Garlic: A Superfood for Health and the Immune System

I've been using garlic for years for a variety of things. Usually I use it for colds. At the first sign of a cold, chop up 4 cloves of raw garlic and eat. I prefer to use it as a garnish on an already garlicy type food like soups or spaghettie, it helps make the taste not so obvious. Keep up with 4 cloves a day, then reduce the number as your symptoms decrease. This can stop a cold from manifesting, or it will shorten and weaken your colds. I used to have chronic bronchitis after every cold, now I haven't had it in years. I also only get one cold a year usually. Yeah, I don't smell great but I'm not missing so much work!

I will also use raw garlic juice on rashes and bug bites. It stops the itching immediately, and I pretty much use it for anytime I might need a phytoncide.

Another cardiologist found that Co-Q10, magnesium, D-ribose and L-Carnitine work wonders on heart patients of all levels, he even said that some of t hem were on the waiting list for heart transplant and got off of it after taking those supplements together... He calls them the "Awesome Foursome". The cardiologist's name is Stephen Sinatra. You might want to read about it, I found it to be amazing!

Garlic. Since my last post I have been crushing the garlic instead of chopping it. I allow it to sit for 10 minutes for the Allicin to work and take it in one teaspoon with water. I do this 2x daily. Heating the garlic removes its potency. Taking crushed or chopped garlic too soon after crushing or chopping prevents the allicin from doing its job. There are many places on EarthClinic to read how to take garlic. There are many websites to read how to take garlic.

I noticed that when I came down with a cold - I would always start to crave raw garlic. So I thought I would try it the next time before the cold took hold. It worked like a charm! Now I use it every time I feel a cold or flu coming on.

It has to be raw garlic. I chop a few large cloves (as much as I can handle) finely and sprinkle it on buttered toast or in my food. You should be sure to chew the garlic to release the essential oils. I continue this once or twice a day until I'm better - could take a few days to completely get well - but I have managed to fend off every cold since I discovered the "garlic cure." (this is good for colds and flu except if you are coming down with a stomach bug - in which case it could aggravate your stomach.)

Garlic for colds. When a cold first starts, place a whole clove between the cheek an teeth. It will shorten the effects of the cold.

When I feel a cold coming on with symptoms of a sore throat & or sniffles, I blend 1-2 cloves of fresh crushes garlic & 1/2 cup of spring or distilled water. I drink it once in the morning on an empty stomach & again in the evening for at least a week. Bye , bye cold & discomfort. Oh by the way, it is disgusting but oh so good for U.

8 to 10 of garlic juice mixed with 2 TBSP of honey four times a day cures a persistent cough

I used garlic for weight loss. It is excellent and burns fat.

* Garlic is a gastric stimulant & helps with digestion.
* It acts as an anti flatulent, carminative and diaphoretic.
* It stimulates the kidneys and is diuretic in nature.
* It is a tonic, giving strength & vitality
* It is an expectorant having a special effect on the bronchial and pulmonary secretions.
* It is beneficial for eyes & brain.
* It helps to heal fractured bones (also see comfrey poultices)
* It is a great antiseptic.
* It has allicin, which has the property to destroy germs which are not killed by penicillin. As such, it is a very powerful germicidal.
* It rehabilitates sexual malfunctions.
* It improves functional activity of heavy smokers.
* Half a raw garlic clove a day can increase body activity to dissolve blood clots, thereby preventing heart attacks and strokes.
* A couple of raw garlic cloves daily can bring blood cholesterol levels down in heart patients.

Click here to see all books on the healing properties of garlic.

The way i'm having garlic juice is: take 2-3 cubes of garlic, cut each cube into two/three pieces, put them in a glass of water (room temp), cover the glass and soak the garlic for the whole night. next morning drink the water in empty stomach. you can use the same group of garlic for 2-3 days. i've been having it for little over a year. i used to have cold at least once every winter, but not anymore.

WARNING! I had an upper respiratory bacterial infection (green and yellow mucus secondary to a virus) and read a number of posts here about raw garlic and, not wanting to chew it, I put raw garlic packs under my feet (chopped several large cloves and put them on plastic wrap and wrapped each foot, put socks over) and left the first pack all afternoon. I didn't notice a problem. I decided to do it again and leave them overnight. The next morning I awoke to find that the mucus was clear again, BUT I had very itchy, swollen, bright red feet. The itching nearly drove me crazy and I scratched... Big mistake. By the next day the arches of my feet were covered in large blisters, the itching is even worse, and my feet look and feel almost identical to when I had an emergency room level drug reaction to Keflex last year (before it was over I looked like I had third degree burns in all the intriginous skin areas and it took five months to heal -- the dermatologists at Duke had never seen anything like it... they thought it was a fungal infection and only a skin biopsy confirmed the drug reaction).

I came back here immediately and read more about garlic and saw somewhere a post from a mother who said her daughter's skin blisters when it's exposed to garlic. Since I've eaten raw garlic in green smoothies every day for the last year I didn't think it could be the garlic; perhaps a reaction to the plastic wrap (I'm multiple chemical sensitive and react to all sorts of things). So the night before last I put one slice of garlic on my forearm and covered it in paper tape for sensitive skin. In the morning it seemed fine... At first. By evening a red patch had appeared and I felt a slight itch. By the next day the spot was swollen and red and definitely itching. I've been treating my feet with ACV, magnesium oil, and triamcinolone acetonide (prescription topical steroid I was given for the Keflex reaction), so I put that on the arm spot that day each time I did my feet (every three hours). This morning the arm spot is still red, swollen, and itches and has a small blister.

