Health Benefits of Garlic In Your Daily Diet
What are The Health Benefits of Garlic in your daily diet
The Health Benefits of garlic in your daily diet and Irish soda bread recipe
Hello and welcome. This hub will explain the health benefits of cooking with Garlic and fresh herbs and why you should include it in your daily diet.
Garlic has many health benefits but above all it makes a meal taste great. When added to fresh herbs and other fresh ingredients you have the makings of a quick and easy healthy meal for you and all your families health.
I will share the medicinal properties of Garlic and the benefits of having it in your daily diet. I will also include videos on growing your own garlic and fresh herbs so you can include them in your cooking straight from the garden.
There is nothing more satisfying than to cook a meal with your own home grown ingredients and the health benefits of eating fresh products are amazing.
Did you know that Garlic helps to Lower your Cholesterol
Health Benefits of Garlic in your Daily Diet
The Health Benefits, medicinal properties and uses of Garlic have long been known.
Garlic has long been considered a herbal "wonder drug", with a reputation in folklore for preventing everything from the Plague! To the common cold. It has been used extensively in herbal medicine (phytotherapy, sometimes spelt phitotherapy).
Raw garlic is used by some to treat the symptoms of acne and there is some evidence that it can assist in managing high cholesterol levels. It can even be effective as a mosquito repellent.
Health Benefits of Garlic in your diet
Just Some of The Benefits of Garlic
Garlic strengthens the immune system as well as helps to fight chest infections, coughs and congestion. In the winter months garlic is a great food to boost your immune system and ward off colds and flu. An old folk remedy is to eat a clove of garlic that has been dipped in honey at the first sign of a cold.
Garlic contains high levels of iodine which makes it a very effective treatment for hyperthyroid conditions. Treatment with garlic has been shown to greatly improve this condition.
Scurvy is treated by vitamin C and garlic contains good levels of vitamin C.
Popular Folklore says that garlic is good for more than scaring hungry vampires away. Impotency has long been thought to benefit from doses of garlic, and treatment continues in many communities to this day. Cardiovascular disease can be reduced by ingesting garlic. LDL cholesterol is no friend of garlic and the aortic plaque deposits that gather on the walls of your body’s veins can be reduced with the use of garlic.
Studies have shown the amazing benefits of taking garlic in relation to heart disease.
A good Garlic crusher is a must
Health Benefits of Garlic
Just Some of The Benefits of Garlic 'continued'
Garlic is great in the treatment of Fungal and bacterial vaginal infections. When crushed or bruised, garlic releases Allicin which is a sulphuric compound that is a natural antibiotic. WWI soldiers even apparently used crushed garlic on infected wounds.
Garlic is a great source of vitamin B6 which is needed for a healthy immune system and the efficient growth of new cells. Vitamin B6 can also assist with mood swings.
Garlic can aid in the prevention of multiple types of cancer. Bladder cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer and stomach cancer have all been shown to have their tumours reduced when treated with garlic. Vitamin B6 is said to have cancer fighting abilities.
Garlic regulates blood sugar as it enhances the level of insulin in the blood. This may assist in the control of diabetes.
A Guide for Organic gardeners
Organic Garlic
In general, a stronger tasting clove of garlic has more sulphur content and hence more medicinal value it's likely to have. Some people have suggested that organically grown garlic tends towards a higher sulphur level and hence greater benefit to health.
How to prepare garlic
Preparing Garlic
Remember that a single bulb of garlic usually contains between ten and twenty individual cloves of garlic. Individual cloves are covered with a fine pinkish purple skin. The head of cloves is then covered with white papery outer skin. Don't confuse cloves and bulbs! Neither the inner nor outer skins should be eaten.
To prepare garlic, first strip off some of the papery covering from the bulb. Now ease out as many cloves as required. Garlic cloves come in a wide variety of sizes, so the numbers given in a recipe should be treated as a rough guide only. Once you get used to cooking with garlic you will probably find yourself using more than the recipe states.
Home Grown Garlic
How to prepare garlic continued
In general with garlic, the finer the chop the stronger the taste. Crushed garlic has the strongest taste of all and if used raw is only for the real aficionado. When cooked whole garlic has a much milder, rather sweet taste. There is a famous recipe "chicken with forty cloves of garlic". It should go without saying that these are whole garlic cloves not crushed!
Garlic also mellows the longer it is cooked. Garlic added at the end of cooking will give a stronger taste than garlic prepared the same way but added earlier.
