Garlic: Strong Enough to Battle Heart Disease – Fighting Infection and Colon Cancer

When scientists in England entered the words “diet” and “anti-aging” into the search engine of a medical database, up popped studies on garlic—study after study after study.

“The accumulated knowledge over the last few years suggests that intake of garlic by humans may either prevent or decrease the incidence of major chronic diseases associated with old age, such as atherosclerosis, stroke, cancer, immune disorders, cerebral [brain] aging, arthritis, and cataract formation,” concluded the researchers.

That’s a powerful statement for a spice popularly called “the stinking rose.” But garlic works because it “stinks”—its explosive aroma is based on its most active ingredient, allicin, which transforms intoorganosulfurs, and those are the very compounds that minimize the oxidation, inflammation, and other cell-destroying processes underlying every one of the “major chronic diseases” on the researchers’ list. In addition, garlic is brimming with vitamins, minerals, and other powerful antioxidants that guard against heart disease and cancer.

In short, garlic is one of the world’s most potent natural medicines. The medical database of the National Institutes of Health contains more than 3,200 studies on the therapeutic power of garlic. Many of those studies are about preventing, slowing, and reversing cardiovascular disease—the heart attacks and strokes that kill more Americans than any other health problem.

Help for Your Heart

Back in 3000 BCE, Charak, the father of India’s Ayurvedic medicine, claimed that garlic “strengthens the heart and keeps blood fluid.”

Here in 2010, a team of medical researchers reviewed what they called the “vast scientific literature” about garlic and heart disease, and declared, “Garlic consumption has a significant protective effect against atherosclerosis.”

And when a team of researchers analyzed the garlic-rich Mediterranean diet—often equated with heart health—they figured out that if everybody ate one or two garlic cloves a day, the worldwide risk of heart disease would drop by 25 percent. (But you don’t have to eat fresh cloves to get an effect. Many studies show that dried or powdered garlic is more therapeutic than fresh.) Let’s look at all the ways garlic can help your heart.

Masking Garlic Breath

Garlic’s reputation for being a strong spice is well deserved. Even though it mellows when it is cooked, your garlic dinner can “hang around” for days. This is especially true if you eat it raw.

If you or others in your company are offended by the lingering smell of garlic, here are a few tried-and-true home remedies to diminish the odor:

• Drink red wine with your garlic meal.

• Add parsley to garlicky dishes.

• Chew on fresh parsley sprigs at the end of the meal.

• Chew a few roasted fennel, anise, or cardamom seeds.

To get the smell of garlic out of your hands after working with it:

• Wash your hands with water and lemon juice.

• Rub your hands with a stainless steel spoon, then wash both your hands and the spoon.

• Moisten your hands and rub baking soda between your palms.

Lower blood pressure. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. In a recent “meta-analysis” of 11 studies on garlic supplements and high blood pressure, garlic lowered systolic blood pressure (the upper number in the reading) by an average of 8.4 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure (the lower number) by an average of 7.3 mm Hg—very significant decreases. “Garlic preparations are superior to placebo in reducing blood pressure in individuals with hypertension,” the researchers concluded in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders.

In a study from Poland, researchers found that garlic supplements not only lowered blood pressure, but also prevented DNA damage from oxidation. “These findings point out the beneficial effects of garlic supplementation in reducing blood pressure and counteracting oxidative stress, and thereby offering cardioprotection in hypertensives,” concluded the researchers in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry.

Thinner blood. People take baby aspirin to help prevent heart attacks because it “thins” the blood, reducing the risk of artery-plugging blood clots. Specifically, aspirin reduces the stickiness of platelets, blood compounds that can clump together to form a clot, a process called platelet aggregation. Garlic can thin blood, too.

Researchers in England gave people daily supplements of aged garlic extract for 13 weeks, measuring their levels of platelet aggregation at the beginning and end of the study. The garlic supplements “significantly inhibited” the percentage of platelets that were aggregating and the speed at which they were aggregating. Aged garlic extract “may be beneficial in protecting against cardiovascular disease as a result of inhibiting platelet aggregation,” the researchers concluded in the Journal of Nutrition.

