Since ancient time garlic is well known as part of traditional remedy which has nothing to do with Vampire or Count Dracula. It is because garlic has so much benefit for human health and garlic is also one of the important ingredients for cooking. The strong aroma of garlic will make most women hate it because the aroma will stick to their body every time they use it for cooking and it will force them to have a shower before they meet their husbands or their boyfriends. However, aside from that, those women will not take risk to avoid garlic because it could enhance the flavor of the foods they cooked and make them tastier. Moreover, garlic is more than just food ingredients but there are a lot of health benefits of eating fresh garlic that you should know as well unless you are not really good in cooking.

What is Garlic?

Garlic is usually associated with red onion but the question is whether they come from the same genus or family? Well, it is actually true that garlic has close relation with onion because they come from the same genus Allium and the scientific name of garlic is Allium. The popularity of garlic as food flavoring or seasoning has been well known from Ancient Egyptians and even garlic has been mentioned in some old transcripts from Ancient Greek and has been prescribed to treat certain medical conditions.

Nutritional Value of Garlic

Six cloves of garlic is the standard amount of garlic usually used as food seasoning however even as little as six cloves garlic is already packed with certain vitamins, minerals and some natural compounds that some of them even could fulfill up to 15% daily intake. It means the health benefits of eating fresh garlic is even more than that because cooking process is able to reduce the number of vitamins, minerals and some natural compounds. To find out more about the health benefits of eating fresh garlic the list below may tell you how amazing garlic is for human.

1. Low in Calories

No matter how much suggestions that you hear about how to avoid calories in your food but still calories have important role in your body metabolism and without which you are not getting enough energy to do your daily activities. However, calories contained in garlic are just in the right amount for your body without causing unnecessary weight gain.

2. Great Immunity Booster

Some studies have shown that one of the health benefits of eating fresh garlic is to help people improving their immunity system. That is why whenever you feel weak and need some immunity booster just take one or two cloves of garlic to help you providing one more layer of protection to your immunity system.

3. Natural Remedy to Light Cold

As it is a natural immunity booster surely garlic is great to treat light cold. Cold or flu is one of the common conditions that are not required special treatment because this condition could heal by them. However, by taking or eating fresh garlic regularly during cold could help you accelerating the healing process and shorten your bed rest time.

4. Reduces Blood Pressure

It is true that the number of people who are suffering from hypertension is increasing day by day and that is the reason why high blood pressure is one of the world’s biggest killers that actually could be avoided in the first place. Consuming fresh garlic regularly could help you reducing the high blood pressure level and promote healthier cardiovascular system.

5. Prevent Stroke and Heart Attack

The worst condition that may occur because of high blood pressure level is heart attack when the artery to heart is blocked and stroke when artery to brain is blocked. By consuming fresh garlic regularly at least you could help yourself by preventing such condition to occur to you because the chance of survival is fifty-fifty in those two conditions and even the survivor should suffer some dysfunctions due to broken nerve system.

6. Lowers Cholesterol Level

Some studies have shown how significant the role of eating fresh garlic in lowering the cholesterol level, especially the LDL or bad cholesterol. However, you don’t need to worry whether garlic has the same effect to HDL or good cholesterol as well because though it could lower the bad cholesterol but it won’t affect the level of good cholesterol at all.

7. Source of Powerful Antioxidants

Antioxidants are essential to human body because they could help in improving immunity system and at the same time is fighting free radicals. Unfortunately, body is not capable enough to produce its own antioxidants and consuming food rich of this natural compound is the best way to fulfill the daily intake and garlic contains some powerful antioxidants.

8. May Prevent Dementia and Alzheimer

One of the effects of free radicals is contributing in the acceleration of aging process. The acceleration of aging process could affect all cells in your body as well as brain cells. Damaged or aged cells in your brain could cause some conditions like dementia and Alzheimer. Garlic contains some powerful antioxidants that will prevent such conditions.

9. May Improve Athletic Performance

Though further study is still required by some people who are consuming garlic supplement may say that they experience some improvements in their athletic performances. If garlic supplement could give such effect perhaps consuming fresh garlic regularly will give you the same effect as well but much more in natural way.

10. Natural Body Detox

It is not easy to control properties that are entering your body. One of the properties that could cause serious damages to your body is metal toxicity. Those kind of properties could be found in food but hardly to be detected. That’s why detoxifying your body regularly is important to eliminate such harmful properties and garlic contains sulfur compounds that could act as metal detox.

11. May Promote Bone Health

The risk of suffering from bone conditions is increasing day by day especially by those who are living in the neighborhood where people are smoking. The risk of bone density loss is higher in women than men but those kinds of conditions could be prevented by promoting the bone health and eating fresh garlic could really help.

12. Helps Improve Appetite during Diet

As it is quite low in calories so garlic is safe to be consumed during your diet program. Furthermore, the strong aroma and flavor of garlic could help you increasing your appetite because sometimes during diet you cannot eat foods with too much flavor but garlic could help enhancing the flavor of foods you’re consuming.

13. Reduces the Risk of Cancer

Well, all foods that are rich of antioxidants could reduce the risk of cancer and garlic is not the exception. Furthermore, the type of antioxidants found in garlic is quite strong and able to prevent the development of cancerous cells.

14. Contains Antibacterial Agents

One of the amazing health benefits of eating fresh garlic is you could enjoy the antibacterial agents found in garlic. In other words, it could help you combating some health conditions caused by bacteria like digestive problems and toothache.

15. Regulates Blood Sugar Level

Recent studies also stated the possibility of garlic in helping regulating the blood sugar level. Those studies are also emphasizing the fact that garlic has strong effect in reducing the symptoms in patients who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Cautions of Garlic

One thing that is very important to note is not everyone could enjoy eating fresh garlic no matter how long the health benefits of eating fresh garlic is. However, for all those benefits you should consider to take it slow and you are not allowed to eat fresh or raw garlic to much in one time but two or three cloves are enough per day. Aside from the benefits there are also some cautions you should aware of eating raw garlic.

• Though the allergic case is rarely reported but still there are some people out there who are allergic to garlic, so if you are one of them is better to avoid it at all cost.
• One of the downside of garlic that most people really hate is garlic could cause bad breath especially when you eating it raw.
• Some negative interaction may occur if you are taking raw garlic along with prescribed medicines especially blood thinning medication because garlic has strong effect to reducing the blood pressure level.

There is one more important thing you should remember that garlic contains one powerful natural compound called allicin which is the reason why garlic has so much health benefits but the way you consume or cook it could affect the way this compound is absorbed. The best way to get allicin is by crushing raw garlic before you cook or consume it and if you prefer to slice it and then you will not get all the benefits of allicin from garlic.