Benefits of garlic are numerous. Garlic, like the onion, has a powerful effect on healing wounds and is also very good as a disinfectant. The old Greeks placed garlic on stones at cross roads as a dinner for their triple goddess Hecate who was Diana on earth, Phoebe in heaven and Proserpine in hell.
As with horseradish, it is difficult to juice garlic in the machine because of the strong essential oils which can only be removed with the greatest difficulty. So we crush it and the resulting liquid is easily incorporated into juices or taken in small amounts by itself.
In 1936 Caspari demonstrated in the laboratory that garlic can destroy the bacterium staphylococcus and that this might be the basis for the use of garlic as a medicine. Later on studies with animals demonstrated the effect of garlic in improving the condition of arteriosclerosis whilst at the same time bringing down the blood-pressure.
Garlic acts well against cataract, particularly in smokers, and for colds. Like onion juice, one dessertspoonful of garlic in half a pint of warm water (10ml in 275ml water) is a recognized remedy for worms in children. One suspects that children in Mediterranean countries must be well protected against worms, and statistics show that their parents have a lower incidence of heart disease than most Europeans, all of which helps to confirm the therapeutic value of this bulb.
The great benefit from garlic was demonstrated in a controlled trial on sufferers from long-standing intestinal disorders such as persistent diarrhea with accompanying headaches. These symptoms disappeared in the patients having garlic juice, but even more importantly, an entirely fresh and improved quality was found in the intestinal flora, those bacteria which aid the digestion of food.
Garlic juice has been used beneficially for many conditions including those mentioned already plus tuberculosis, entercolitis and amoebic dysentery. It is an expectorant as well as assisting asthma and bronchitis.
Garlic and garlic juice has been used as a medicine for some 5,000 years and we would be misguided not to use it on account of the smell. If you cannot bear to use it with your juices than take garlic in the form of capsules which do not dissolve until they have reached the intestine.
Garlic is by far the best common food source of germanium. Containing around 750 parts per million. It also seems to be better at concentrating selenium than most other fruits and vegetables, supplying 20 micrograms per100g. The exact quantity of these elements will depend on where your garlic was grown as some soils have richer supplies than others. Both germanium and selenium are considered to be important antioxidants.
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