Lower total cholesterol. Okay, garlic doesn’t lower “bad” LDL cholesterol. At least that was the result of a recent and much-publicized six-month study conducted by researchers at Stanford Prevention Research Center, who gave nearly 200 people with high LDL a daily dose of either raw garlic, powdered garlic supplement, aged garlic extract, or a placebo. “None of the forms of garlic used in the study had clinically significant effects on LDL,” concluded the researchers in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

But when researchers at the University of Connecticut analyzed this and 28 other studies on garlic and cholesterol in a meta-analysis, they reached a more positive conclusion. Garlic, they found, significantly reduced total cholesterol and triglycerides (another heart-hurting blood fat), even though it had no effect on “bad” LDL or “good” HDL.

Less artery-clogging plaque. Year by year, plaque can build up inside arteries, narrowing the passageway—and a chunk of that plaque can break off, clog the artery, and trigger a heart attack or stroke. That plaque-accumulating process is called atherosclerosis—and garlic can stop, slow, or reverse it.

Research in the Division of Cardiology at UCLA gave 23 people with heart disease a daily supplement containing aged garlic extract. After one year, those taking the placebo had triple the rate of plaque progression as those taking garlic. In another year-long study by the same researchers, involving a supplement containing aged garlic extract, B-vitamins and an artery-nourishing amino acid, the progression of plaque was “significantly lower” in those taking garlic. Aged garlic extract therapy, with additional nutrients, “reduced progression of atherosclerosis,” the researchers concluded in Preventive Medicine.

DURING THE MIDDLE AGES, GARLIC WAS HUNG ON DOORS AT NIGHT TO REPEL EVIL SPIRITS.

And in a German study, 142 people took garlic powder tablets daily. After four years, they had 5 to 18 percent less plaque in their arteries. “Not only a preventive but possibly also a curative role in atherosclerosis therapy may be ascribed to garlic,” wrote the researchers in the medical journal Atherosclerosis.

Elephant Garlic: A Big Mistake

If you come across elephant garlic at the market, there’s no reason to think you’ve stumbled upon something special. You haven’t, if garlic is what you’re looking for. Elephant garlic onlylooks like garlic—huge garlic, weighing up to a pound. But it doesn’t have anything like the flavor of garlic, and cooks consider it inferior. In fact, elephant garlic is botanically related to a leek and should be used like a leek: braised or baked like a vegetable or sliced into a salad.

More flexible arteries. The lining of the artery is called the endothelium, and it generates a compound (nitric oxide) that relaxes and widens the blood vessel. Researchers in New Zealand gave 15 men with heart disease either a garlic supplement or a placebo. After two weeks, the “endothelium-dependent dilation” of the arteries of those taking garlic had increased by 44 percent. And those men were alreadytaking aspirin and a statin.

Lower risk of heart attack. Russian researchers gave either a garlic supplement or a placebo to 51 people with heart disease. A year later, they calculated the supplement had reduced the risk of a heart attack by an average of 40 percent.

Colon Cancer Is No Match for Garlic

There are more than 600 scientific studies—in cells, on animals, and in people—on the power of garlic to prevent and treat cancer. Some highlights:

Preventing colon cancer. In a meta-analysis of 18 studies by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, people with the highest consumption of garlic had a 41 percent lower risk of colon cancer, compared to those with the lowest intake.

Stopping the advance of early colon cancer. Japanese researchers studied 51 people with colorectal adenomas—pre-cancerous lesions of the colon. They divided them into two groups, giving one group aged garlic extract and one group placebos. After one year, those on the placebo had more adenomas, and garlic had “significantly suppressed both the size and number of colon adenomas,” wrote the researchers in the Journal of Nutrition.

Preventing stomach cancer. Researchers in China studied more than 5,000 people, giving half a high-dose garlic supplement and half a placebo. After five years, those taking garlic had a 47 percent lower rate of stomach cancer.

Preventing endometrial cancer. Researchers in Italy analyzed diet and health data from 454 women with endometrial cancer and 908 free of the disease—and found that those who ate the most garlic were 38 percent less likely to develop endometrial cancer than those who ate the least.

Preventing other cancers. Other studies show a link between increased intake of garlic and decreased risk for lung cancer (22 percent less), prostate cancer (36 percent less), and brain cancer (34 percent less).

How does garlic work to block cancer? Doctors from the International Agency for Research on Cancer say garlic can help:

• stop carcinogens from damaging DNA.

• boost the activity of enzymes that detoxify carcinogens.

• clean up free radicals—cell-damaging, cancer-causing molecules.

Fighting Infection

Garlic has a storied history as an infection-fighter. Louis Pasteur discovered its antibacterial activity. It was on the frontlines in World War I, helping prevent gangrene and blood poisoning. The Russians relied on it so heavily during World War II that it was dubbed “Russian penicillin.” And several recent studies confirm its power to fight bacteria and viruses.

