Want to get rid of odor? Garlic lovers may try drinking yogurt

Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, September 21 (Reporter Zhang Jiaxin) According to a report in the magazine "Molecules" on the 19th, researchers at Ohio State University in the United States have discovered that yogurt may have a previously unknown benefit: eliminating garlic odor.

The researchers tested the individual ingredients of whole milk yogurt, water, fat and protein, to see how each ingredient fought the garlic odor. They found that both fat and protein were effective at trapping the garlic odor.

Cheryl Ballinger, senior author of the study and professor of food science and technology at Ohio State University, said that in addition to being nutritious, high protein can also act as a breath deodorizer.

Previously, Ballinger's team identified a number of foods that can eliminate the smell of garlic, including apples, mint, lettuce and milk, thanks to the enzymes and fats they contain, which can "kill" the sulfur-based compounds that cause garlic's lasting smell.

In this experiment, the researchers placed equal amounts of raw garlic in glass bottles and confirmed that the sulfur volatiles released reached a concentration that could be smelled by humans. They used a mass spectrometer to measure the levels of volatile molecules in gas form before and after each treatment, and the results showed that yogurt alone could reduce the volatiles of raw garlic odor by 99%. The fat, water and protein components added to yogurt alone also had a deodorizing effect on raw garlic, but fat and protein performed better than water.

The higher the fat content of butter, the better the deodorizing effect. The proteins studied included different forms of whey, casein and milk proteins, all of which were effective in removing the odor of garlic, probably because they are able to capture volatile molecules before they are emitted into the air. The micellar casein-whey protein complex worked best.

The researchers also tested the deodorizing effects of yogurt and its isolated components on fried garlic. They found that frying garlic alone significantly reduced most of the odor-causing volatile compounds in garlic.

Ballinger predicts that Greek yogurt, which has a higher protein content than the cow's milk yogurt used in the study, may be particularly effective in eliminating the smell of garlic. She says fruit-flavored yogurts may also be effective, but in any case, they must be consumed soon after eating raw garlic.