Garlic is a well known herb. It is known to be a body purifier with lots of health benefits. One thing however that discourages people from taking garlic, especially eating it raw, is the strong unpleasant breath or body odor it can cause. This has made people consider swallowing garlic as an alternative way of consuming it.
Garlic is one of the species in the onion genus. It comes in a bulb-like shape. It could come in small cloves or bigger cloves. The numerous health benefits of garlic has made people continue to use it despite the strong odor.
Traditionally, you can choose to chew garlic cloves in your mouth but it could leave a very unpleasant breath or odor on you which would drive people away.
Hence, a lot of people are eager to know if swallowing garlic is right or wrong.
Is swallowing garlic right?
To answer this question properly, we will first have to consider the reason for swallowing, which is to avoid the bad breath and odor.
What causes the bad garlic breath and smell?
Garlic contains a substance named alliin which is converted into allicin when crushed or chopped. This allicin is known to be unstable and is broken down to several other sulfur containing substances. Allicin is oily liquid and has a slight yellowish color.
Allicin is broken down in your body into compounds such as allyl methyl sulfide, allyl methyl disulfide, diallyl disulfide, methyl mercaptan etc which are responsible for the pungent garlic smell.
The particular compound that causes garlic smell to remain in your body and breath for several days is allyl methyl sulfide(AMS). AMS is not quickly decomposed in your body and stays for many hours or days.
Getting rid of the bad garlic breath and odor
You may have tried using mouthwash or breath fresheners to reduce the smell of garlic but they do not work mainly because the compounds responsible for the garlic odor are retained in the bloodstream and only leave through the lungs and skin. Breath mints and fresheners cannot help you get the odour out of your blood stream.
Does swallowing garlic help you escape the smell?
Yes, it does. But is it safe? And would it still give the same benefits like it would when you chew it?
The crushing of garlic is what begins the production of it’s major medicinal component – allicin, when you don’t crush it, this component is not produced and the potency is reduced.
Additionally, swallowing cloves of garlic could lead to choking as the cloves could be too big for you to swallow.
So what’s the best way for you to take garlic?
There are many ways people take garlic that prevents the garlic breath and odor. One of the ways we know here is chopping the clove into very small sizes and swallowing it with a drink.
Chopping the clove will give way for allicin to be produced and you would get the important nutrients that garlic gives.
You can choose drinks with fats, milk, smoothie etc. This will help you reduce the odor and bad breath. Drinking milk after chewing garlic can also help you reduce the odor.
Avoid swallowing cloves of garlic as much as possible. Following our recommended way will help you fight the garlic breath and odor.
So that’s it! You can now enjoy taking your garlic without being scared of the bad breath or odor that comes with it. Do subscribe to our blog posts to learn more and get more healthy living tips.
