It's all about garlic...
And so it should be. Garlic does amazing things!
A lot of you probably know that garlic acts as an antibacterial, which has an antibiotic like effect. When you think about an antibiotic, they are most often non-selective and wipe out all your gut bacteria regardless if they are beneficial or pathogenic.
The really impressive thing is that garlic is a selective antibacterial, which means that it kills potentially harmful enterobacteria while leaving beneficial intestinal microflora intact.
Additionally garlic has been shown to have antibacterial effect on drug-resistant bacteria. In some cases, it can help to improve the efficiency of antibiotics such as vancomycin by increasing the bacteria’s susceptibility to the drug.
Garlic is also said to be a prebiotic, due to its fructan content. Probiotics are non-digestible fibres which promote the growth of beneficial bacteria. Therefore improving the whole ecosystem of the gut microbiome.
Watch out:
Garlic from the supermarket is commonly imported from China, where it is sprayed methyl bromide, a growth retardant to stop it from sprouting and then it has been dunked in chlorine for a little bleach bath to make it that Colgate-smile-white. None of these things are good for you.
Grow your own:
Last year I had some garlic cloves sprout on me- how dare they! So I put them in the ground. And the next year I had a bulb of garlic for every clove!
Taking garlic therapeutically:
These antibacterial properties are widely attributed to allicin, which is activated when the garlic is crushed.
One of the easiest ways to take garlic is to crush it with the side of a knife, cut it in half and swallow it like a tablet. 2 cloves of garlic at the onset of a cold can do wonders.
Another way to take garlic is by making a garlic oxymel. This stuff is crazy potent but does wonders. I’ve sent it off with friends when they go travelling or when someone is getting sick and people can't get enough of it.
This is a recipe adapted from a former supervisor of mine, Jenny Adams who wrote a great book called Herbal Manufacturing.
You’ll need:
8 cloves of organic or home grown garlic
100mL of apple cider vinegar
5 pepper corns lightly crushed
1 tsp fennel seeds
1cm piece of ginger
1 tsp honey (Manuka preferably)
Crush garlic with side of knife and leave in whole pieces. Put these in a glass jar along with ginger.
Bring vinegar to a simmer and add pepper corns and fennel. Make sure not to boil. Let simmer for a 1-2 minutes and then pour over the garlic.
When the temperature has reduced stir in honey.
Put the lid on a let sit for at least 2 hours. This mixture can be kept in the fridge for at least a week, if not longer.
Take 1 tbsp three times daily. If unpleasant on an empty stomach, have after food.
Note: Don’t be alarm if the garlic goes a blue colour this is due to the vinegar.
Ravichandran, S., Gunasekaran, A., Ponraj, S., & Antony, U. (2017). Growth of selected probiotic bacterial strains with fructans from Nendran banana and garlic. LWT -- Food Science And Technology, 8368-78. doi:10.1016/j.lwt.2017.03.059
Bayan, L., Koulivand, P. H., & Gorji, A. (2014). Garlic: a review of potential therapeutic effects. Avicenna Journal of Phytomedicine, 4(1), 1–14.