Health Benefits of Garlic

It is garlic season in Eastern Ontario and for 15 years, the small town of Perth ON is host to the annual ‘Perth Garlic Festival’ http://www.perthgarlicfestival.com. This festival began as a venue to promote Ontario grown garlic to those who produce products using garlic and the general public. It is anticipated throughout Eastern Ontario for weeks in advance and the advertising is so effective that I started asking for Ontario Garlic the week that the farmers began to harvest. I bought 2 beautiful bulbs of hard neck garlic at my local natural food store Foodsmith’s which is renowned for supporting the local agricultural community. I brought them home and I peeled back the skin to find beautiful silky skinned garlic cloves without a blemish! I made a simple gluten free linguini olio l'aglio. The dish was simple, yet beautiful!  

As many of you may realize, or maybe you have not noticed, Lyndsay and I love garlic and love to cook with it. Not just because it adds glorious flavour to so many recipes, but because there are many health benefits to eating garlic. It is known to be an anti fungal, an anti viral and an anti bacterial. It is also claimed to help prevent heart disease, high cholesterol and cancer. This should be enough for every healthy and unhealthy person to dig into a big bowl of garlic, don’t you think?

Lyndsay and I are not researchers, we are ‘googlers’ and there is some much information out there to educate the masses. Here is a garlic nutritional table I found at http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/garlic.html 

Here are a few websites I found that support the health claims listed above:

http://www.healthfreedom.info/garlic.htm

http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/garlic-benefit.shtml

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090130154901.html

I do wonder about those who are allergic or have sensitivities to garlic. Is there a substitute for the wonderful flavour it offers to many dishes? There are onions, but these beautiful bulbs are from the same family so chances are one allergy is the same as the other. All I can recommend is to substitute fresh herbs to add flavour when garlic has to be omitted. If any of you any have suggestions, please send them to us and we can try implementing into our recipes.

Happy Cookin’!

Laurie and Lyndsay