Raw Food Spotlight: Garlic
Garlic has got to be one of the oldest remedies known to man. Used in treatments for almost everything from colds and flus, infections such as earaches and vaginal yeast infections, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, infectious diseases… the list goes on.
Garlic for Everyday Health
In my opinion, we should all be swallowing garlic everyday. And the reasons are endless, simple, and no bull:
- Garlic stimulates the immune system
- Improves circulation
- Lowers high blood pressure
- Increase longevity
- Is a natural antiseptic and can cure inflammations of the stomach and intestine
Garlic also kills intestinal parasites and destroys unfriendly bacteria, whist preserving and boosting the good bacteria in your digestive system.
Garlic for Digestive Health
But let me focus on digestion for a minute. I think the Italian’s knew what they were doing when they served garlic bread before the main meal – however I no longer eat the stuff, I do make sure I eat a raw clove of garlic every now and then for the same reasons:
Garlic stimulates peristaltic action and the secretion of the digestive juices – prepping your stomach for what’s to come.
Garlic also destroys harmful bacteria in the intestines without affecting the beneficial organisms which aid digestion like I mentioned above, and that brings me to something else I want to mention – Candida. Yep. The dreaded C-word.
Garlic for Candida
Garlic is said to be the best natural remedy around for treating Candida
It’s potent anti-fungal, anti bacterial and anti microbial properties all help in getting rid of the nasty little guys that might be living in your system.
And the quickest way to do it?
Cut a clove in half and swallow! This will kill nasty bacteria pronto!
But it’s gotta be raw. The active ingredient in garlic called Allicin is unfortunately killed off during any cooking so as good as it may taste, that’s about all it’s doing for you. Pleasing your taste buds.
So if you are suffering from Candida, start with 1 average sized raw clove per day, and gradually increase it to 4 or 5 cloves per
day if you really intend on saying bye-bye to any unwanted guests lurking around.
And if you’re worried about “garlic breath” chew on fresh parsley, fennel seeds or whole cloves. But in swallowing garlic whole, garlic breath is usually not a problem.
So whether you’re wanting to improve your digestion, increase your longevity or really tackle a gut issue like Candida, garlic is gonna be your new best friend (provided you grab yourself a big bunch of parsley to go with it!).