In the past garlic was famous as the plant with magic forces, probably because of its obtrusive smell and pungent piquant bulb. Today many people do not like it but no matter if we like it or not, its medicinal effect is undeniable.
Garlic cleanses the intestines, lowers blood pressure and decomposes poisonous substances in organs and tissues. It dissolves mucus in the bronchi, stimulates the function of the liver and the gall, prevents atherosclerosis and stops the growth of malignant tumours. The list of scientifically proved medicinal effects of garlic is getting longer with every day.
Garlic has been long known for its properties to cure all diseases, from simple cold to the most serious diseases. Owing to numerous scientific researches today we know that this widespread plant is really a wonderful cure and its medicinal effect is unique.
Doctors and scientists from all over the world have been studying this aromatic plant. No other plant can kill bacteria, fungus and viruses. Gradually scientists have discovered most complex components of garlic which explain its extraordinary healing force.
The discovery that garlic regulates the cholesterol and triglycerides levels is extremely important because it means that eating garlic may diminish the risk of atherosclerosis and in this way reduce possible heart and brain attacks
Apart from components, which slow down the process of aging, experts have found other very effective substances curing pains in the joints and muscles, gases, impure skin, fungus on the feet, colds and a lot of infectious diseases. Garlic can be effective in the struggle with cancer and AIDS, the scourge of present times; it strengthens the immune system.
However, garlic is not a universal remedy although it possesses excellent properties. If you want to get rid of your ills, you should go to the doctor. If you are healthy, you can eat as much garlic as you like and that will help your good health and cure a lot of everyday ailments. You should know how to use it in the best way; the effect depends on the form in which you take the strong natural cure: boiled or baked, as a pill or powder, with vinegar or wine, with honey or just freshly peeled.
The history of garlic
Numerous old written records, papyri and archaeological findings prove that a long time before Christ ancient Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Japanese, Greeks and Romans appreciated garlic highly not only as food and seasoning but as a cure as well.
Ancient Greeks and Romans used garlic as a cure for more than a hundred ills. The Greek doctor Hippocrates gave garlic for intestinal diseases, water accumulation in the body, leprosy, epilepsy, and pain in the chest. The father of pharmacy, Dioscourides, recommended garlic against sleeping sickness, bloodshot eyes, sore feet, cough, spitting blood, hydropsy or oedema (an abnormal accumulation of fluid beneath the skin and in the cavities of the body, which can cause severe pain), intestinal worms and bite of poisonous snakes.
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23 – August 25, AD 79), better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. He registered different ailments which can be cured by garlic such as asthma, jaundice, and inflammation of lymph nodes, insanity, and the inflammation of diaphragm, catarrhs, headache, spasms, hernia, and freckles.
Galen of Pergamon was a prominent Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. He was the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity and influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology and neurology, and logic. He also recommended garlic against many diseases. His is the recipe to mix crushed garlic with flour and put it on purulent wounds. Galen claimed that this mixture helps against bites by carnivorous animals, poisonous snakes and mad dogs.
Garlic against plague and enemies
Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary and polymath (a person of wide knowledge or learning). She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. She recommended garlic against jaundice.
The Jewish sacred writings Talmud praise the sating bulbous plant which warms the body, gives radiance to the face, increases the quantity of semen and kills worms in the body. According to Talmud, another valuable property of garlic is that it makes people feel well, stimulates love and drives enemies away.
In the end of 18th century the French used garlic as an effective remedy against the plague.
When the English king Henry V was born, his chrism was wine and garlic. There was a custom in England to smear newly-born babies’ lips with garlic; it had both an antiseptic and stimulating effect. .
During the two world wars garlic was used on the battle field to cure purulent wounds, infections, poisoning and dysentery.
Dr Albert Schweitzer (14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was a French-German theologian, organist, philosopher, and physician. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Price. Dr Schweitzer founded and sustained a hospital in Gabon, West Central Africa, where he was a missionary. He treated the Africans ill of cholera, typhus and amoebic dysentery with garlic.
In Russia garlic is one of the most popular home remedies, and people call it “the Russian penicillin”. In the Balkan countries garlic is still considered to be the symbol of fertility. The Bulgarians, who have a lot of centenarians, use garlic and yoghurt as an elixir (it is delicious with fried or baked courgettes/zucchini!).
Natural alternative
If we believe in traditional medicine, garlic can cure not only everyday ailments but the most serious diseases. It is really a miraculous remedy. Science has already got evidence that this ordinary bulb is one of the best natural alternatives of artificial medicines. A lot of what people before could guess, today is proved with modern analytic methods and in numerous clinical tests on animals and people.
