Garlic while cooking, loses its medicinal properties. So how do you avoid this?
Garlic is more than a food, it is certainly a legend in its own right. Garlic was found in the pyramids of Egypt and is even mentioned in the Bible. Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, prescribed it regularly, and it was given to the first Olympic athletes in ancient Greece to improve performance. Garlic has a thousand virtues, it is still necessary to cook it properly.
Modern research confirms what healers and herbalists intuitively knew: Garlic is a powerful weapon in the fight against disease. A study carried out in 1999 by S. Ankri and D. Mirelman shows that a compound in garlic called allicin is responsible for the antimicrobial, antiviral and antiparasitic activity of garlic. It has also been shown to fight strains of E. coli resistant to drugs and that it could combat certain antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
However, it should be noted that allicin is not present as such in garlic. A compound, of alliin and alliinase enzymes are part of the cells of a garlic clove.
These two get separated, however, when their cell walls are ruptured, they meet and form the all-powerful allicin that we know.
Keep the medicinal properties of garlic when cooking …
So when cooking at home, be sure to break down the cell walls of the garlic cloves using whichever method you prefer. But don’t just toss chopped allium sativum in your pot. Heat turns out to neutralize allicin’s health benefits.
A 2001 study by K. Song and JA Milner showed that heating, microwaving or boiling crushed garlic destroyed all of the alliinase enzyme activity in it.
However, most dishes call for cooked garlic rather than raw. In order to preserve certain healing properties of allicin, several scientists suggest to chop or dice the garlic, then let it sit for ten minutes to allow the alliinase to do its job and form as much allicin as possible before it is neutralized by heat. The next time you cook, be sure to chop the garlic first, then let it sit. When you have finished preparing the rest of your ingredients, your garlic will have a lot of active allicin in its cells.
Enjoy your lunch !