This kind of food will become smelly after eating, but many people not only eat it every day but also love it

After the beginning of summer, various midnight snacks have become an increasingly important part of people's daily life. All delicious midnight snacks, whether it is barbecue, crayfish, fried noodles, chicken wings, or roasted spareribs, cannot be separated from garlic. Garlic is either the main ingredient, such as garlic crayfish, garlic spareribs, garlic chicken wings, and garlic pork; or it is used as a sauce and marinade to lay the foundation for the gorgeous transformation of barbecue ingredients.

Although garlic tastes good, after eating it, I always feel as if my whole body has a lingering stink. Not only do I dare not open my mouth to speak, but the hint of garlic, which is both fragrant and smelly, always makes social contact a little awkward. Here comes the question: Garlic is not smelly when you peel it, and it tastes just spicy, so why do people become smelly after eating garlic?

01 Why do people become smelly after eating garlic?

The bad smell that garlic brings to people is not only reflected in the breath, but also reaches the whole body through blood circulation, making other parts of the body smelly as well. Let's talk about them one by one:

1. After eating garlic, your breath will become smelly

Garlic is rich in allyl sulfur compounds, the most important of which is S-allyl alliin. This substance has no taste when it exists alone. However, garlic also contains a substance called alliinase, which is specifically used to decompose alliin. When the garlic cloves are intact and the internal tissues are not damaged, alliin and alliinase coexist peacefully. Once the garlic is cut, smashed, or bitten, the two will begin to react and produce allicin, which is why garlic feels spicy when eaten raw.

Allicin and other sulfur compounds in garlic are not stable in the air. After we eat raw garlic for a period of time, they will gradually decompose into some smelly decomposition products, such as methyl allyl sulfide and other sulfides. These substances mix in the mouth and make our breath smelly.

2. After eating garlic, your farts will smell worse

After eating garlic, the "exhaust" we exhale will also be particularly smelly, and even have a distinct garlic smell, which instantly lets the smeller know what we ate last time. This is also caused by sulfur compounds. The smell of farts is usually caused by substances such as indole, skatole and hydrogen sulfide.

People who eat a lot of garlic will excrete more sulfides, such as hydrogen sulfide, making the smell of their farts more obvious .

3. After eating garlic, the poop smells strange

Not only farting, but also the strange garlic smell in the stool of some friends after eating a lot of garlic, which is still a normal phenomenon caused by sulfide metabolism. If you eat a lot of protein-rich food at the same time as eating garlic, the hydrogen sulfide produced by incomplete protein digestion and decomposition will make the smell of feces even more unbearable.

02 How much do Chinese people love eating garlic?

Even though it makes people stink, people still love garlic, which is related to the spicy taste of garlic and the garlic aroma brought by some volatile substances. Not only Chinese people, but people all over the world love garlic. After all, it is very easy to match red meat, white meat, fresh seafood, and it is very good at stir-frying, frying, baking, etc. If we look at the list of delicacies from various countries, we will find that there must be many delicacies that rely on the aroma of garlic.

In addition to Chinese garlic delicacies, you can also see French red wine garlic baked snails, Indian oil garlic crabs, etc. Germans who love garlic even make garlic ice cream and have a garlic festival every year. Garlic is not originally produced in my country. Zhang Qian first brought back garlic from his mission to the Western Regions and began to cultivate it in the Central Plains.

The love of garlic by Chinese people can be said to be integrated into our lives and engraved into our blood . "A head of garlic and a bowl of noodles are worth a thousand gold coins", "If you eat meat without garlic, you will lose half of the nutrition", "Eat dumplings with wine, the more you eat, the more you have; eat dumplings with garlic, and your life will be brilliant", these old sayings are enough to prove it.

Northerners love to eat garlic, especially raw garlic . Whether eating noodles, pancakes, meat or vegetables, they cannot do without a few cloves of garlic, and the more they eat, the more delicious it becomes and they never get tired of it.

Slightly gentler ways of eating garlic, such as slicing garlic, mincing garlic, and pureed garlic, are not "eating garlic" in the eyes of real northerners, but just using garlic. For northerners, raw garlic is not only a seasoning, but also a very healthy food - sterilizing, appetizing, removing fishy smell and enhancing flavor. When eating raw garlic, allicin is not destroyed by high temperature, so it is more intact and the health benefits are indeed greater.

Most southerners are quite reluctant to eat raw garlic, as they do not like its spicy taste. Therefore, the garlic taste is greatly reduced through high-temperature processing such as heating and frying. When used in cooking, it is less spicy and more fragrant, becoming a versatile ingredient that does not overshadow the main dish but can also brighten up the taste. For example, the seven-tenths cooked garlic in the zezhe pot, the golden and silver minced garlic piled on the grilled seafood, the thin white meat covered with mashed garlic, the minced garlic and chili peppers sprinkled on the head of the chopped pepper fish...

We Chinese people use garlic for much more than that . In order to extend the shelf life of fresh garlic, or slightly reduce the spiciness of raw garlic so that people who cannot eat spicy food can also taste the deliciousness of garlic, our ancestors also used pickling and sauce making techniques to invent delicacies such as sugar garlic, Laba garlic, and garlic chili sauce.

Over the long years, the production of these foods has gradually taken on cultural imprints and has become a symbol for our people to express their expectations for a better life. For example, the elders insist that Laba garlic must be soaked on the Laba day, so as not to disappoint the ritual of eating dumplings on the first day of the Lunar New Year. For example, the pickled garlic served with mutton soup steamed buns must be jade-like in color, white and yellowish, and taste sour and sweet, crisp and without residue.

03 How to get rid of bad breath after eating garlic?

"How to enjoy the delicious taste without paying the price of bad breath" is probably a topic that we garlic lovers are very concerned about. There are endless ways to remove the garlic smell circulating on the Internet, but which ones are really effective?

1. Covering method

Some people choose to spray breath freshener or chew gum after eating garlic to try to cover up the garlic smell, but the effect is usually not very surprising because it cannot prevent the continued production of sulfides. If it cannot be completely covered, will the combination of breath freshener and garlic odor be even stranger?

2. Digestion method

Some people try the "old method" of chewing tea leaves and eating peanuts after eating raw garlic to try to "hedge" the garlic smell. Since tea contains tea polyphenols, it can decompose some of the sulfides that produce the odor, so it is theoretically effective. However, chewing tea leaves is not as good as rinsing your mouth with tea directly, which can also play a role in flushing the mouth.

Similarly, fruits and vegetables with high polyphenol concentrations, such as apples, bananas, avocados, mint, lettuce, and chocolate, can also decompose some sulfides and eliminate the garlic smell . Peanuts are also a popular way to remove garlic smell. The basis behind this method is that protein can combine with allyl sulfur compounds that bring garlic smell to reduce the odor. So, compared to peanuts, it would be better if we drink milk or yogurt directly.

3. Removal method

Brushing your teeth and rinsing your mouth as soon as possible after eating garlic can remove some of the garlic smell through physical means, but just like spraying breath freshener, the effect will not last long because it does not remove the source of the garlic smell.

As a northerner, to be honest, I can accept the smell of garlic. After all, no matter how refined our lives are, it is normal to be unable to resist the temptation of garlic-flavored delicacies!

For those who really mind the garlic smell but still want to enjoy the garlic aroma, there is a fundamental solution - eat cooked garlic and eliminate alliinase from the beginning.

Finally, whether you eat raw or cooked garlic, I wish you all a happy meal.

Author: Wang Lu, Chinese registered dietitian, Master of Public Health, Peking University

Review | Zhang Na, PhD Supervisor, Associate Researcher, Peking University School of Public Health