Garlic is an essential ingredient in any dish. The power it holds to make the food we eat even more delicious is beyond amazing. However, not everyone knows about the health benefits of black garlic and white garlic.
If you are a garlic lover, you will surely love it more because of the following health benefits it has:
Puts a Stop to Mosquito Bites
Everyone knows that vampires hate garlic, so you may not be surprised to learn that garlic also wards off bloodsuckers of the insect variety as well.
Researchers aren’t sure of the reason, but garlic functions as a natural insect repellent. This is one of the reasons why people use garlic for the skin.
You can prevent nasty bites by rubbing cut garlic on your skin or simply placing a few cloves around the areas where you want to discourage bugs.
Garlic Benefits For Skin: Get Rid of Acne
Garlic fights bacteria naturally, so it makes an effective treatment for acne outbreaks.
According to Ayurvedic healing traditions, garlic not only helps prevent acne but also smooths scar tissue resulting from skin problems.
Just slice a clove of garlic in half, and rub it directly onto trouble spots for a natural, affordable topical skincare treatment. Alternatively, you can take the garlic with food by including a few crushed raw cloves in your recipes.
Prevents and Fights the Common Cold
The antioxidants in garlic make it a powerful opponent to cold viruses. In fact, experts now rank garlic as the most fast-acting antioxidant that’s part of our diet.
Using garlic daily in your meal preparation can bolster the immune system and help keep colds at bay. (Should the saying have been that some garlic each day keeps the doctor away?)
If a cold does manage to take hold, garlic can help you there, too—make a tea by steeping minced garlic in hot water for a few minutes. Strain the liquid from the boiled garlic into a cup, add honey if desired, and toast to your health.
If you don’t like garlic tea, try munching on pickled garlic. It’s because one of the benefits of pickled garlic is it also treats colds.
One of the Health Benefits of Black Garlic Is It Encourages Heart Health
Garlic contributes to cardiac wellness across several different fronts. It lowers blood pressure, fights high cholesterol, works against heart disease and heart attacks, and counteracts artery hardening.
Researchers suspect these benefits are due to the production of hydrogen sulfide gas that takes place when our blood cells extract sulfuric compounds from garlic in the body. This is one of the health benefits of garlic that everyone should know!
Removes Splinters With Ease
While this health benefit isn’t quite as high-stakes as some of the others we’ve discussed when you need it, you’ll be glad you know this handy trick.
Even a tiny splinter can be annoying or downright painful.
Generations of folk medicine practitioners have treated splinters by covering the area where the splinters are embedded with the cut edge of a halved garlic clove, then securing it with a bandage (or in a pinch, duct tape).
This remedy likely owes its success to garlic’s natural antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties.
Takeaway
What’s a clove of garlic? It turns out that it’s not just a common culinary ingredient that we can always find in the kitchen. We can also add it to our medicine essentials because it also contains plenty of health benefits.
[Source: Healthline, BBC Good Food, Huffington Post, Livestrong, Medical News Today, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, Reader’s Digest]