The many garlic health benefits are no secret. Open any health publication or read any health blog and you will see that garlic is probably one of the healthiest foods around.
But, there’s one thing that a lot of folks don’t tell you and that’s that there is a certain way you MUST eat garlic if you want to enjoy the full benefits of this tasty herb.
What Is Garlic?
Raw garlic is actually a bulb. Yep, you might be conditioned to think it is a “food” (Ok, it’s really an herb but the part you eat is the bulb) but any gardener that takes a look at the individual pieces will recognize it as a bulb.
In fact, garlic comes from the same family as the onion and if you planted the bulb and let it grow instead of eating it, you would find that it has long narrow leaves kind of like big blades of grass and white flowers.
Garlic health benefits have been known to man since before the ancient Greeks and Romans who used to eat garlic quite a bit and today many think it is one of the healthiest things that one can eat.
Garlic Health Benefits
So, what’s so great about garlic?
Raw garlic has a host of health benefits not the least of which is that it has antibacterial, antiviral and anti-fungal properties. This being the case, people who eat garlic might benefit from it’s function as a natural antibiotic that can help protect you against bacteria and viruses. The great thing about garlic is that unlike man-made antibiotics, the bacteria will not build up a resistance to it so it is safe and natural for both you and the environment.
The antifungal properties of raw garlic can help to fight off fungal infections like yeast infections.
And, people who eat garlic might also find that they get way less bug bites from mosquitoes and ticks.
Not only that but garlic is also a powerful antioxidant which means it can help protect you against those nasty free radicals.
When it comes to heart disease, several studies suggest that garlic may be beneficial. These studies have shown that it may help to lower cholesterol as well as blood pressure and help to keep the blood “think” thus reducing the risk of stroke and blood clots.
Early studies have shown that if you eat raw garlic (the way I’m going to talk about below), then the allicin may be able to fight cancer cells.
How You MUST Eat Garlic To Get The Full Effects
OK, so here’s the scoop.
You have to eat garlic a certain way in order to get the full garlic health benefits mentioned above!
You see, a compound called allicin is what gives garlic it’s pungent flavor and also the most powerful effects of it’s health benefits. BUT, the allicin is only created when you mash up the garlic and then leave it for 10 minutes!!!
It’s some sort of chemical reaction that takes that long to get to “full power” and the power starts to decrease after 1 hour.
So that means, if you want to experience the most powerful garlic health benefits, you need to mash up the raw garlic (I use a garlic press but you could really cut it up into teeny tiny pieces with a knife or mash it with a fork or spoon) and then let it sit for 10 minutes. Then add it to your food or drink it in a juice within the hour.
Yes, it is very strong this way but after a while you do get used to it!
How Much To Eat?
A couple of cloves a day should do it.
Now, I realize you might start smelling too garlicky so you might want to experiment a bit with the garlic levels until you figure out how much you can eat without having your friends and co-workers avoid you like the plague. Unless, of course, you want them to!
What About Supplements?
Nope. I don’t think supplements are going to do the trick because the garlic needs to be fresh and mashed and then eaten with the hour. So, IMHO, garlic supplements are probably a waste of money although there might still be some health benefits, I’m willing to be that (as with most other things) the most powerful health benefits come from eating the real thing.
Some Ideas On How To Eat Garlic For Better Health
OK, so even if you have included a lot of garlic in your cooking to date, I’m going to guess that up until now you have probably cooked it right in with your meal.
But, getting the best health benefits means you need to eat raw garlic.
Now, I’m not saying that cooked garlic is totally worthless. By all means, throw it into all your dishes, I’m sure it has some benefit and it tastes great cooked so go for it.
But what you might also consider is adding in some raw garlic so that you can reap the huge health rewards this herb has to offer.
Now, one thing to remember is that raw garlic is going to be a lot more pungent than cooked garlic. And when you eat garlic that is raw, it might actually sting a bit so you want to be careful how much you put in your mouth!
One thing you might try is to add a mashed up raw garlic bulb to the juicer the next time you mix up a veggie juice (the garlic press is great for making sure you don’t get any chunks mixed in!)
Another thing I like to do is to make garlic bread with raw garlic. What I do is I mash up some garlic with the garlic press and let it sit for 9 minutes. Then I toast some whole wheat bread and spread some butter on it. Then I take the mashed up garlic and spread that on top!
And, you can incorporate raw garlic into all your dishes if you want. What I do is just put the pressed or mashed garlic into the dish after it is done cooking. So, while the dish you are cooking it is still hot just mix in the raw garlic then enjoy!
  Garlic Press 
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I use this garlic press by Pampered Chef and I love it! The best thing about it is that you don’t have to peel the garlic! Plus it comes with the very handy and useful cleaning tool. I think that using a press is about 100 times better than chopping it up because it’s faster, less messy and the garlic is easier to work with (and to eat) when it is pressed. Here’s my affiliate link From Amazon so you can buy this garlic press too – it doesn’t cost you any more to buy through my link and I get a few pennies that help go towards the upkeep of this site! |
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