Increasing Garlic's Health Benefits

I love garlic. It is yummy and really healthy, too. And recently I read that waiting 10 minutes between chopping your garlic and cooking it preserves the anti-cancer properties (and anti-inflamatory, anti-fungal, and anti-atherosclerotic properties)!

Mostly, that's all you need to know. But if you quest for more nerd knowledge, like I do, there are two compounds in garlic that are separated from each other by the cell walls. When the cell walls are cut, the two compounds combine, do some enzymatic magic, and form allicin. (Allicin is the anti-cancer, anti-everything-bad compound.)

This is why you need to wait to eat the garlic, even if you're eating it raw. It needs time for the enzymatic action to create allicin.

Awesome! And research shows (this is one of my favorite phrases, by the way. I use it frequently. [I'm a nerd.]) that rats fed garlic that was cooked (but didn't sit for 10 minutes) showed no health benefits and rats fed garlic that was chopped, sat, and then cooked DID show health benefits.

So mince, wait, and enjoy the health benefits.

The Journey Toward Natural

I firmy believe that the closer to nature we eat and live, the healthier we will be and the healthier the Earth will be. I try to buy organic* foods when we can, use natural cleaners, and try to limit our exposure to toxins and plastics.

I started eating largely organically and shopping at a co-op when I was pregnant with my first child, my son, but probably the biggest steps I've taken toward living naturally came after my son was about 4 years old. We discovered that he is sensitive to artificial colors and preservatives (a long story for another post), so we avoid them as much as possible. This has lead me even further down a path toward healthfulness, for which I will always be grateful to him.

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* My opinion on organic foods has become a lot more complex recently.  I've moved more towards sustainable foods--grass fed beef and dairy, local agriculture, etc.  More on that later.