I recently mentioned that I eat several raw garlic cloves a day when I feel the sick coming on. You may have pictured me popping raw garlic cloves like breath mints every time I feel the hint of a sniffle. While I do consume them raw, I don’t just pop them in my mouth like my 6 year old nephew ate orange tic-tacs during my (other) sister’s wedding ceremony. I doctor them up with some natural peanut butter, cinnamon, and honey.
Nobody should eat straight-up raw garlic cloves all day long because of how irritating it can be to the lining of the esophagus, stomach, and small intestine. To minimize the garlic burn, there are two options. The first option is to microwave the garlic cloves for 20 seconds or less. The second option is to mix the raw garlic in peanut butter, honey, and cinnamon, under the principle, “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”, but without the sugar.
A Bastyr researcher found that microwaving garlic cloves for 20 seconds or less preserved their antimicrobial activity. Twenty-second nuked garlic cloves taste like mashed potatoes with lots of dried garlic powder. Now remind yourself that I said taste, not texture. The upside to this option is that you can get a lot more garlic down the pipes than you would with them 100% raw. The downside is the microwave. It’s still not going to be as potent as it is in the raw state. The microwave may also be destroying other cold fighting constituents that may not have been discovered yet. When my esophagus and stomach are hyper sensitive and inflamed, I defer to the microwave. I’d rather have nuked garlic than none at all.
The second option for minimizing the garlic burn is to mix the garlic into a tasty peanut butter paste. All you need is a dollop of natural peanut butter, 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, and a scant 1/2 teaspoon of honey. Make sure to bless your liver with true cinnamon instead of cassia cinnamon. This is my preferred method for ingesting raw garlic, so I’ll give you the juicy details.
I like to start with a special dish. A visually appealing eating receptacle helps me feel better when I feel like schmutz. Sometimes I use my robin egg shell colored mini salt cellar from Anthropologie, but I don’t use the tiny spoon that came with it to mix up the paste.
Occasionally I omit the honey, since it’s not ideal for those who have whacko blood sugar issues like myself. It really is a small amount, but just to be safe, there’s protein in the peanut butter to balance out the honey carbs. I like the honey in this medicinal anti-cold paste because it coats the lining of the esophagus and stomach in a protective way, so as to off-set the excess heat of the garlic.
I’ve already told you about cinnamon. It adds an extra antimicrobial boost and enhances the flavor.
Since all things are tested on my Wendy’s Eating Husband (WEH), I’ll be honest. He can’t handle the lumpy garlic chunks dispersed in the peanut butter. He’d rather get the hacking snots for two weeks than swallow one serving of my Anti-Hack Peanut Butter Garlic Paste. When he’s desperate, he can sometimes handle the microwave option.
When I feel a cold coming on, or when I have a current sinus infection, I’ll eat 3 servings of this paste a day. It almost always keeps me from getting sick, even in the midst of living with two germ magnets kids. Of course, there are other antimicrobial herbs I can take (that I’m going to leave vague for the sake of brevity) that won’t give me lethal garlic breath. The advantage of my Anti-Hack Peanut Butter Garlic Paste is that the ingredients can always be found in my kitchen. For such convenience and little cost, it works brilliantly to ward off the common cold.
I also like to find an entertaining spot to eat my peanut butter garlic therapy. This time, I ate it in tiny bites from the salt cellar spoon while I snooped on my new neighbors from the living room window.
This post is for educational & entertainment purposes only. Consult your physician prior to using garlic medicinally.