Proved effect of garlic:
Garlic
lowers the levels of cholesterol;
improves blood circulation;
prevents clumping of platelets/thrombocytes which are a component of blood whose function (along with the coagulation factors) is to stop bleeding by clumping and clotting blood vessel injuries;
delays premature clotting of blood;
protects arteries from sclerosis;
releases arteries from deposits;
regulates blood pressure;
lowers blood sugar level;
fights bacteria, fungus, viruses and other micro organisms;
protects body cells against free radicals;
strengthens the immune system of the body;
stimulates mucous membranes and endocrine glands;
activates the whole metabolism;
stimulates the function of the liver and the gall;
Garlic is one of the oldest cultivated plants. It is assumed that garlic originated from the desert regions of Kyrgyzstan, formerly known as Kirghizia. It is a landlocked and mountainous country in Central Asia. It is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south west and China to the east.
From there garlic goes to China, India and the Orient. The Orient means the East. Finally, it is spread in Europe. Today garlic is grown in many European countries, mainly the Mediterranean countries. Its Latin name is Allium sativum. “Аllium” means “garlic”, and “sativum” means “cultivated”. The plant grows from 30 to 60 cm in height but sometimes it can reach one metre. A greenish shoot grows from the white or violet bulb. When the garlic is young, you can eat the leaves, too but the most important part of the plant is the bulb under the ground. It has from four to twenty oblong little bulbs which are a little bended and are called cloves. They contain the active components which make garlic a miraculous remedy.
Over 200 different substances can be found in garlic. There are vitamins, amino acids, enzymes, minerals and residual elements. They have been discovered by modern science. Garlic is one of the best researched plants and nevertheless, not all its secrets have been disclosed yet. As plants are natural blends of a lot of components, those components are extremely difficult to isolate.
In the 1930s researchers were firmly convinced that the medicinal effect of garlic is due mainly to its high content of vitamins and minerals. However, in more recent times more interesting and even sensational discoveries have been made. Scientists thought it was undeniable that the basic active component of garlic is allicin, a substance containing sulphur. In its pure form allicin is a greasy colourless liquid with the typical smell of fresh garlic. In metabolism allicin is transformed into many other products. Recently scientists discovered other components of garlic, too. Researchers did not suppose that these components could be contained in bulbous plants. The odourless and sulphur-free substances called allium-saponins affect not only the cholesterol level and blood pressure but also render some kinds of fungus harmless. Physicians have different opinions on active components of garlic. A considerable number of pharmacological and clinical tests have been carried out but the results are contradictory. There is agreement only about the hypothesis that the medical effectiveness of garlic is due to many other components unknown so far. It is quite possible that garlic has some more surprises for us to offer.
A cocktail of active substances
Apart from allicin, which has a proven medical effect, and allium-saponins, garlic contains vital substances such as:
Vitamin А (retinol), В1 (thiamine), В2 (riboflavin), niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamins В 6 (pyridoxine), С (ascorbic acid), Д (calciferol), Е (tocopherol) and К (phylloquinone);
enzymes, among which allinase and coenzyme Q10 (ubiquinone), which is an element of the respiratory chain;
mineral substances and residual elements such as aluminium, barium, boron, chromium, iron, germanium, iodine, silicic acid, cobalt, copper, lithium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, sodium, phosphorus, selenium and zinc;
many substances which have a decisive effect on the processes of metabolism;
hormonal substances which are similar to male and female hormones.
How to “outsmart” the smell
If you have a severe cold, you should rub your soles with crushed garlic. If you have toothache, put one clove of garlic into your ear. If you travel, you can protect yourself from Montezuma’s revenge if you drink a juice made from fresh garlic. Montezuma’s revenge is the colloquial term for any cases of traveler’s diarrhoea contracted by tourists visiting Mexico. The name humorously refers to Moctezuma II, the ruler of the Aztec civilization who was defeated and slaughtered by the white Spanish conquistadors. It is said that whenever a white person has diarrhoea while visiting Mexico, he is suffering the wrath of Montezuma’s revenge.
If you have dark thoughts, they will disappear after you drink a cup of hot garlic tea. Inhale the steaming tea and you will cleanse your blood from poisons. Baked garlic stops gases. If you have haemorrhoids, you can put a clove in your rectum instead of a suppository.
