For centuries, cinnamon has been used to enhance the flavor of foods, but new research shows that the spice could also help make foods safer. According to a study by Meijun Zhu and Lina Sheng, food safety scientists at Washington State Univ. in Pullman, the ancient cooking spice could help prevent some of the most serious foodborne illnesses caused by pathogenic bacteria…Zhu and Sheng’s objective throughout the study was to explore plant-derived compounds that can control foodborne pathogens – something food safety microbiologist Don Schaffner of Rutgers Univ. in New Brunswick, New Jersey said has been a popular, and important, topic in the food safety world. “In general, this kind of research has been going on for a long time,” Schaffner said. “There’s been a lot of interest in spices for centuries.”