Preventing airborne infection. Finnish researchers studied 52 airplane travelers, giving half a garlic-containing nasal spray (Nasaleze Travel) and half a placebo. Those taking the placebo had nearly three times more infections after traveling.

Preventing colds. Researchers in England studied 146 people from November to February, giving half a garlic supplement and half a placebo. In total, those taking the placebo had 65 colds, compared to 24 for those taking garlic.

And Russian researchers studied 600 children, aged 7 to 16, giving some a garlic supplement and some a placebo. Those taking the placebo had four times as many colds.

I recommend a clove of garlic a day to help reduce your risk of cold or flu—and for general good health.

Garlic Galore

There are many other possible benefits to a garlic-rich life:

Diabetes. Researchers in Russia studied 60 people with type 2 diabetes, dividing them into two groups—one received garlic supplements with timed-release garlic powder and the other a placebo. After one month, those taking garlic had a healthy drop in fasting blood sugar, from 138 mg/dL to 113 mg/dL.

There are white, pink, and purple varieties of garlic that come as hardneck (with a long thin stem) or softneck (no stem).

Prostate problems. Researchers in Italy studied more than 1,800 men and found that those who ate the most garlic were 28 percent less likely to develop benign prostatic hypertrophy—the enlarged prostate that causes urinary difficulties in older men.

Aging skin. German researchers found that taking garlic powder boosted blood flow to the skin—a must for a youthful, glowing complexion.

Oral candidiasis. Researchers in India found that garlic paste was just as effective as a conventional drug in clearing up oral candidiasis (thrush), a yeast infection of the mucous membranes of the mouth.

Sickle cell anemia. Researchers at the UCLA School of Medicine found that four weeks of supplementation with garlic extract decreased by 30 percent the number of damaged red blood cells that are characteristic of this disease.

Alopecia areata. In this disease of patchy hair loss, adding garlic gel to the standard treatment regimen improved results.

Getting to Know Garlic

As medicine and food, garlic goes way back. It was featured in ancient medical textbooks from Egypt, India, China, Greece, and Rome. The ancient Egyptians fed it to the slaves who built the pyramids, and it was part of the diet of Olympic athletes in ancient Greece. During the Middle Ages, people put it on their door at night to repel evil spirits.

Today, garlic flavors virtually every cuisine in the world—and it’s the signature spice in the cuisines of Mexico, India, Asia, Greece, and Italy.

Garlic is synonymous with Italian cuisine and goes in just about every savory dish. Well-known Italian-based garlic sauces include pesto, which also features basil and olive oil, and gremolata, which also contains parsley, and is traditionally served with the famous slow-cooked veal shank called osso bucco.

Garlic may help prevent and/or treat:

Aging

Alopecia areata (generalized hair loss)

Benign prostatic

hypertrophy

Blood clots

Cancer

Cholesterol problems (high total cholesterol)

Colds

Diabetes, type 2

Flu

Heart disease

High blood pressure (hypertension)

Sickle cell disease

Stroke

Thrush (oral candida infection)

Triglycerides, high

Wrinkles and aging skin

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Garlic pairs well with virtually all spices, but particularly well with:

Ajowan

Basil

Caraway

Chile

Coriander

Cumin

Curry leaf

Kokam

Marjoram

Mint

Mustard seed

Oregano

Parsley

Rosemary

Sun-dried tomato

Thyme

and complements virtually all savory dishes, especially:

Marinades

Lamb

Soups

Spice blends

Stir-fries

The French aren’t known for garlicky food, but they have three famous garlic sauces: Aioli is a garlic mayonnaise used in enrich fish soups and flavor vegetables; pistou is the French version of pesto and goes in a vegetable soup by the same name; and rouille is a garlic, red pepper, and saffron-based mayonnaise that is stirred into bouillabaisse, bourrides, and other fish stews and soups. Persillade is a French-inspired garlic sauce used in Louisiana cooking.

The Greeks enjoy skordalia, a garlic sauce made from almonds, olive oil, and soaked bread that is served with salt cod or as a dip. In Serbia, people consume garlic as a snack with slivovitz, a strong plum brandy.

