So here’s the deal with garlic effectiveness. We’ve always assumed that eating it raw would do two things.
- First, it would give us all the health benefits of the bulb and
- Second, it would ruin our love lives.
USDA scientists tested this theory out – boiling, baking and microwaving garlic (both crushed and uncrushed) and evaluated them for antiplatelet activity.
The bottom line for healthy cooks? Crushing garlic freed up more of the compounds. And light cooking retained most of the benefits but microwaving removed all of the benefits.
Grow this herb in your garden, crush it for best health results but keep it away from the microwave.
We’ll have to do our own trials on the love life question it would appear.
Philipp Simon, USDA-ARS Vegetable Crops Research Unit, Madison, Wisconsin;