Traditional Soda Bread
Soda bread is a variety of quick bread traditionally made in a variety of cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate (otherwise known as baking soda) is used as a leavening agent instead of the more common yeast.
The ingredients of traditional soda bread are flour, bread soda, salt, and buttermilk. The buttermilk in the dough contains lactic acid, which reacts with the baking soda to form tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. Other ingredients can be added such as butter, egg, raisins or nuts.
Stay heart healthy with Garlic in your daily diet
You cannot beat Soda Bread with Garlic added For Extra Flavour
You can’t beat a quality Irish soda bread. This is an Irish recipe that’s passed from chef to chef, and it gives brilliant results. I’ve added an early spring twist to it by adding garlic.
Preheat your oven to 180C/gas 4. Put a wide pan on a medium heat and add a good lug of olive oil. Add the wild garlic (or spinach), stir and cook for 3 minutes, until wilted. Pour in the buttermilk, remove from heat and blend with a stick blender until you’ve got green milk.
Soda bread with garlic
Garlic Soda Bread
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 1 small handful of washed wild garlic leaves, or spinach with a crushed garlic clove
- 250ml buttermilk
- 175g wholemeal flour, plus extra for dusting
- 175g strong bread flour, plus extra for dusting
- 1 tsp sea salt
- ¾ tsp coarsely cracked black pepper
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 22g salted butter, chilled and cubed
Instructions for Soda Bread with Garlic
Add the dry ingredients and butter to a large bowl with butter and use your fingers to rub the butter into the flour until you have the consistency of breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre and pour in your green milk, a good splash at a time. Combine with a wooden spoon until perfectly mixed and you have dough.
Dust a surface with flour, pop the dough on top then roll into a large sausage, then cut into 8. Lightly oil a baking tray. Out the dough pieces on the tray, sprinkle over some wholemeal flour then put in the oven and cook for 20 minutes or until lightly golden on top. Remove from the oven, then pick one up and tap the bum. If you get a hollow sound they’re perfect, so put them on a wire rack to cool.
Growing Your Own Garlic
Click thumbnail to view full-sizeGrow your Own Garlic
Growing your own garlic is so satisfying. Besides the convenience of having garlic there at all times, the bulbs from the garlic plants send out a beautiful white flower in the early spring. It brightens up your garden on a dull day and the fragrance from them is amazing.
It is so easy to start a garlic garden.
Just take some garlic bulbs and soak them in water for about 48 hours or until the green stock appears from the bulb. The best time for this is around January. Once the green stem has appeared plant the bulbs in soil with the stem upwards. Garlic will grow any where really so you do not have to have green fingers to accomplish this.
If you want to put a little more effort into growing your own garlic there are some really good videos on this hub which explain how to grow it professionally.
I am inclined to let my garlic grow wild and take over my garden as I love the aroma from the flowers and how pretty they are.
How to Plant your own Garlic
The Advantages of Garlic
This video will explain the advantages of having garlic in your daily diet and the medical properties of garlic.
It will explain how having garlic in your daily diet can lower your cholesterol, thin your blood and all the other health benefits you can get from garlic.
The Health Benefits of Garlic
Benefits and Medicinal uses for Garlic
How to Cook Pesto Sauce
I love this video of how to cook pesto sauce. This is a great sauce to have in your fridge for a meal or served with plenty of olive oil with homemade bread as a snack. I always have this sauce along with my basic tomato pasta sauce for when I have unexpected guest that need to be fed.
Easy to Follow Pesto Sauce Recipe
How to make Basic Tomato Sauce
Cooking With Garlic and The Health Benefits
Stay Healthy And Fit
Eat and stay healthy with garlic and fresh herbs in your daily diet
I hope you have enjoyed this article hub on garlic and its health benefits. I use garlic and fresh herbs on a daily basics not only for the health benefits but the taste.
Garlic can really make a dull meal taste great and fresh herbs added can give it that special requirement for any occasion.
The Irish wild garlic soda bread is a must for all kitchens in my opinion, and I have included it in mine and my family’s daily diet.
My fridge and freezer are always stocked with plenty of homemade tomato sauce for pasta and plenty of homemade meat balls for any unexpected guests. I also have plenty of pesto sauce on the go at all times.
Please feel free to leave a comment at the end of this page as I would love to hear your views on the subject of garlic and fresh herbs in your daily diet and if you have any tips you would like to share we would be grateful for the input. Thank you for thaking the time to read this article hub and I hope it has brought you as much enjoyment as it has for me and my familys daily diet.
So be prepared and stay healthy.
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© 2010 Christine