Garlic is also a key ingredient in the popular Middle Eastern side dish hummus, which also includes chickpeas, olive oil, and pine nuts. It is also an ingredient in Tunisia’s infamous fiery condiment harissa, and in the Moroccan meat marinade chermoula. Cacik is a Turkish garlic sauce based on yogurt and olive oil, and served as a side dish.

Thai cuisine is loaded with garlic—virtually no savory dish is made without it.

How to Buy Garlic

The taste of fresh garlic ranges from mild and sweet to strong and pungent, depending on the type of garlic and where it was cultivated. There are white, pink, and purple varieties that come as hardneck (with a long thin stem) or softneck (no stem). Hardneck is the most pungent.

Ninety percent of the garlic sold in the United States is softneck white, and comes from California. Its taste is strong and pungent. All garlic, however, mellows when cooked, turning mild to slightly sweet.

According to top chefs, the best garlic comes from France, with a taste and aroma very different from California garlic. If you come across French garlic, it’s well worth trying. You can recognize it by its pink-tinged skin. Other varieties of note include Prussian white and Spanish red (roja).

For the best flavor, buy fresh bulbs. They vary in size, containing anywhere from a few cloves to two dozen. When it comes to taste, however, size doesn’t matter—taste is determined by the freshness of the bulb. For maximum freshness, look for bulbs that are plump, dry, and don’t have broken skin. Buying bulbs with large cloves makes working with them in the kitchen easier.

You can also purchase fresh garlic in a jar preserved in liquid, crushed, sliced, minced, chopped, or in a tube.

Other recipes containing garlic:

Adobo

All-American Chili con Carne

Basic Barbecue Rub

Berbere

Boeuf Bourguignon

By-the-Bay Fisherman’s Chowder

Caribbean Curry Paste

Chicken Oreganata

Chimichurri Sauce

French Onion Soup

Garbanzo Beans with Mushrooms and Toasted Almonds

Green Pumpkin Seed Sauce

Grilled Lamb Patty Pockets with Cucumber Mint Sauce

Grilled Pork Chile Adobo

Hungarian Goulash

Jamaican Jerk Marinade

Madras Beef Curry

Madras Curry Paste

Malaysian Curry Paste

Mediterranean Vinaigrette

Mussels with Thai Red Curry Sauce

Onion and Tomato Chutney

Penne and Sausage with Fennel Tomato Sauce

Pizza Spice Blend

Pomegranate Guacamole

Potato Cauliflower Curry

Prawns with Almond Hot Pepper Sauce

Shellfish in Saffron Broth

Sol Kadhi

Spaghettini with Basil-Tomato Sauce

Spicy Hash Brown Potatoes

Tabil

Tamarind Sauce

Thai Red Curry Paste

Yucatan Pickled Red Onions

Dried garlic comes powdered, granulated, flaked, ground, minced, or chopped. You can also find garlic salt and garlic juice.

You can find just about any type of garlic in most supermarkets.

Store fresh garlic uncovered, in a cool place away from heat and direct sunlight. It shouldn’t be refrigerated; it will sprout. You can also freeze fresh garlic, although that alters the taste and texture somewhat.

Untouched, fresh bulbs keep for about two weeks. Once you break open a bulb, you reduce its shelf life to about a week. Once it starts to sprout, throw it out, because sprouted garlic turns bitter when cooked.

Before they sprout, garlic cloves start to turn green. Always cut away any green (or any discoloration) on the cloves. For the best flavor, use only white flesh.

Store dried garlic, garlic powder, and garlic salt in an airtight container in a dark, cool place. Dried garlic should keep for about a year, and garlic salt will keep for several years. But when powder or salt start to clump, they’ve absorbed moisture; throw them away.

If you don’t get garlic regularly in your diet, consider taking garlic supplements, especially if you have one or more risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight, diabetes, or you’re over 65. The most-studied form is aged garlic extract. Follow the dosage recommendations on the label, or your doctor’s recommendation.

In the Kitchen with Garlic

Garlic is extremely versatile and goes with just about anything savory. It can be used raw, where you’ll experience its strong, lingering flavor. Garlic has little smell when whole, but it releases its notoriously strong aroma when crushed. When cooked, the aroma and flavor mellows, becoming slightly sweet.

