Emerging Natural Hydrocolloids

6 Sage (Salvia macrosiphon) Seed Gum

Seyed M.A. Razavi Ali Alghooneh and Fataneh Behrouzian

Food Hydrocolloids Research Center, Department of Food Science and Technology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, PO Box 91775‐1163, Mashhad, Iran

6.1 Introduction

Sage (Salvia macrosiphon) is an endemic plant belonging to the genus Salvia (Figure 6.1a). The genus Salvia (Labiatae) contains more than 700 species, of which about 200 are found in Iran and distributed worldwide. S. macrosiphon Boiss is a perennial, herbaceous, strongly aromatic, lemon‐scented, and pale yellowish green plant [1]. There is evidence that plants belonging to this genus are pharmacologically active, and they have been used in traditional medicine as a diuretic agent, tonic, anti‐rheumatoid agent and to relieve chronic pain, antimicrobial agent, carminative agent, and for flavor as spices since antiquity all around the world [2]. Javidnia et al. [3] investigated the composition of the essential oil of S. macrosiphon and characterized 64 components, representing 93.3% of the oil, the main constituents being linalool (26.3%), hexyl hexanoate (9.6%), hexyl isovalerate (9.3%), hexyl‐2‐methyl‐butanoate (8.9%), sclareol (7.2%), and hexyl octanoate (6.1%). The aerial parts of S. macrosiphon contain flavonoids of salvigenin, eupatorin, and 13‐epi‐manoyl oxide [4]. Furthermore, Gohari et al. [5] isolated four flavonoids plus a steroid compound from ethyl acetate and methanol extracts of the aerial parts of this ...