A few good reasons to love garlic
Garlic does so much more than give you bad breath, ward off vampires and serve as the main ingredient in Italian food. While it’s pungent flavour can cause the often-undesired garlic breath affect, garlic is a potent medicinal herb. It’s health benefits lie in two main areas – blood circulation and immunity.
Blood circulation: Garlic helps to lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, control triglycerides (fats) and thin the blood, reducing clotting in high-risk heart patients.
Immunity: Garlic can help relieve symptoms from colds or other mild upper respiratory tract infections, supports general immune function and relieves mucous congestion and coughs. It also has a natural antibacterial ad antifungal action, acts as an antiseptic, fights infection and contains chemicals that help to prevent cancer.
The best thing about garlic is that it is super easy to use. What dish doesn’t benefit from a few cloves? Paired with onion, the taste and aroma is unbeatable. Add it to soups, stir-fries, mashed potatoes, veggie bakes, dips, curries or sprinkle on baked vegetables – the culinary options are endless.
To receive the full flavour and health benefits from garlic it is important that you eat it fresh. Crush cloves of fresh, organic garlic and incorporate it into your food. Don’t rely on jars of processed and packaged garlic.
Grow your own garlic: The best way to ensue the quality of your produce is to grow your own. Garlic is surprisingly easy to grow at home. Simply plant a large clove of garlic in a pot of good quality potting mix. Plant the clove with the pointy end upwards, as this is where the stalk will originate. Make sure you allow plenty of soil for each clove you plant otherwise you will just end up with lots of green stalks and leaves. Use a large pot and plant the clove around 15 centimetres deep. Garlic may grow throughout the year, but it’s best planted in autumn to be dug up in summer.
Positive affirmation for the day: This day is full of miracles. They are right in front of me on my path. Today I have the courage to let go of all that is holding me back so that I step forward and experience each miracle that is waiting for me.
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Hi Jess,
I've been reading your blog quite a bit recently and am really enjoying it. I think a good sign of a new web discovery is finding yourself reading all the way back through the archives and I've certainly done that! I was just wondering if you could answer for me where it is that you get your information about certain foods, herbs etc that you write about on your blog? The post about garlic is a great example: is there an external source you rely on for your information? Or do you have your own qualifications in nutrition etc? Please understand that this is just my own personal curiosity and a desire to verify information, not at all questioning your integrity!!
Thanks for the very inspiring blog and insight into your healing journey – you're well and truly on my ever day reading list!!
Hi there, thanks for your comment and for reading my blog. I'm so glad you're liking it! I don't have any qualifications in nutrition. All my posts and the information in them come from my own research – books, magazine articles, the web etc. I do my best to make sure everything I write is accurate though.
Thanks for reading!
Jess x
Great post, thank you!
Another great secret that goes with garlic is parsley – it cleanses your pallet afterwards, and gets rid of that lingering smell. Also works well in most dishes where you use garlic.