Health Farm

Don’t let a little garlic breath stop you eating this bulb bursting with nutritional goodness.

Garlic’s distinctive smell comes from a sulphur compound called allicin, the active ingredient that helps treat certain conditions. Though let’s not forget about the many vitamins and minerals also buried within its pungent cloves, including vitamin B6, manganese, selenium, vitamin c, iron, potassium, and copper.

Since Greek physician Hippocrates (circa. 460-370 BC) first prescribed garlic to treat everything from fatigue to respiratory problems, garlic has staked a claim on lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, reducing inflammation, cancer risks, and boosting immunity.

What’s that smell? The breath of life.

While some of these claims haven’t been verified by the kind of research big pharma companies use to propel their drugs through approval processes (for obvious reasons – like, there’s no ‘big’ money in garlic), there is however a growing body of evidence to support garlic’s power to lower cholesterol, reduce both blood pressure and inflammation, and prevent cancer.

You could also add prostate and brain cancers to the list of garlic’s curative powers.