General Evaluation of the Herbs Used in Van Herby Cheese

Herby cheese is a kind of semi-hard and salty traditional cheese having many herbs inside, and has been mainly produced in ağrı, batman, bitlis, diyarbakır, siirt and van cities. this special cheese has been consumed in the region and marketed in huge quantities to other regions of turkey, recently. milk used in this product has been produced from the local sheep populations that grazing in the flora. this distinguished cheese is known as “van herby cheese”, so the biggest production area is van city, the number of the herbs used in this cheese is more than other cities and variety of the wild plant species used in the cheese. there are more than 60 wild plant species from nine different plant families in this cheese. apiaceae, liliaceae and lamiaceae plant families have the most species in herby cheese. the mostly used plant species for cheese production are ferula sp. (siyabo), allium sp. (sirmo), chaerophyllum sp. (mendo), heracleaum sp. (sov), thymus sp. (kekik), prangos sp. (heliz) and zizophora sp. (catır). scientific studies related to herby cheese reported that herbs used in the cheese production enrich vitamin c, crude fiber, macro and micro nutrient contents of the cheese and give antimicrobial and antioxidant properties by their bioactive compounds. these herbs could also affect chemical and biochemical properties of the cheese in different levels. these reports is cover production of herby cheese, used wild herbs and their properties, the effects of herbs on the quality and other properties of herby cheese and evaluate other related studies.