Carob (Ceratonia siliqua) is one of the important crops over western Asia and North Africa. Its nutritional value has been acknowledged for millennia but its medicinal properties were practically studied only in the last four decades, despite the fact that some of them were used in traditional medicines for centuries. Modern food industry is just starting to discover the great potential of this plant. Carob has outstanding antioxidant capacity along with other important medicinal activities. Some of these have been extensively studied and reported in the last decades, but very few review articles were published about this plant, that summarize and discuss the findings. In this comprehensive review article, we present these reports and discuss them with special attention to traditional medicine, modern research findings, natural products and recommendations for future research subjects.
Key words: Carob, antimicrobial, antioxidant, chemical composition, polyphenols, nutritional value.
|
