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The Truth About Garlic: |
Aged Garlic
Extract: Scientifically supported traditional use of garlic
Garlic
has been one of the most popular condiments. Garlic has also acquired a
world-wide reputation in folklore including ancient civilizations, such
as Egypt, Greece, Rome, Northern Europe, and China.
Historical
and Traditional Use of Garlic
Condiment/flavoring
preparations:
With little effort, you can find numerous recipes calling for garlic as
a condiment/flavoring. Most of these recipes require some method of
processing and/or cooking. Boiling and baking, and also very simple
processes, such as slicing, chopping, or grinding raw garlic, initiate
many chemical reactions within the garlic and result in completely
different chemical constituents compared to those originally found in
the whole raw garlic cloves.
Salubrious/Salutary
preparations Preparation of garlic
for beneficial use can be classified into the following two categories:
1. Topical/external
use: Ground or sliced raw garlic
cloves applied directly onto wounds or injuries. Used in this way,
allicin, produced enzymatically from alliin, may play an important role
in killing bacteria to prevent infections. However, allicin may also
destroy tissues on contact, as previously mentioned, thus limiting the
utility of its anti-bacterial properties and making it inappropriate for
internal consumption.
2. Internal
use: A number of recipes for the
preparation of garlic for internal use are shown in the historical
herbal books published in Europe, China and India. All of these recipes
include some type of processing, such as boiling, baking, pickling or
aging of raw garlic. In the Orient, aging is the unique and traditional
method used to increase the benefits of herbs and to decrease or
eliminate any toxicity. Hundreds of sulfur-containing compounds and
unique amino acid derivatives formed through chemical and biological
reactions, in addition to the non-sulfur compounds, contribute to the
benefits of the internal use of garlic.
Recent
scientific findings
Recent
scientific findings have given validity to these traditional methods for
preparing garlic. It is well-known that garlic cloves contain alliin and
the enzyme, alliinase. Cutting or crushing garlic cloves activates
alliinase, which catalyzes the reaction that converts alliin to allicin.
However, allicin is an odorous, highly unstable and reactive/oxidative
compound which readily decomposes to other sulfur-containing compounds
(5, 6). Therefore, raw garlic and related preparations are chemically
unstable and have been known to cause side effects, such as stomach
disorders and allergic reactions when taken internally (7, 8). Thus,
such preparations would be of limited application. Furthermore, since
lack of bioavailability of allicin has been shown, garlic preparations
containing allicin can be useful only for external application.
On the other
hand, processed garlic is rich in a variety of sulfur-containing
compounds which may act synergistically or antagonistically to provide
the benefits of garlic. Since these preparations contain little or none
of the harsh and irritating compounds in raw garlic, they would cause
less undesirable effects when consumed internally.
Aged Garlic
Extract
A
garlic extract, called Aged Garlic Extract, has been developed based on
the traditional usage of garlic. Instead of using heat, Aged Garlic
Extract is aged naturally for 20 months. The unique natural aging
process adds greatly to the value of garlic:
- the harsh and irritating compounds are significantly reduced
- the pungent odor of garlic is also reduced
- sulfur-containing compounds, such as alliin and allicin, are converted to many other sulfur-containing compounds, which are mainly water-soluble. Aged Garlic Extract has been studied extensively and shown to have almost all known garlic benefits.
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