The seeds have a flavor of their own and are covered with hair (or sometimes hairless). Fruit pericarps are rich in tannins, which cause color changes when iron-containing chemicals are present. The cumin seeds are picked about four months after sowing, when the plant starts to wilt and the color of seeds changed from a dark green to brown yellow. The cumin seed has nine ridges. These nine ridges are along the length of it and is tiny and boat-shaped. To get these seeds, the entire plant is removed from the cumin (Elsyed & Abdelsalam, 2017).

Taxonomy of White Cumin

Kingdom: Plantae, Division: Magnoliophyta, Class: Magnoliopsida, Order: Apiales, Family: Apiaceae (Umbelliferae), Genus: Cuminum, Species: Cuminum cyminum (Linn) (Agarwal et al., 2017).

Figure 2.

Flowers and plant of cumin seeds

Cumin has a glabrous, branching, and thin stem that can reach heights of between 30 and 60cm. Its complex leaves have leaflets that resemble threads. It bears an inflorescence of terminal umbels. On each cumin branch, there are three to nine umbels with each umbels having five to seven umbellets, which are composed of small hermaphrodite blossoms that can be either pink or white. Most often, when it is sown in the autumn or winter, seedlings appear between 14 and 50 days later. The germination of cumin seeds typically takes place at low temperatures (less than 20 ◦C) and is stopped at high temperatures (Soltani et al., 2019).

Table 1.

Nutritional value given as per 100g

Energy	1.567kJ
Carbohydrates	44.24g
Proteins	17.81g
Fats	22.27g
Water	8.06g
Dietary fiber	10.5g
Sugar	2.25g

(Elsyed & Abdelsalam, 2017)