Garlic Tea

I believe whole-heartedly that food has medicinal properties. Growing up with a holistic doctor in the house definitely helped plant this seed in my brain. Luckily that seed was watered and nurtured by many of my mentors throughout my career. Finally, I am coming into a space where it is up to me to continue my education. The little snippets of wisdom I have picked up randomly throughout the years are no longer enough to feed this beast. I want to know all about foraging, medicinal properties of herbs and foods and any other sort of information that can help me to heal myself and the people I care about.
One such snippet of wisdom I picked up years ago has prevailed as the dominant evidence in my mind as to why food can be medicine. At the time I was working too much and subsisting off a diet of coffee, alcohol, medjool dates and parmesan. I was young and invincible. Well, not entirely invincible. I developed a terrible cold that I just couldn't shake. I was taking olive leaf extract and drinking ginger tea, but it wouldn't go away. A waiter at the restaurant I was spending 12 hours a day at told me he could make me feel better, but he said that his cure was really disgusting and I would hate it. For some reason that made me think I should go for it. Before I could back out he crushed 2 cloves of garlic and steeped them in hot water. He added a copious amount of honey and told me to hold my nose and drink. I did as he said and the strangest thing happened. I got this huge rush that started in my toes and zipped all the way up into my brain. It was kind of like smoking your first Newport. For a few seconds I was high, but then it was gone. And within a day or two, so was my cold. I was now a disciple. Any time I start to feel like my lymph nodes are swelling I make myself some garlic tea. I haven't had a serious cold since. It seems like every winter I end up having to make it for a coworker or a friend who's fighting a cold, and they always agree that it helps them feel better. The only thing that's been disappointing to me about the tea in the five years since I learned how to make it is that I've never been able to get that rush again…

Garlic Tea
2 cloves garlic
1 cup water
1 tsp wild honey

Crush the garlic with the flat side of a knife on a cutting board. Allow the garlic to sit for 5 minutes. Now steep with hot water, covered, for 4 minutes. Strain the garlic out and add the honey. Drink and feel better.

Allicin and diallyl sulfides have been identified as the compounds that produce the health benefits in garlic. Allicin is the stronger of the two, but tends to break down quickly especially when exposed to heat. It's actually the byproduct of the amino acid alliin and the enzyme alliinase, which are combined when garlic is crushed or chopped. It is volatile and has a very short lifespan, which is why it is important to chop your garlic fresh, and to let it sit for a couple minutes before you use it so that the allicin might be created. Allicin and diallyl sulfide are so useful because they are antimicrobial, which accounts for why garlic is such a powerful weapon against both bacterial and viral infections. Because it is a powerful weapon it should be treated with respect. Garlic is a blood thinner and should not be taken in high doses before surgery. It should also be avoided if you are allergic to it.

I get this feeling of validation when I learn that the everyday foods I've been incorporating into my diet since I was a child are so good for me. It's not surprising that our food supply does more than provide us with calories, we have evolved together into a very symbiotic relationship. Food heals and nourishes us, making it possible for us to survive; and we cultivate and spread it's seeds, simultaneously ensuring it's survival. I don't believe that scientist will ever be able to make a pill that produces a healthy person, because we can study for centuries to come and still not understand on a scientific level the complex relationship that has evolved between ourselves and our food. Food science doesn't impress me at all, and I hardly pay attention to it. It seems to me that food science is most commonly driven by convenience. That's why all food scientist have managed to do with garlic is chop it up and put it in oil; which by the way, nullifies its medicinal properties and makes it an anaerobic environment that's ripe for the spread of botulism when left at room temperature. It seems that indigenous diets are Man's most coherent attempt at understanding nutrition. The fact that our ancestors believed in eating a variety of clean, whole foods and were so much healthier than we are today makes me think that they are the ones we should look to for the answers we seek. Everyone from the Pharaohs of Egypt to the Romans understood that garlic is a wonderful plant with medicinal as well as flavor enhancing properties. I guess I'm saying that I trust the foods inscribed on the Egyptian pyramids a hell of a lot more than I trust the United States food pyramid.