21/05/2025
For the garlic lovers - now is the time to prep your garden beds for planting!
Garlic is an incredibly underrated super food!
For me, it is essential in the medicinal home herb arsenal, especially coming into the cooler months and cold-flu 'season'.
Garlic is:
- Antimicrobial
• Immune Modulating
• Stimulant Diaphoretic ie induces therapeutic sweating
• Stimulant Expectorant ie helps bring up/out mucous
• Vermifuge ie prevents/treats worms
• Anti-inflammatory
• Antioxidant
• Hypoglycaemic (balances high blood sugar)
• Circulatory Stimulant
• Antihypertensive (lowers high blood pressure)
- Antifungal
- Antibacterial
I eat garlic daily as a general tonic, but up the dose if I'm fighting off an infection/cold, sometimes reaching for a capsule dose.
Other fun ways to have medicinal garlic:
Garlic honey!
Fire Cider.
Topical applications including candida *please consult your healthcare practitioner!
* Food doses are safe in pregnancy, but please consult your healthcare practitioner for safety of higher doses.
* Garlic is heating and drying in nature, so it may not be suitable for you.
* If you cannot tolerate dietary garlic, I would suggest looking deeper into your microbiome.
Contraindications and Cautions :
Patients with bleeding abnormalities should avoid high doses of garlic. Although usual dietary intakes are likely to be safe, prior to major surgery, suspend the use of high dose garlic supplements one week before as there is a theoretical increased risk of bleeding.
Avoid if there is a known allergy to sulphurous vegetables. If being used as part of a topical application a test patch is advised first.
Observe with antiplatelet drugs and antihypertensive and antihyperlipidaemic agents, as it may likely increase their effects.
