Abstract
Quality stability of the herb pill coated with edible oils containing rosemary was investigated. Herb pills were made of herb powders such as Panax ginseng, Cinnamomum cassia, Lycium chinense, Zyzyphus jujuba and Zingiber officinale. Rapeseed oil and lubriol were used as edible coating oil. After herb pills coated with edible oils with or without rosemary were stored at $40^{\circ}C$ for 180 days, the microbial viable cell counts and peroxide values(POV) of the herb pill were investigated. After 180 day storage, POVs of herb pills with only rapeseed oil or lubriol were 0.51 and 0.49 meq/kg, respectively. However, when rosemary was added in herb pills the POVs were decreased to 0.30 and 0.39 meq/kg, respectively. The addition of rosemary to the rapeseed oil and lubriol tended to decrease the microbial viable cell counts of the herb pill. The microbial viable cell counts of rapeseed oil and lubriol were 940 and 820CFU/g, respectively after 180 days of storage. However, these levels were suppressed to 720 and 640CFU/g by the resemary addition. On the other hand, the ginseng saponin content of herb pills was not affected by the rosemary addition during storage.