Traditional medicine recognises a lot of possibilities to use garlic. The simplest way is to eat raw garlic. Then fresh garlic releases active substances at the most. If you want to be healthy, you should eat garlic every day. However, if people eat garlic every day, the other people begin to mock them that garlic will make them lonely because of the smell. Some people hate the smell of garlic and cannot eat it even if they know that it will help them as a remedy.
If you do not want people to understand that you have eaten garlic, here are some little tricks. Chew pieces of cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) or cinnamon, crushed cumin, or baked coffee beans. You can eat an apple, drink a glass of milk, and have some coffee or red wine. You can also take a tea spoonful of honey. Some people wash their teeth with salt or chew a piece of lemon to clean their mouth. They say that if you mix garlic with tomato or orange juice, the smell of garlic is much weaker. All these tricks have some effect but the smell is still there.
Why does garlic smell?
If you cut, crush or do something with the garlic cloves, the enzyme allinase contained in garlic turns the allin, which does not smell, into allicin which has a strong smell. This process of disintegration releases the strong smell and hotness of garlic. It is probably a kind of defensive reaction against pests created by nature. Allicin (thiosulphate) and its newly formed components, which participate in metabolism, create a very strong smell. To a great degree it depends on the way garlic is eaten, whether it is fresh, old, raw, or boiled; if it is taken as a pill or powder, a capsule or juice. Probably the best you can do is to try to get accustomed to the smell of garlic as it cannot be fully removed. You can also try to persuade your friends that garlic is very good for their health and the regular consumption of garlic can help them feel healthier and more vital.
Application of garlic
As the unique concentration of active substances and their variety have not been fully discovered by science yet, nobody can tell you what the best form to take garlic is. Maybe you should combine all possible ways.
If you boil or bake garlic, you destroy a big part of allicin. It is true that boiled garlic does not smell so much like raw garlic but an important element of its healing effect is lost. Many experts are of this opinion but others claim that allicin is formed in the body again during the process of digestion.
Some American scientists specifically recommend heated garlic as a food supplement as it protects from heart and brain attacks. Their results show that some natural chemical substances are released when garlic is heated. One of these substances is ayoen which prevents clumping of thrombocites. Sour food, like tomatoes, and vinegar help the process of transformation.
However, if you fry garlic, it loses a lot of its components which are essential to your health. So it is better if you just stew it a little. If you boil or bake garlic, a big part of allicin is destroyed but the release of other components is quickened.
Eating garlic regularly will improve your health. It makes no difference if you eat it raw, boiled or in salads and sauces.
Here are some basic recipes which you can use if you have some health problems. Garlic vinegar
You should use pure wine or fruit vinegar, not a chemical coloured essence. Pure wine vinegar and fruit vinegar contain a lot of vitamins and mineral substances. Take one garlic clove for one tea cup of vinegar. Cut the cloves and put them in a dark bottle, then pour over vinegar. Close the bottle tightly and leave it for two or three weeks, after that filter. Leave the dark bottle(s) in a cool place. You can use this garlic vinegar to clean your skin. It helps if you have pains in the joints and muscles. You can make compresses with it if you have problems with your throat or if you want to remove corns, warts and bumps. For internal use garlic vinegar is good for colds, problems with the stomach and intestines, and bladder weakness. It can also stimulate metabolism and strengthen the immune system.
Garlic honey
Honey and garlic complement each other in a perfect way. Honey also possesses excellent healing properties. It contains a lot of valuable components, vitamins and minerals in addition to fruit and grape sugar. One tea cup pf honey is enough for one litre of garlic tincture (tincture is a medicine made by dissolving a drug in alcohol). The mixture should be left for a few hours. You can use it when you have a cold, when you are tired or feel weak. Then take one tea spoonful of the mixture every hour.
Garlic oil
If you want to make garlic oil, use vegetable oils which supply the body with important fat-soluble vitamins and vitally important fatty components.
It is best to take cold pressed oil which contains highly unsaturated fatty acids and has a positive effect on blood circulation, the skin, the immune system and many processes of metabolism. Peel and cut in length one medium garlic clove and pour over a litre of oil. Close the bottle well and leave it for a few days. Before or during meals take some garlic oil if you have intestinal worms, pains in the lower part of the abdomen, and inflammation of the mucus membranes of the stomach and of the intestines. If you have pains in the muscles and joints, colds, a cough, pains in the ears or an insect bit you, rub the tender spots with the oil. Keep the bottle in a cold and dark place for not more than two weeks
Garlic juice
Squeeze the peeled garlic cloves with a juicer. Keep the juice in the fridge for not more than two or three days. Drink it in small quantities and mix it with water. You can also add the juice to the water in your tub; you can make a compress or enema with that juice, too. Use it if you have cold, digestive disorders, an infection of the stomach and the intestines, and muscle and joint pains.
