For decades, antibiotics have been applied in poultry diets as growth
promoter. However, the occurrence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria resulted
in the banning of antibiotic feed additives in poultry diets. Also,
poultry diets are generally based on corn and soya bean meal and these
ingredients are poor in antioxidants. Thus, inclusion of synthetic antioxidants
in broiler chicken diets could help alleviate the negative effects
of stressful environmental condition. However, it has been shown that
synthetic antioxidant compounds have toxic or mutagenic or both effects
in poultry so, there is growing interest in sources of natural growth
promoters and antioxidants