Spices are used widely in Indian culinary for flavour and aroma. They have also been known to impart several health benefits. In the current work, the essential oils of clove, carom, cumin, fennel and ginger were obtained by hydro distillation and analyzed by GC-MS. They were also investigated for their antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Antibacterial assay showed that essential oil of carom seeds exhibited exceptional growth inhibition against all the bacterial strains with maximum inhibition against Enterococcus faecalis (40±0.17 mm) and its GC-MS analysis showed the presence of highest amount of thymol (49.6%). TLC-direct bio autography of carom essential oil confirmed that a single compound (Rf 0.325) was responsible for its remarkable antibacterial activity. Clove oil showed maximum inhibition against Bacillus cereus (24±0.28 mm) and ginger oil against Micrococcus luteus (35±0.39 mm). Clove and ginger essential oils showed the presence of high amounts of eugenol (82%) and α- citral (18%). Antifungal assay demonstrated that all the five essential oils possessed remarkable antifungal activity against the three fungal strains. Antioxidant studies depicted that cumin, clove and ginger essential oil possessed maximum DPPH radical scavenging activity with lowest IC50 (1.5µl/ml). Cumin also showed maximum chelation of ferrous ions (66%) in comparison to other spices. GC-MS analysis of cumin essential oil showed the presence of maximum amount of phenyl glycol (40%) and cuminaldehyde (30%). The results demonstrated that these oils possessed significant antibacterial, antifungal and antioxidant properties and may find their applications as food preservatives, medicine and herbal formulations.
