Garlic Can Turn Into a Superfood—If You Prepare It the Right Way

A global cooking staple primarily used to add flavor, garlic has also been prescribed as a medicinal aid for thousands of years. The pungent vegetable was fed to athletes before the earliest Olympics in ancient Greece, and Hippocrates, regarded as the father of modern medicine, recommended garlic as a curative for a variety of complaints including pulmonary illness and abominable growths. Now, decades of scientific research support what our ancestors suspected—that each little clove of allium stativum is packed with nutrients that provide a huge number of health benefits.

However, due to the unstable nature of certain compounds found in garlic, it must be prepared and consumed correctly if you want to take advantage of its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-boosting properties. Here’s why experts think garlic deserves superfood status and how to make the most of the flavorful ingredient.

The Health Benefits of Garlic

Part of the allium family (which also include onions, scallions, leeks and chives), garlic is high in vitamins C and B6, and minerals including manganese, selenium, copper, and calcium. Because most people don’t eat large quantities of the bulbous vegetable, it’s difficult to absorb significant amounts of these nutrients, but garlic also contains around 200 bioactive compounds that have protective health effects even when consumed in small servings.

Inulin, a type of prebiotic fiber, and polyphenols—both found in garlic—are helpful for your gut microbiome, says food scientist Bryan Quoc Le, who wrote his PhD dissertation on the health benefits of garlic and onion. “Good bacteria can break them down and ferment them into byproducts that kill off a lot of the inflammatory material that live in your gut.”

But the most important compound found in garlic, experts agree, is alliin, an amino acid derivative. “Alliin is stored inside the garlic clove with alliinase, which is an enzyme,” explains dietitian Maya Feller. “When garlic is manipulated manually—either crushed, chopped, or minced—alliinase comes in contact with alliin and then converts into allicin.” The resulting compound has been found to have antioxidant, antimicrobial, and antiviral effects.

“Allicin is a very special molecule that has really strong antioxidant benefits,” says Quoc Le, who is also the founder and CEO of Mendocino Food Consulting. “Normally, if the body starts to see some aberration in the oxidation levels, a system kicks in. What allicin does is trigger the system earlier.”

Garlic and garlic extracts have been shown to increase antioxidant activity and reduce blood glucose in diabetic patients, enhance immune cell function, and protect against some infections and oral bacteria. While scientists don’t yet fully understand the mechanisms at play, it’s theorized that allicin is broken down into dozens of sulfur compounds that have different effects, particularly on cardiovascular health. Studies show that garlic reduces cholesterol, lowers blood pressure in patients with hypertension and, due to the anticoagulant property of allicin, reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as thrombosis.

Raw, Cooked, or Fermented?

To allow for maximum allicin formation, it’s best to chop, crush, or mince your garlic, let it sit for about 10 minutes,then eat it raw—not cooked—as allicin degrades quickly above 167°F, and is completely destroyed within 60 minutes. However, “you could add a little vinegar, as acidic conditions slow down the breakdown a little bit,”Quoc Le says.     

You don't need to munch a whole bulb, he adds. “As a sort of recommended daily amount, one or two cloves is great.” Cold sauces and condiments are a delicious way to add raw garlic to your plate—from Argentinian chimichurri to Mediterranean aioli and Vietnamese nuoc cham dipping sauce.

Leaving your cloves uncooked will also preserve other unstable nutrients such as vitamin C, Feller says, but she cautions that some people with gastrointestinal (GI) issues may have an adverse reaction to inulin, which can cause bloating, pain or diarrhea. “Even some people who don't have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, or Crohn's Disease can have GI reactions, because raw garlic can be quite strong.”

Another option to mellow the strong flavor of garlic is to ferment peeled, lightly crushed whole cloves

in raw, unpasteurized honey in a clean glass jar for two to four weeks. This process helps to release polyphenols and preserve allicin, with one in vitro study showing that garlic fermented in honey has a higher anticoagulant effect than raw and boiled varieties. Honey is also high in polyphenols, so the sweet-and-savory fermentation amplifies the antioxidant effects and may enhance the immune-boosting effects of honey.    

Looking at the wealth of research that supports the nutritional benefits of garlic, it’s no surprise that this small but potent ingredient has been used as a medicinal aid for millennia, which begs the question: Should we be swapping an apple a day for a couple of cloves to keep the doctor away?