20/04/2020
GARLIC (ALLIUM SATIVUM)
A well known herb that is used to promote immunity, as a antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal.
🌿Used medicinally to help lower cholesterol and lower blood pressure. Contraindicated for anyone on blood thinning medication, surgery or has low blood pressure. please seek professional help and never self prescribe garlic 🧄 to ensure safe and therapeutic dosages.
🌿To use as a food, add raw garlic add the end of cooking for the health promoting benefits, as heat will destroy the actives. For example, add chopped raw garlic at the end of cooking your bolognese and pasta sauces, add chopped raw garlic to salad dressing with Olive oil and chopped raw onion to tomato/salad for a bruschetta or add to a bowl of warming soup and cracked black pepper for additional immune support.
🌿To support immunity during the winter months add garlic to honey 🍯 and lemon 🍋 to create a warm tea to drink
Garlic features in a wide range of cuisines and recipes from around the world, so you may already have some in your kitchen. To maximise the anti-infective properties that it's so well known for, chop up your fresh Garlic cloves a little while before using them, then leave the minced Garlic exposed to the air. This allows time for a compound called alliin to be converted to another called allicin (which is considered one of the most important of Garlic's medicinal compounds), a process that involves an enzyme called alliinase. Alliinase is deactivated by heat, so where possible, cook Garlic only lightly, or consume it raw - for example in salad dressings and dips. The chemical volatility of the active constituents in Garlic is one of the reasons that your natural health professional will often prescribe it to you in an enteric-coated tablet. Enteric-coated tablets pass through the stomach before being broken down, which can help protect the alliinase from being degraded by gastric acid.
