Spices and herbs are only slightly different. An herb is generally defined as the leaf of a plant when used in cooking, but any other part of the plant, often dried, can be a spice. Spices can be the buds (cloves), bark (cinnamon), roots (ginger), berries (peppercorns), aromatic seeds (cumin), and even the stigma of a flower (saffron). Many of the aromatic seeds known as spices are actually gathered from plants when they have finished flowering. A familiar example would be coriander, with the leaves being referred to as an herb, and the dried seeds as a spice. When referring to the stem and roots of coriander, which are used in cooking, and to onions, garlic and the bulb of fennel, these parts of these plants tend to be classified along with herbs, as they are often used fresh and applied in a similar way to cooking.

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The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicines (NCCAM) Website is located at http://nccam.nih.gov/. NCCAM conducts and supports basic and applied research and training and disseminates information on complementary and alternative medicine to practitioners and the public. This is an independent third party website, and MSI is not affiliated with such website.

The McCormick Science Institute is a research-driven organization whose mission is to support scientific research and disseminate information on the health benefits of culinary herbs and spices to all stakeholders including consumers and health professionals. The Institute is led by nutrition scientists and guided by a Scientific Advisory Council consisting of internationally-renown scientists and health professionals from leading research institutions.

The McCormick Science Institute was formed in January 2007.

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