You love it.
You hate it.
You hate to love it.
You love to hate it.
Or… you simply just try to avoid it when out on a hot date.
Not me. I unabashedly adore garlic, sorry boyfriend…
Not only does garlic add character, and spicy complexity to the dullest of dishes, but Garlic is also considered one of Mother Nature’s most potent antibiotic, and antifungal.
Garlic’s potent odor comes from sulfur gas, and it has been used for centuries for medicinal reasons, as well as to ward off evil spirits (or unsuspecting strangers).
Sulfur has been shown to promote the elimination of toxins from the blood, lymph, and body. According to Haas*, studies have directly compared the antimicrobial effects of garlic to prescription medications like: penicillin, streptomycin, and erythromycin, and tetracycline, discovering it to be just as effective in killing bacteria (in large doses, of course).
Unlike the vast majority of prescriptive medications that can create an imbalance in the body, (by killing off the good bacteria, in addition to the bad bacteria), garlic has been shown to kill off the bad guys, while leaving the good guys alone. This allows the healthy intestinal bacteria (a.k.a. probiotics) to flourish, symbiotically.
Because garlic leaves the body’s healthy bacteria and yeasts unharmed, it is also one of the ideal “antibiotics” for treating microbes like Candida albicans, jock itch, Herpes Simplex, and other common viruses that lead us down the trail to “common cold” central, which are often resistant to common prescriptive medications (because they require healthy bacteria to prevent them from coming back).
Candida especially, is very common in women, and results from an imbalance of healthy bacteria and probiotics to keep toxics yeasts and bacteria at bay.
Of course, the majority of us, will not use enough garlic to experience an overwhelming amount of nutritional benefits from it, but you can start out small… toss raw garlic into your salads, vegetables dishes, or if you are really feeling ballsy, your fresh vegetable juice.
Spin the bottle, anyone?
~ What is your favorite way to use garlic? Do you use it raw, or do you cook with it? ~
- *Staying Healthy with Nutrition, by Elson M. Haas, MD and Buck Levin, PhD, RD