Garlic ointment
Mix a well crushed garlic clove with 100 g of Vaseline, heat it until it boils, cool it and filter in a glass container. Close it tightly and keep in a cool place. You should use it for not more than six months. You can use it if you sprain a limb or if you have muscle and joint problems.
Garlic syrup
Syrup is a pleasant remedy even for children as sugar cover hotness. Boil half a litre with 250 g of brown sugar, take it from the fire and mix with garlic tincture (one part of tincture to three parts of syrup). Keep it in the fridge. It is perfect for gargle when you have a cold.
Garlic tea
Crush one garlic clove; put it in a glass or in a porcelain/china cup and pour over hot water. Leave it for 15 minutes, and then filter it. If you want your tea stronger, crush a head of garlic and boil in with a cupful of water. Drink one tea cup of garlic tea per day in small sips. This tea is very good against colds, bronchitis and asthma attacks. If you have pains and inflammations, make compresses with it or pour some of it in the tub.
Garlic tincture
Alcohol has the property to extract a lot of important substances from a plant and conserve them in a natural way as well.
Peel a handful of fresh garlic cloves, cut them and pour over some pure alcohol for example, juniper rakia (rakia is the collective term for fruit brandy popular in the Balkans). Close the bottle tightly and leave it for two weeks in a warm place. Shake it from time to time. After that filter the liquid and put it in dark bottles. Three times a day take from five to fifteen drops diluted in a tea spoonful of cold water or in a cup of hot water before meals. Garlic tincture has a disinfecting and blood cleansing effect; it improves the appetite, prevents inflammations and spasms, regulates blood pressure, strengthens the immune system, improves blood circulation and prevents general sclerosis of vessels. It is also suitable for massage, compresses and gargles.
You can prepare a garlic tonic with wine or water. Put a handful of fresh garlic cloves in an earthenware pot and pour over white or red wine. Close the pot tightly and leave it in a cool place for two weeks. Drink one glass in small sips per day. If you have problems with your heart or the blood circulation, drink the garlic tonic prepared with the red wine. If the tonic is prepared with white wine, it is good for problems with digestion, kidney and bladder weakness, and problems with liver and biliary routes; it is also good for your nerves, and for improving the lymph flow. Garlic water is used for gargle if you have a sore throat and for cleaning wounds; you can add it the water in your tub, too.
Dosage
There is no rule how often or now long to take garlic. Naturally, all depends on your individual situation, age and general condition of your body. Unfortunately, the quality of fresh garlic cloves is not always the same. It depends on the sort and the places where garlic is grown. It is also important how you keep it. Old heads of garlic have less active components. The garlic is old if new green shoots have grown.
Doctors’ recommendations vary, too. British doctors recommend their patients to eat from ten to twenty grams of fresh garlic per day so that their blood pressure stays apparently lower. That means three to five medium garlic cloves. German doctors recommend four grams per day which is one medium clove.
If you want to get rid of needless and harmful substances and cleanse your intestines as well as avoid infections, you should take garlic regularly for four to six weeks. When you cure blood vessels and blood circulation, the treatment should last for at least four months. As prophylaxis, eat one or two garlic cloves per day.
Side effects
Here you should stick to the rule that too big quantities can prove harmful for your health. The components in the garlic are in such a concentrated form that they have an effect even if they are in very small quantities. Even when they are diluted, they increase the blood supply of all mucous membranes and stimulate digestion. The increased blood supply helps the cleansing function of the liver and pushes the production of bile. Thus harmful substances from metabolism leave the body without damaging it. However, if you eat big quantities of garlic for a longer period of time, the effect of the active components can be stronger and unwanted reactions such as nausea, burp, stomach-ache, gases or indigestion can occur. Some people get irritation of the mucous membranes of the mouth, the throat, the stomach and the intestines and have some allergic reactions. Sometimes garlic can cause itching and local skin inflammation if applied externally.
If you do not digest raw garlic well,
cut the garlic clove in two longwise and remove the green shoot. Then you can digest garlic easier;
eat garlic with milk, carrot juice of honey;
slightly steam whole cloves;
put the garlic in wine or vinegar;
eat garlic with wheat and oat products;
try to accustom your body to strong plant food; make one or two-day breaks;
use garlic only for medicinal purposes (fever, for example).