To work with garlic, pull the cloves from the head. Unless you are preparing a dish in which the cloves are intended to be eaten whole, you need to remove the papery skin. This is an arduous task only if you try to peel it with a paring knife, as you would an apple or onion. Instead, do it as chefs do: set a clove flat on a cutting board and set the flat side of a chef’s knife on top, with the blade point away from you. Grip the handle securely with one hand and give the knife a good thump with the base of the palm of your other hand. The paper-like sheaths will come undone. Just pull them off and throw them away. Snip off any parts of the clove that are discolored or green, as they make garlic bitter. (Don’t use a wooden cutting board when working with garlic, as the oil will get in the wood and leave a lingering aroma.)

Roasted Garlic: Spice Heaven

If you can’t imagine eating an entire garlic bulb in one sitting, then you haven’t tasted roasted garlic—the ultimate proof that garlic can be mellow and sweet. Garlic lovers rave about roasted garlic and can’t get enough of it. They pop it clove by clove right from its skin into the mouth. Sometimes they smear it on bread. (A great idea for your next dinner party: serve roasted garlic with crusty bread as an appetizer, and let everyone join the flavorful fun.)

Making roasted garlic is simple. Keep the bulb intact, but remove the loose paper skins. Line one or more bulbs up on tinfoil large enough to completely enfold them. Sprinkle them with olive oil, fold tightly, and roast them on a cookie sheet in a 424°F oven for 30 minutes.

To dice, cut the cloves into thin slices, then into thin slivers.

Be careful when browning garlic—burning makes it bitter. When a recipe calls for browning onions or other vegetables and garlic, it’s best to start the onions first, then add the garlic when the other ingredients are already softened. Cook for just one minute.

Roast Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

This is a classic French dish that is special enough to serve at a dinner party. Encourage your guests to eat the garlic; it’s the most interesting part of the meal. Serve with a big green salad and crusty French bread. You can substitute chicken pieces for the whole chicken, but brown the chicken pieces before putting in the oven.

1 whole chicken, about 3 pounds

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon dried sage

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried parsley

1 teaspoon ground roasted fennel seed

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 lemon, quartered

2–3 heads of garlic with large plump cloves (about 40)

1½ cups chicken stock

1 cup white wine

1. Rinse and dry the chicken. Combine the rosemary, sage, thyme, parsley, fennel, salt, and ground pepper in a small bowl and add the oil. Rub the spice mixture into the flesh of the chicken. Place the lemon quarters in the cavity. Truss the chicken, if desired, and place in a casserole dish. Cover and refrigerate for four hours.

2. Remove the chicken from the refrigerator and bring to room temperature. Remove and separate the cloves of garlic but do not remove the skins. Scatter the cloves around the chicken. Combine the stock and wine and pour around the chicken. Place in a 425°F oven, covered, for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375°F, uncover, and cook, basting occasionally, for 40 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F. Let the chicken sit for 30 minutes to let the juices settle before slicing. Serve with several bulbs of garlic on each plate.

Makes 4 servings.

Here are a few of the innumerable ways to add more garlic to your diet:

• To make garlic bread, blanch unpeeled garlic cloves in water for five minutes to soften them. Cool and remove the paper skins. Slice a loaf of crusty Italian bread lengthwise, brush the bread with olive oil, spread the cloves over top, sprinkle with dried rosemary and thyme, and bake on a cookie sheet in a 400°F oven for 10 minutes.

• Make tiny little pockets in red meat roasts with the tip of a chef’s knife. Slice a few garlic cloves and stuff a sliver in each “pocket.”

• Slice or press fresh garlic into extra-virgin olive oil to use in a marinade, salad dressing, or as a dipping sauce.

• Blanch garlic cloves as above for garlic bread and mash them into potatoes to make garlic mashed potatoes.

• Try this specialty from Trinidad: slice an eggplant into thick slices, stud the slices with garlic cloves, sprinkle with ground coriander and ground ginger, and grill until tender.

• Add a little extra spice to your salads by rubbing the bottom and sides of the salad bowl with garlic before adding the greens and dressing.

Oregano: Infection Protection – Fighting Intestinal Infection

You can’t find a pizza parlor or Italian restaurant anywhere in the US that doesn’t have canisters filled with the pungent dry leaves of oregano. The spice is synonymous with Italy and Italian food. Lasagna, pizza, and even garlic bread wouldn’t be considered Italian without it.

EVERY PIZZA PARLOR IN THE US HAS CANISTERS FILLED WITH THE PUNGENT DRY LEAVES OF OREGANO.

However, Oregano Nation #1 is not Italy. It’s Turkey, which annually exports 20 tons of oregano—with Turks using 1,000 tons a year themselves. And not just because they like the taste. The Turkish people are firm believers in the healing power of oregano.

