Health Benefits of Garlic and How to Use Garlic for Weight Loss

Health Benefits of Garlic and How to Use Garlic for Weight Loss
One of the most versatile spices, garlic is a fat-flusher, a metabolic booster and a gentle detoxifier, energizer and diuretic.
Here you'll find a practical guide to the many health benefits of garlic - beyond its important fat-flushing properties. Read on to discover things like...
How to use garlic for weight loss?

How much should you eat to fully take advantage of the many garlic benefits?

How to avoid that nasty garlic breath?

You'll find here answers to these questions, plus a quick and delicious raw broccoli salad recipe with a dressing made from fresh garlic and Dijon mustard.

Let's start with garlic's weight loss benefits.
Through its more than 100 biologically helpful compounds, garlic...

is a powerful detoxifier
boosts your metabolism
is an effective diuretic
eliminates fat from the cells
regulates the ups and downs in your blood sugar levels - fluctuations that cause carbs and sweets cravings and turn on the fat-storing hormones.

Apart from using garlic for weight loss and its fat-flush properties, garlic is mostly used as an:
• anti-fungal and a great help in fighting one of the frequent causes of being unable to lose weight.
• antibacterial
• powerful antioxidant, protecting your body against damaging free radicals - that’s why garlic is said to be an effective cancer fighter

Did you know that?.
Garlic has been used for centuries - not only as a popular seasoning throughout Europe, Asia and Africa - but for medicinal purposes too? It's true!

Continuing this millenary tradition, recent scientific studies confirmed many important health benefits of garlic. Nowadays garlic is known to:
• work as a powerful broad-spectrum antibiotic
• build your immune system
• lower a high blood pressure
• lower bad cholesterol (LDL) while raising good cholesterol (HDL)
• help dissolve blood clots that lead to heart attacks and strokes.

And there's more!

You should know that even cooked, garlic keeps your blood cholesterol from oxidizing and damaging the lining of your blood vessels, preventing the formation of vascular plaque, which contributes to the cardiovascular disease.
To Reap all the Health Benefits of Garlic...
...crush it and let it sit in the open air 10 minutes before using it. That's because raw garlic needs to interact with the oxygen in air to form allicin, the active ingredient responsible for the garlic benefits.
You can use garlic to flavor a variety of foods, including salad vinaigrettes, marinades, sauces, and pretty much all meats and vegetables.

In fact, garlic is one of the negative calorie foods that you can use in many, many ways: crush, mince, chop, slice, or let the cloves whole to get varying flavor intensities from the most intense to the mildest (crushed garlic is approx. 10 times more flavorful than the sliced one).
For just a delicate hint, rub a cut clove on the inside of your salad bowl before adding the main ingredients.
The Numerous Health Benefits of Garlic...
...are due to its over 100 vital elements. The main one is allicin, which is destroyed in cooking, but other helpful compounds are formed, so cooked garlic is still healthy.

However, pass up chemically processed garlic powder or garlic salt, as the healthy ingredients are long gone.

Garlic also contains powerful antioxidants (vitamins A, C and E), various amino acids and priceless trace minerals (sulfur, selenium, zinc, magnesium, iron, and copper).

This spice is a member of the allium family, along with onions, leeks, and scallions. There are over 300 different varieties... the most common ones are the white-skinned American garlic (the strongest flavor), the sweeter pink-skinned Italian variety, and Elephant garlic (the mildest flavor).

Generally, the stronger the taste, the higher all these health benefits of garlic.

Green, or baby garlic - harvested when the plant is still immature - is much milder than the mature one, and it's best eaten fresh (like green onions) up to a few days after harvesting.
Okay, Great Garlic Benefits... But the Smell!!
You're absolutely right. In fact, according to an old Yiddish proverb...
"A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat."
Well, if you need to remove garlic odor after handling it, wash your hands thoroughly in cold water, and then rub them onto a stainless steel surface.