Garlic

"A raw garlic clove a day, keeps many diseases away!” is an old mantra which many of us are yet to explore. Raw Garlic seems to improve the immune system, fight against common cold and flu, cancer etc. My husband took raw garlic regularly for a month and surprised with its effect on common cold. Then we decided to read about the research done on garlic, that inspired me to write this blog. Though indians have garlics in their food, it is mostly in the cooked form....

Most of the antibiotic medicinal benefits are found from the compound "Allicin" which is destroyed when garlic is cooked. The anti-oxidant property (necessary for anti-cancer, anti-ageing etc.,) of garlic is retained even after cooking. Research shows that after chopping or crushing garlic if you let it stand for 10 - 45 min before cooking, 20 -40% of Allicin is retained. As a medication, eating raw garlic has more benefits than consuming the cooked ones. But eating raw garlic is difficult; the smell offends most of us. So what we did was, to have it with milk...in one of the reports on Ayurvedic medication suggests that milk proteins complexes with allicin and avoids garlic smell in breath and sweat. Miraculously it worked. The first time my husband bit it plain, got a big ulcer in the tongue for days, so be careful not to get any burnt.

It was given that it is better to eat 2 to 3 garlic gloves in a day, more garlic is not good as it acts as a blood thinner too. "Alavuku minjinal amirthamamum nanju". If you are on any other medication, make sure that you ask your doctor before taking raw garlic. Garlic has Antimicrobial Activity (1), cancer opposing characteristics (2), Antithrombotic (3), thrombosis prevention (4),Control Cholestrol (5) and etc ....Nowadays you get garlic capsules, but when you can have the original for a throw away price I would say why not?

1 Indian J Exp Biol 2005 (Aug); 43 (8): 751–754, Amin M, Kapadnis BP, Department of Microbiology, University of Pune, Pune 411 007, India http://www.chiro.org/nutrition/ABSTRACTS/Heat_Stable_Antimicrobial_Activity_of_Allium.shtml
2 Allium Sativum (Garlic) Treatment for Murine Transitional Cell Carcinoma, Riggs DR, DeHaven JI, Lamm DL, Department of Urology, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown 26506, USA
Allium sativum (Garlic) and Cancer Prevention, http://www.chiro.org/nutrition/ABSTRACTS/Garlic_and_Cancer_Prevention.shtml
3 An Evaluation of Garlic and Onion as Antithrombotic Agents, Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids 1996 (Mar); 54 (3): 183–6, Bordia T, Mohammed N, Thomson M, Ali M, department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Kuwait University, 13060 Safat, Kuwait
4 http://www.chiro.org/nutrition/ABSTRACTS/Consumption_of_a_Garlic_Clove.shtml
5 http://www.chiro.org/nutrition/ABSTRACTS/Effect_Garlic_on_Cholesterol.shtml