Garlic Water - my new go-to cold prevention!

[Sarah Wood]

The boys started with runny noses last week.  I started drinking garlic water everyday as soon as that started and I never once even got the feeling that I might be coming down with something and I ALWAYS catch their colds.   Normally I will do megadoses of vit C, ecchinachea, plus my usual probiotics (kefir) and FCLO. But I found that I didn't even need to do all that.  (I always some milk kefir every day, FCLO most days of the week.)

 

To make garlic water: crush one clove of garlic into a glass, then wait 7-14 minutes (gives the allicin time to form).  Add a few ounces of water and let it steep a couple of hours.  Strain out the crushed garlic and sip on the garlic water.  I cannot drink the garlic water quickly.  If I do, I feel nauseous.   So I just sip on it throughout the day.

[Pat Robinson]

This sounds amazing. Do you just leave the garlic in the glass without water for the 7-14 minutes??

Then after the 7-14 minutes add the water to steep?

It sounds simple and brilliant and doable/tolerable. :-) Maybe even my husband will try this. He hates my Master Tonic.


Pat

[Sarah Wood]

Yes, just let the crused garlic sit by itself for 7-14 min. After that time period has elapsed, then add the water, then let it steep. then strain it. (I suppose you could drink it with the crushed garlic in there too? but that might be spicier?)

If you want to get the benefit of allicin in other foods prepared with garlic, follow the same procedure of waiting 7-14 minutes after crushing before adding it to your recipe.

It is definitely doable and tolerable. I used to swallow cut up garlic cloves, but that was pretty difficult, and now I've learned not as beneficial as crushing it. The water is a little spicy and tastes like garlic. So it would probably be hard to get children to drink it, but it's a lot easier than swallowing cloves (and probably safer too!)

I posted about garlic water elsewhere and got a comment back about some people who may be particularly sensitive to garlic, causing indigestion, and also that its powerful antibacterial properties can in turn mess with intestinal flora... I haven't been able to confirm that (well, I haven't really reasearched it yet b/c I was not having any problem). Just thought I'd throw that out there though and let me know if you ever come accross any more information about that!


Pat Robinson said:

This sounds amazing. Do you just leave the garlic in the glass without water for the 7-14 minutes??

Then after the 7-14 minutes add the water to steep?

It sounds simple and brilliant and doable/tolerable. :-) Maybe even my husband will try this. He hates my Master Tonic.


Pat

[Pat Robinson]

Thanks for the details. Yes, garlic is antibacterial. But, I believe we have been eating antimicrobial foods and herbs AND microbial/probiotics foods and herbs historically. I trust the body to balance itself when given live foods. It is the chemicals and synthetic antimicrobials and preservative processing which has destroyed the energy of foods.

I would think that using raw garlic "traditionally" in recipes would suffice. But, in an acute situation garlic water sounds much more balancing and natural than "conventional" medical alternatives.


Pat

[Yvonne LV]

I love chewing up and swallowing a clove of garlic. Mmm... I will try this water version too for those times when it's too hard to eat a garlic clove

Man. I remember after birthing my daughter in 2006 I spent the next two months craving garlic meatballs! .. Ha.. and I wanted at least 2-4 whole HEADS of garlic (crushed) put in with with a couple lbs of ground meat. And I thought it had hardly any garlic flavor/smell to it. LOL. My poor yet wonderful husband who made it for me and politely made separate meatballs for the rest of the family was such a trooper. *grin*