Garlic will make you feel young and vital
Garlic gives new energy to the body; it makes each cell and organ more vital. It increases the resilience of the body, helps fight the general sclerosis of blood vessels and represents the best biological protection from early physical and mental aging. Working capacity and the general condition of the body is improved due to the enhanced circulation of blood of all body organs and tissues. The stimulating effect of garlic will not let you feel tired, melancholic and depressed. Your skin will be fresh and elastic as the increased blood supply improves the access of oxygen and nutrients to skin cells and they age much slower.
A research of the World Health Organisation shows that in the regions where people have eaten garlic all their lives, atherosclerosis is almost unknown. Probably the use of vegetable oils has its effect, too.
Healing effect
Artery sclerosis
A lot of troubles with health, which appear in older age, are due to the increasing sclerosis of arteries and the worse blood supply connected with that. Dizziness, pains in the chest or in the legs if there is physical loading, forgetfulness, disturbance in concentration, constantly cold limbs, panting, sudden attacks of headache or disturbances in eyesight are signs that the blood supply of the respective organs has deteriorated. The constriction of arteries which supply the heart or the brain is particularly dangerous as it can lead to a heart or a brain attack. If your diet is well balanced, if you walk a lot and take the suitable portion of garlic, you will be protected from atherosclerosis. So every day eat one or two fresh garlic cloves with sour fruits, raw or warm together with food. If you have some complaints, take a handful of cloves and eat it all the day.
Cardiovascular diseases
Garlic regulates cholesterol. New clinical tests have proved that it can considerably reduce harmful blood fats. This is extremely important because their high content can damage the blood vessels and also prevent free blood flow. It increases the risk of a coronary disease of the heart (heart spasms, heart failure and heart attack). Even if the values of blood fats have not become too high, you should regularly eat garlic to be protected. Garlic is a perfect cleanser of blood vessels. Its components not only regulate blood fats and blood pressure but prevent clumping of thrombocites. They enhance the blood flow. This property of garlic is very important as blood can reach the smallest blood vessels in the circulatory system only when it is not too thick. Garlic helps the body get rid of clots which easily embed themselves in a sclerotically changed stenosis (an abnormal narrowing of a passage in the body). They can fully block a blood vessel and cause serious damages. According to scientists, the two substances which prevent the formation of clots are adenosine and ayoen. Fresh garlic contains sufficient quantities of both. At the same time garlic protects the heart as it widens arterial and venous blood vessels. This is one of the prophylactic effects which garlic has on the cardiovascular system. Owing to garlic the heart can perform its basic function to supply blood to the body with enough oxygen in it. In this way garlic maintains normal blood pressure and lowers higher blood pressure. Scientists from different countries have discovered that garlic balances blood pressure. That means that not only people with high blood pressure can profit out of it but also people with low blood pressure.
Immune system
Garlic helps to strengthen the immune system. It can fight colds and rheum without medicines. However, it is still undiscovered what plant substances influence the immune cells of the body and help fight harmful substances, bacteria and viruses. Experts are of different opinions on the issue.
Fighting cancer
There is a hope that garlic can help cancer patients, too. It can diminish the risk of cancer. Researchers from the USA have discovered that for people who eat garlic regularly, the risk of stomach and intestine cancer is smaller. This is valid for breast cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, cancer of the prostate and the skin. Research results have shown that tumour cells react better to radiotherapy if the patient is given an injection with garlic extract.
Some of the garlic components can successfully fight free radicals. These residual cellular poisons can become extremely dangerous for living organisms. In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system, such as an animal, plant, fungus, a single-celled micro organism or bacterium. They attack the cells, penetrate in them and damage carriers of hereditary substance set there. The cells perish or turn into cancer cells and damage the entire organism. Scientists claim that free radicals are the reason for a lot of diseases such as diabetes, early loss of eyesight, cancer and autoimmune diseases. According to the latest research they are the reason why the walls of blood vessels harden and lose their elasticity. The antioxidants which the body mobilises to fight free radicals are vitamins С, Е and А, calcium, selenium and zinc. Recently researchers have discovered that the active substances of garlic protect enzymes so that they can stop free radicals at the very beginning of their destructive action. In some cases some doctors recommend to take garlic with a little skimmed cottage cheese or yoghurt. The sour bacteria in yoghurt, sauerkraut and sour vegetables also stimulate the immune system and fight cancer.
