Anyone who loves garlic doesn’t mind the smell – at least when they’re eating it. But, do you really want to inflict your co-workers with this pungency, even when you know it’s good for you?
Garlic makes an excellent addition to stir-fry, pizza, and roasted and spread over fresh toasted bread, it’s practically a meal unto itself. But one of the great benefits of this tasty treat (occasionally known as “the stinking rose”) is that garlic has properties that may help maintain healthy cholesterol levels already within normal limits.†
Why fresh garlic?
Two compounds in garlic, alliin, and allinase (an activating enzyme), combine and form allicin when a garlic clove is crushed. This compound is what research shows to be the most beneficial, but it’s also the most stinky. And, when exposed to oxygen, the way garlic is during a meal, allicin is not particularly stable.
The best way to design a garlic supplement, then, is to make sure that these two compounds don’t meet and create allicin until they get into the intestine, where the tablet is broken down, alliin and allinase combine, and the benefits are absorbed easily. Just like you’d like garlic to do when it’s fresh – only better.
Aged garlic supplements don’t supply allicin. In fact, flying the face of most research, they deliberately don’t include it in their extracts.
Get the garlic you need
Even if you love garlic, you still might not be reaping the benefits you think. Consider a fresh garlic supplement and get the benefits without the garlic breath – something the people around you won’t mind a bit.†