Never again will I put raw garlic on my skin. When asked if I have allergies I will list a topical allergy to raw garlic.

My QUESTION is: Should I continue to eat raw garlic? I'm not certain yet, but it seems to me that I have a fit of intense itching shortly after drinking even a small glass of green smoothie with raw garlic.

I am struggling with lower abdominal crimping and constipation after I ate raw garlic and honey to clear a sore throat, My GE doctor ordered for a ct scan but apparently it showed nothing. I have lost 15kg in 5 months and now am searching for an alternative to my pain and diving weight, please anyone with an opinion should share.

Personally, I think garlic (and onions! ) are awesome. I use them in cooking and as medicine and find them to be very effective and safe. (Others might not find the garlic breath to be safe! )

Both have a long history of being used as food and medicine.

Some things I wonder about these studies...regarding airline pilots...was the garlic used in tests processed? If it was processed or not grown organically, there may have been other factors (like chemicals) that were what affected the reaction time of the pilots. Again, I haven't seen the studies, but I wonder what is behind them. We have seen effective and safe, natural things become banned from use. Comfrey is a plant that is currently being criticized. If we lose the rights to use plants for medicine by way of law or fear, the medical field and the drug companies do benefit from this.

Anyway, that is my 2 cents on garlic and onions! I will look forward to hearing other thoughts on this.

~Mama to Many~

I woke up this morning with a head cold, thanks to my nieces. Today is Monday and I have a business trip that starts on Saturday so checked Earthclinic for a home remedy to clear it up before then Had taken ACV but really help. A week before travel, I always start Emergen-C to boost the immune system; taking that helped a bit. However, I cut up 3 cloves of garlic and added them (after sitting for 15 minutes) to my hot tea and started to feel relief almost immediately. I will definitely repeat this until everything is cleared up and make my nieces drink some too.

I have used garlic to cure my son twice now from ideas I got from this site. He had an earache, I did the clove in the ear. He would only keep it in for a little bit at a time, I just kept putting it back in until he fell asleep. The next day his earache and head congestion was gone. For the past 2 days he was complaining of sore throat and swollen glands. I took 5-6 cloves minced in boiling water for a minute. In a large mug, add honey, cayenne, capful of ACV and then arlic water with the cloves. I tasted it and it wasnt bad! One sip gave me some serious garlic breath. In a few hours he felt better. It works!

Hello I was wondering if sliced garlic when swallowed work! Thanks

Absolutely! In fact, taking it that way yields the most benefits. Chop up a clove (but be sure to let it sit for about 10 min's after chopping), put it on a spoon and swallow/wash down with plenty of water.

I get strep every year. heres what works for me. Mix this well:

1 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp cayene pepper
4 crushed or microplaned cloves of garlic.
take 1/2 tsp for every waking hour.

Don't wash down with water, tea, etc. Honey helps to suspend garlic in affected area. Cayene helps to bring blood to area to get immune system going. cured in 2 days- true story

Garlic side effects
The same thing that happened to Lin from QLD, Australia happened to me. I got horrific blisters on my toes from eating 3 raw cloves of garlic. It took a long time to cure. But, the most important thing is that I realized that the blisters were a manifestation of my candida, as the garlic is a fungicide that attacks the yeast inside the body. The problem is not the garlic, but starting with garlic at such a high dose that the body cannot handle the toxins that emanate when the garlic kills the yeast. Start slow and increase gradually.

What is the best way to take it? I tried chewing it but dear gawd it burn like hell, so I was thinking about just chopping it up and letting it sit so that the good stuff has time to form then just mixing it with either honey or olive oil and swallowing it like a pill! Any suggestions?

just 2 days ago i was in pain all day long. it was keeping me up all night. even advil wasn't working. had 4 fillings done at the dentist and even a month later i couldn't drink cold drinks because it would hurt right away and i couldn't drink juice without brushing right away because it would hurt really bad 30 minutes later. noticed a bubble on my gums. found out it was an abscess. started researching tooth abscesses. while searching the web found earthclinic which helped me before with hypothyroidism, for that i used coconut oil. noticed that garlic really works for infected teeth and abscesses. at first i just rubbed half a clove of raw garlic sliced in half on the abscess. didn't really help. so i chewed 1/4 clove of garlic and let the garlic juice sit on the infected area for at least 10 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes. by the 3rd night all the pain was gone. now i can drink cold juice without the pain like before although if i do drink cold juice and don't brush its still a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10 for pain. thanks to everyone who posted their testimonials. can get back to my life now. earthclinic is a real lifesaver.

Reading the benefits of garlic and with winter ailments around I bought a bag of garlic and added crushed 1/2 a garlic in our family meals, (in our meat or potato etc)
After 4 days of garlic in our meals my stomach continued to worsen with bloating, gurgling and upset stomach until a dose of diarreah. I felt very ill and am not game to touch it again. Within two days I was back to normal but wonder if I'm allergic to it. None of my family reacted at all. Perhaps this is a cleansing thing but I have my doubts as previously after taking high potency garlic capsules for a week or two my hands break out in red itchy blisters, especially between the fingers and eventually clears up after I stop using them. Should I keep clear of Garlic?? I tried the hydrogen peroxide therapy and it had no side effects.