The attention of researchers has been attracted to selenium which is a residual element. They have found in garlic the highest concentration of selenium which has been discovered in foodstuffs. According to the latest research, selenium maintains the elasticity of tissues and prevents arteries from clogging; it does not let blood pressure become too high and helps the muscles, especially the heart muscle, with the supply of sufficient quantity of oxygen. Selenium also helps throw harmful substances such as mercury, cadmium and silver out of the body. These poisons create difficulties as the body must process and throw them out together with the waste from metabolism.
The high content of selenium in garlic obviously protects the body during radiotherapy. In the Austrian Atomic Research Centre the researchers exposed cell cultures to radiation a year after the catastrophe in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. They saturated them with garlic juice. The result was stunning: the cells survived radiation. The cells which were not saturated with garlic juice perished.
Treatment of infectious diseases
Garlic is a natural antibiotic. In traditional medicine this has been known for centuries, and modern science has proved it by experiments. Today we know that garlic is a perfect natural alternative to antibiotics because it stops only disease bacteria and spares useful bacteria; it also stimulates the formation of white blood cells or leucocytes, which are the cells of the immune system that are involved in protecting the body against both infectious diseases and foreign invaders. If there are not enough white blood cells, the person will have cancer of the blood or leukemia. The effect of garlic against bacterial infections is really amazing as it cannot be achieved by any of the modern medicines, the antibiotics. However, if antibiotics are taken very carefully at the proper time, they can save life but they weaken the resistant forces of the body for a long time afterwards.
Antibiotic effect of garlic
Fresh garlic kills bacteria in the intestinal tract.
Crushed garlic mixed with water is used to wash the vagina and destroy infectious organisms.
Sulphur components of garlic which are released and inhaled in chewing destroy the bacteria and viruses in the airways.
Nasal drops with garlic kill the viruses of cold and flu immediately.
Garlic prevents the growth of skin fungus.
At the moment experts try to find out how garlic affects the bacteria called Helicobacter pylori, which were discovered a few years ago. They are harmless, but they are responsible for the majority of ulcers in the stomach and small intestine; sometimes they can cause pain, bloating, and burping. They usually stick to the mucous membrane of the stomach and can cause cancer of the stomach. Scientists from Seattle claim that two cloves of garlic per day are enough to suppress the effect of the harmful bacteria. It is very good news for all people and especially for those who are exposed to a higher risk of stomach cancer and are already resistant to antibiotics which can kill the bacteria.
Viruses do not like garlic
Even the latest antibiotics are helpless ageist viruses and they cannot fight acute illnesses. Almost always viruses are the reason for infections of the airways such as rheum, sore throat, and bronchitis. Garlic components kill bacteria, viruses, fungus, larvae or unicellular organisms (protozoa). Therefore a lot of diseases from the banal rheum to gastrointestinal disorders, the infection of the urinary tract and virus encephalitis (brain infection), herpes and cholera and typhoid epidemics react very well to treatment with garlic
Chinese experts claim that garlic is effective against influenza virus as well. Influenza virus does not mean a harmless cold with high temperature, cough, rheum and sometimes gastrointestinal disorders. The real influenza virus is an epidemic which spreads very quickly. It can cause heavy damages especially to people with a weakened immune system.
Garlic in the kitchen
After all said about garlic up till now, you would probably like to use it more often as a seasoning or a component of the dishes you prepare. With a little more imagination you will soon learn to prepare tasty salads, sauces and dishes with this useful plant. You can mix garlic with other spices and prepare aromatic marinades or sauces suitable for a lot of meat and fish dishes. Garlic is an excellent addition to fine spices as well as to exotic vegetables and to plain home food.
Here is a very simple recipe for delicious garlic bread.
Smash eight garlic cloves very well and mix them with 100 g of soft butter. Season the mixture with salt and pepper. Take French bread and make cuts in it. Fill the cuts with the garlic butter. Wrap the bread in foil and bake it for ten minutes in a warm oven. You can have it as an appetizer or with salad and some dish.
Garlic butter is delicious as a spread for sandwiches but first you should add some fresh parsley or dill to it.
If you mix sugar, vinegar, oil, parsley, salt, pepper and garlic, you can prepare a very tasty marinade for all kinds of salads
If you know about wild garlic, you can also include it in your menu. They say that wild garlic is better than cultivated garlic. Cultivated garlic has lost some of its active components. The concentration of iron, essential oils and adenosine is higher in wild garlic.
Wild garlic is much stronger as an antidote than cultivated garlic. It is a classical remedy to fight spring fatigue.
