“The slaves who constructed the pyramids of Egypt were given garlic cloves daily to sustain their strength, as were Roman soldiers, and it was 1858 Louis Pasteur confirmed that garlic had antibacterial effects, and it was used to treat infection before the days of more specific antibiotics.”
- Patrick Holford, 100% Health
As a kid, one of my favourite smells to drift out from my mom’s kitchen was the garlic aroma sizzling in hot oil. The smell whetted my appetite and assured me that dinner was on its way. Back then I never knew that this wasn’t just an ordinary flavourful ingredient.
Garlic is a rich source of health protective capabilities, thanks to the presence of sulfur-containing compounds known as thiosulfinates. These active compounds are found to exhibit anti-bacterial, anti-frugal and antioxidant properties.
No wonder from centuries past it had been well used to heal various diseases and today there is an extensive medical literature highlighting garlic’s goodness.
When you crush or cut a garlic clove, the odorless amino acid alliin, one of the thiosulfinates, is metabolized by the enzyme allinase to produce allicin and other thiosulfinates that give the characteristic odor of garlic. These sulfur compounds are known to lower high blood pressure and protect the heart by unclogging platelets in the artery.
Best Way to Eat Garlic
Crush It
To reap the wonderful health benefits of eating garlic, the best way is to crush them then baked slightly. That’s according to the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and collaborators in Argentina.
The scientists wanted to know if cooking will reduce its blood-thinning effects and if crushing the garlic before cooking had any impact. After boiling, baking and microwaving both crushed and uncrushed cloves of garlic, the scientists found that when lightly cooked, crushed garlic provides most of the health benefits found in raw garlic.
The only exception was microwaving, which stripped garlic almost entirely of its blood-thinning effects.
While heating might be generally blamed for reducing garlic’s antiplatelet activity, the researchers believe that it’s the crushing that enables the beneficial compounds to be freed in the first place.
Marinating
Cooking food at high temperatures increases its levels of chemical compounds called heterocyclic amines (HCAs), which can cause cancerous tumours. Frying and grilling meat is particularly dangerous, because the intense heat turns the sugars and amino acids of muscle tissue into high levels of the HCAs. However there is evidence that by marinating meat before cooking can lower HCAs.
At the University of Hawaii Cancer Research Center, researchers found that marinating steak overnight with barbecue sauce increased HCAs while soaking in a standard teriyaki sauce or a turmeric-garlic marinade cut the HCA formation during grilling. Depending on the cooking time, those reductions ranged from 40 to 65 percent.
Source: Influence of Cherry Tissue on Lipid Oxidation and Heterocyclic Aromatic Amine Formation in Ground Beef Patties, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 1998 46:4891-4897; Garlic’s Goodness Best Released With a Crush, US Department of Agriculture, September 18 2007; New York Times, 29 June 1999
Chapter: Food :: 6 November 2011
