What happens to your body if you eat a clove of garlic every day? Can it really kill bacteria?

In this hot summer, when you have worked all day and are exhausted both physically and mentally, what do you most want to do after get off work?

Many people would like to rush into a cool air-conditioned room and eat barbecue to relieve their fatigue. If that is not enough, add a small dish of raw garlic to add more power, chew it with the meat, and let the joy of eating meat spread quickly in your body.

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If you eat meat without garlic, the nutrition will be "halved"?

As the saying goes, "If you eat meat without garlic, the flavor will be half gone." But in fact, adding raw garlic when eating meat not only enhances the flavor, but also makes the nutritional value of the meat more effective.

Lean meat is rich in vitamin B1, but vitamin B1 is not stable and stays in the body for a short time and is excreted with urine. Garlic contains unique alliin and allinase, which will produce allicin after contact. The vitamin B1 in meat combines with allicin to form stable allithiamine .

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In this way, allithiamine can prolong the residence time of vitamin B1 in the human body, improve its absorption rate in the gastrointestinal tract and its utilization rate in the body . Therefore, in daily diet, you should eat a little garlic when eating meat, which can not only remove the fishy smell, but also achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Can garlic inhibit and kill bacteria?

"Garlic can kill bacteria" is indeed confirmed by certain studies, and the antibacterial effect of raw garlic is significantly higher than that of cooked garlic, and the antibacterial effect of high-concentration raw garlic juice is stronger than that of low-concentration .

In addition, modern medical research shows that garlic has antibacterial, lipid-lowering, blood sugar-lowering, anti-platelet aggregation, anti-tumor and immune function-enhancing effects. Garlic has a certain inhibitory effect on Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus and yeast.

1. Raw garlic has better antibacterial effect than cooked garlic

People believe that raw garlic has a stronger antibacterial effect than cooked garlic, and this is indeed the case. Studies have shown that cooked garlic not only has no inhibitory effect on Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella, Shigella, and Bacillus subtilis, but can actually promote their growth . The reason for this may be that the active ingredients in garlic that can inhibit bacterial growth are destroyed after being heated . The other ingredients in garlic (amino acids, sugars, glycosides, vitamins, trace elements, etc.) can serve as nutrients for bacterial growth and promote bacterial growth.

In home cooking, people like to mash garlic and eat it, which has certain benefits. The alliin and allinase components contained in the garlic bulb exist independently in the bulb. Mashing the garlic helps the two substances to contact each other, and under the action of allinase, the alliin is decomposed to produce volatile allicin with strong antibacterial effect .

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2. High-concentration raw garlic juice has a stronger antibacterial effect than low-concentration raw garlic juice

Garlic juice has a strong killing effect on Salmonella typhi, Shigella dysenteriae, and Staphylococcus aureus, and the effect on Escherichia coli is second. It has a certain inhibitory effect on Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus cereus. 3% garlic juice can effectively kill Bacillus cereus .

Allicin contained in garlic is a natural antibacterial substance with low accumulation in animals and little residue. At the same time, because it has a wide antibacterial spectrum, is easy to degrade, is inexpensive, and has no teratogenic, carcinogenic, or mutagenic side effects, it can be used as an antibiotic substitute and animal feed additive and is widely used in aquaculture and livestock breeding and disease prevention and control.

Garlic has a bactericidal effect. Can eating garlic sterilize the body?

Although allicin has the effect of inhibiting bacterial growth, eating more garlic cannot sterilize the body .

The reason is that the allicin contained in garlic will decompose after entering the human body, so it is difficult to play a bactericidal and antibacterial effect. In addition, some people choose to eat garlic to kill bacteria when they have diarrhea, which is also wrong.

This is because when the human body has diarrhea, the entire intestinal cavity is in an "oversaturated" tense state. Eating garlic, a spicy food, will further irritate the intestinal wall, causing further congestion and edema of the blood vessels, causing more tissue fluid to flow into the intestine, aggravating diarrhea .

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So don't blindly use garlic to kill bacteria. Although the allicin contained in garlic has antibacterial and sterilizing effects, and can make barbecue meat more fragrant, the antibacterial and sterilizing effects of allicin in the human body are minimal, and people with poor stomachs will damage the gastrointestinal mucosa if they eat too much raw garlic.

Garlic is an important part of our diet. We must not eat garlic in the wrong way, as it will make things worse for our intestines.

References

[1] Eating meat with garlic will get you twice the result with half the effort [J] Quality Exploration

[2] Gu Yinna, Huang Yunhui. Extraction and pharmacological effects of active ingredients from garlic[J]. Journal of Nanjing Military Academy, 2000, 22(4): 249-253.

[3] You WC, Chang YS, HeinrichJ, et al. An intervention trial to inhibit the progression of precancerous gastric lesions: compliance, serum micronutrients and S- allyl cysteine ​​levels, and toxicity [J]. Eur J Caner Prev, 2001,10(3): 257- 261.

[4] Lamm DL, Riggs DR.Enhanced immunocompetence by garlic: role in bladder cancer and othermalignancies [J]. J Nutr, 2001,131(3s): 1067- 1072.

[5] Guo Hongzhen, Ma Lizhi. Study on the antibacterial effect of raw and cooked garlic[J]. Jiangsu Agricultural Science, 2007(4): 11-21.

[6] Zhang Aimin. Study on the effect of garlic and its products on the activity of pathogenic bacteria[J]. Chinese Condiment, 2008(7):38-39.

[7] Research progress on the function and detection technology of allicin. Xing Lihong, Li Zhaoxin, et al. [J]. China Fisheries Quality and Standards DOI:10.3969/j.issn.2095-1833.2023.01.008

[8] Who should not eat raw garlic? Yang Yudong, Xu Hao [J] Shandong Agricultural Mechanization 2007.9

[9] There are some rules for eating garlic: Lian Shulan [J] Kaiwenyiyi Seeking Medical Advice 2012.07.02

[10] Study on the antibacterial effect of raw and cooked garlic Cheng Xiuyun et al. [J] Food and Machinery, Vol. 29, No. 6, November 2013

Author: Xu Lang, popular science creator

Review | Ruan Guangfeng, Deputy Director of Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center