Garlic Health Benefits 4 Reasons To Eat A Clove A Day

FYI Health Tip

Garlic helps your joints, thins blood, and more. Try adding a quarter clove a day to start.

Forget apples…a clove of garlic a day keeps the doctor away. If you’re only using garlic to keep vampires and unwanted suitors away, you are missing out. Including garlic as part of your regular diet may have beneficial effects on your heart and blood health as well as possibly helping to prevent cancer.

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The reason is that the sulfuric compounds and other phytonutrients (phyto = plant) in garlic have powerful effects on the body.

Thin the blood: When consumed, they’ve been shown to thin the blood, which can be helpful in the prevention of heart disease, such as heart attacks and stroke.
Antioxidants: They also are high in antioxidants, and so might be helpful in the prevention of many different types of cancer.
Joint health: Your joints will also love you for consuming garlic on a regular basis — a study found that people who consumed higher amounts of garlic (and other allium vegetables, such as leeks, chives, and onions) were less likely to get osteoarthritis than those who didn’t consume as much.
Increase absorption of iron and zinc: A study found that eating garlic with grains helped the absorption of these necessary minerals. This is especially important for vegetarians who may not get as much iron and zinc in their diet as a meat-eater.

If you’re not used to eating garlic, we recommend introducing them slowly to your diet. The sulfuric compounds in garlic may be new to your digestive tract and increase gas at first. Start with a quarter of a clove and work your way up to 1 clove per day. Having them cooked is easier to digest than raw. Add chopped up pieces to your rice, pasta sauce, or sautéed vegetables for a delicious and healthy addition to your meal.

The supporting research

Garlic Lowers Cholesterol and Improves Health

Summary
Having good dietary habits has been found to be integral to good health for as long as food has been studied. Some plant products have proven to be beneficial and have contributed significantly to multiple aspects of health. One such plant product is garlic (Allium sativum), which has unique therapeutic properties. The present review explains the beneficial effects of including garlic and its products in your regular nutrition, to improve health and combat several illnesses. This review also focuses on garlic’s remedial potential to improve oxidative stress, provide cardiovascular treatment and act as an immune booster.

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