Hot buttery garlic bread anyone??? Some creamy aioli for dipping???
For the longest time garlic and deliciousness have gone hand in hand, like best friends at the beach. Its warm savoury aroma is both comforting, hunger inducing and pungent. It makes me wonder if this little bulb of goodness wasn’t made so darn tasty just to ensure that humans ate it, and plenty of it.
Along with its absolute culinary brilliance, garlic is arguably one of they oldest and most studied medicinal herbs available.
Garlic history in brief….
The list of health benefits associated with garlic is so long and so ancient, it goes back thousands of years BC. It was used for warding off evil spirits (not many studies on its effectiveness there 😉) curing infections, chronic ailments and giving vitality to slaves and the poor who subsisted on insipid diets of gruel and grains.
Garlic originated in Middle Asian, but quickly spread and established popularity in nearly every ancient culture where its culinary, medicinal and friend losing benefits were all acknowledged. Seriously in ancient Greek, you were forbidden from entering some temples if you had been eating garlic or the “rank rose” as they called it.
Garlic studies in brief….
In more recent times, garlic and its active constituents have been extensively studied. One study in elderly Chinese individuals, found that frequent garlic consumption was associated with lower all-cause mortality risk! That’s not to say it was the fountain of eternal youth, they just lived longer and healthier, but how good? Some of its other known benefits include:
- Antioxidant activity
- Anti-Inflammatory activity
- Reduces blood clotting and atherosclerosis
- Reduces cholesterol levels
- Balances blood sugar
- Reduces blood pressure
- Immune modulating activity
- Broad-spectrum antimicrobial
Let’s talk about that last one, broad-spectrum antimicrobial.
Garlic has been tested and shown to be effective at destroying most pathogens we could be exposed to. This includes virus’, multi-drug resistant bacteria (so called super-bugs) and fungi like candida which is notoriously slippery and tricky to kill.
I was recently talking with a scientist who was working in the lab with garlic. He was exploring its possible uses in fish feed to reduce illness and loss of life in aqua-culture settings. He was using stock standard garlic powder but noted that no matter what microbe he cultured, there wasn’t one that didn’t get wiped out by garlic.
Garlic has several mechanisms of action which might make it so effective and relevant to human health. It has direct anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal activity, ie it kills on contact. It also increases the ability of our own immune cells to seek out and destroy pathogens, along with helping these cells to live longer in the process. Win win!
Studies have shown garlic effective at reducing the incidence of common colds and accelerating recovery, resulting in fewer sick days. It’s also useful against infections such as ear infections in children, gum and mouth infections, bacteria associated with dental cavities, helicobacter pylori infections which are associated with stomach ulcers and bacterial vaginitis.
These studies have used various methods of delivery and dosages from fresh garlic, garlic powder, garlic oil, aged garlic extract and fluid extract.
So how do we take this information and incorporate it into our life and reap the glorious benefits?
COOK WITH IT
The first way is to include garlic in your food. Honestly, as a chef there isn’t many savoury dishes I make that don’t include a fair whack of garlic. Trouble is, cooking garlic does deactivate the enzyme that’s responsible for producing a lot of it’s magical benefits. To get around this you can include it in recipes that are raw, such as aioli or vinaigrette dressings. Just start with a little and you will find that most people will enjoy it’s heat and punch.
EAT IT STRAIGHT UP
If your brave or just plain tough like we were as kids, you can go hard and chew a fresh garlic clove whole. That will give a spring to your step like nothing else and believe me, you will literally see those bugs packing their bags and heading out the door, along with most of your family most likely. Very thinly sliced pieces of garlic on hot buttery marmite toast might be a favourable alternative I think I learned this one from my father-in-law, who is a garlic convert from way back.
MAKE A HONEY GARLIC SYRUP
Then there is my super tasty garlic, honey and thyme throat soother syrup. This is excellent for coughs and colds and soothing upper respiratory infections.
To make it, take a jar and half fill with fresh crushed, but not chopped garlic cloves and a tsp of dried thyme. Fill the jar with a lovely raw, runny local honey. Then sit it in an out of the way place for two weeks. The garlic will float to the top, so give it a stir each day. Crushing the garlic gets the active constituents going, and then the honey will slightly ferment enhancing everything. The mixture will get runnier over the two weeks. At the end you can remove the cloves and store the resulting liquid in the fridge indefinitely.
Adding the thyme makes it an effective cough syrup and the anti-microbial effect of the garlic is bolstered by the anti-bacterial effects of the honey.
TRY A GARLIC SUPPLEMENT
There are a variety of encapsulated garlic supplements which could be useful. Also perhaps a little less trying to get down than fresh garlic. My favourite is Solgar’s Garlic Oil Perles. These little soft gels filled with garlic oil can be taken for cold or flu. I always have these in my winter supplement kit for the kids, especially for ear infections.
My first born was prone to ear infections. He went through about 3 courses of antibiotics in his first winter before I stumbled across these garlic oil perles. Since then he has never needed another round of antibiotics, and my younger daughter has never had any. As soon as they complain of a sore ear, I take a perle, warm it in my hands, prick the end with a pin and squeeze it into their ear. They smell like a freshly baked garlic bread for the next day but it does the trick.
I just love that something so readily available and found in most peoples kitchens or gardens has such significant health benefits and tradition. These traditions have been passed down from times when our ancestors couldn’t just run to the pharmacy for every ailment. No denying, I am glad we have pharmacies, but let’s not forget the awesome goodness of simple herbs too.
