Last night as I was laying in bed reading Mother Earth News, there was a reader tip that swore she had the cure for the common cold. Apparently you take one clove of garlic, crush it up in the bottom of a mug, then wait about 10 minutes. During those ten minutes all of the magic qualities of the garlic will take shape. Then add hot water and a little honey and lemon if you like. Drink the garlic tea and chew up the garlic clove afterwards. She claims that it tastes pretty good and won’t give you stinky breath. She drinks this at least once a day for a few days once she feels the first symptoms of a cold and says that its a total cure! Obviously, I haven’t tried this yet, but I wanted to let you know in case you are feeling a cold coming on. Our youngest has a cold now…so its only a matter of days for me now to have to try this magic garlic tea out. Let me know if it works for you!
After doing more reading, garlic really is incredible! A study was done in Florida proved that eating garlic and garlic essense supercharged the immune system’s natural killer cells. Nine people were given 12-15 cloves of garlic to eat a day, 9 were given the same amount of garlic extract, and the remaining 9 got to spare their breath and weren’t given any garlic. At the end of the study the natural killer cells in the blood of the 27 participants was extracted and then mixed with cancer cells. The folk’s blood who ate the garlic and garlic extract killed 120-140 percent more of the cancer cells than the blood of those who didn’t eat any garlic!
In one province in China its customary for people to chew a few cloves of raw garlic each day. When they studied this community against another non garlic eating community nearby, they found that 12 times more non garlic eating people suffered from gastric cancer as the garlic eaters!
Amazing, isn’t it? And this is only the tip of the iceburg on it’s healing powers. It lowers blood pressure, cholesteral, helps prevent chronic bronchitis, prevents heart attacks and more. If you are like me, you’re thinking about going to eat a few cloves raw right now aren’t you? Well, at least let’s go add some to our dinners tonight, okay?
Speaking of garlic, we just planted our last weekend. To read more about our garlic growing adventures you can read about last years harvest and how our harvest went wrong.
We use a similar garlic drink for colds but we use orange juice instead of water. I also use it alot for those little cuts and scrapes one can never seem to avoid.
Even if it does cause stinky breath, it seems like a small price to pay for a cold to go away. I’d say it’s worth a try. I find the zinc lozenges help, but the nasal gel burns and it’s just not worth it. I’m expanding my veggie garden and will definitely be growing garlic next year.
Thanks Eva and Jen for your comments. Eva, how do you use garlic to treat cuts and scrapes? Do you just rub it on?
Jen, I used to use the zinc lozenges too and they did help. I used to couple those with echinacea drops under the tongue. I learned from a lady training to be a homeopathic doctor that your body absorbs things faster under the tongue than when swallowed.