Household kitchens are often equipped with distillation stills for making oregano water, which families drink to keep digestion running smoothly. The stills are constructed so they can sit safely on the stove, dispersing the vapors of oregano oil that are thought to relax nerves and maintain good health. Turks rub the condensed oil vapors of oregano on limbs when muscles ache or rheumatism sets in. And oregano is Turkey’s favorite tea.

Visit a scientific database, enter the keyword “oregano,” and you’ll find study after study supporting the Turkish tradition of using oregano as medicine.

Fighting Intestinal Infection

Modern gastrointestinal research points a finger at various bacteria, fungi, and parasites as common causes of intestinal troubles, from ulcers to irritable bowel syndrome. (In fact, microbial disturbances in the gut are now thought to cause or complicate many conditions, from allergies to arthritis.) The major components of oregano oil—carvacrol and thymol—are powerfully antibacterial, antiviral, anti-fungal—and anti-parasitic.

Putting parasites in their place. There are many different types of intestinal parasites, from one-celled organisms to full-grown worms. You can pick them up from food, water, a pet—or a passport (travelers to developing countries sometimes end up with a “souvenir” they wish they could have left behind).

Intestinal parasites can cause intestinal symptoms, of course. Chronic diarrhea is the most common, but bloating, gas, constipation, and bloody stools (as well as non-digestive symptoms such as fever and fatigue) are among other unpleasant possibilities.

Anti-parasitic medications are the best way to eradicate parasites, but they don’t always work. Doctors in the southwest US decided to try oregano oil on 34 people with persistent parasites. The treatment ended the reign of the invaders in most cases, and decreased the number of parasites in the rest.

Foiling food poisoning. Researchers have found that compounds in oregano can kill many of the bacteria that cause food poisoning, such as E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, and Shigella. In a study from the US Department of Agriculture, oregano outperformed garlic and allspice in stopping those four nasty germs from multiplying.

Healing ulcers. Researchers in the Department of Food Science at the University of Massachusetts found that a combination of oregano and cranberry extracts could kill H. pylori bacteria, the cause of stomach ulcers.

Calming colitis. Slovakian researchers found that a combination or oregano and thyme reduced inflammation in the colons of animals with chemically induced colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease that strikes more than a million Americans.

Oregano may help prevent and/or treat:

Age spots

Alzheimer’s disease

Cancer

Candida infection (systemic fungal infection)

Cholesterol problems (high “bad” LDL cholesterol)

Colitis (inflammatory bowel disease)

Food poisoning

Heart disease

High blood pressure

Infection, parasitic

Insulin resistance (prediabetes)

Liver disease

Metabolic syndrome

Overweight

Staph infection

Thrush (oral candida infection)

Triglycerides, high

Ulcer

Vaginal yeast infection

More life for the liver. Several animal studies show that oregano oil can strengthen and heal the liver—good news for the tens of millions of Americans with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hepatitis C, cirrhosis, and other liver diseases.

Fighting Vaginal Infections, Too

Infections aren’t limited to the digestive tract, of course. A vaginal yeast infection—what doctors call vulvovaginal candiasis—bothers three out of four women at least once in their life. About 45 percent have a second infection, and 5 to 8 percent have recurrent infections, returning four to five times a year. These itchy, sometimes painful infections are almost always caused by the yeast-like fungus Candida albicans.

And some clinicians—led by William C. Crook, MD, author of The Yeast Connection, published in 1987—think whole-body infection with C. albicans is a common problem, causing a wide range of symptoms that include fatigue, headache, and digestive upsets.

When C. albicans is bothering you, call oregano.

Researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center found that oregano oil could “completely inhibit” the growth of C. albicans in the test tube and killed 80 percent of the fungus in experimental animals. The oil stops the yeast from growing and also blunts the limb-like “filaments” it uses to burrow into tissue. They also note it works as well as powerful antifungal antibiotics such as nystatin. (When a team of Italian researchers tested oregano and nystatin together, they found the spice boosted the fungus-killing power of the drug.)

“It is interesting to note,” write the researchers in Molecular and Clinical Biochemistry, “that infections due to C. albicans in debilitated individuals such as those having diabetes and HIV infection may be prophylactically controlled by the daily intake of small amounts of oregano oil, either alone or added to a food.”

“Daily oral administration of origanum oil may be highly effective in the prevention and treatment of candidiasis,” they concluded.

Other researchers found that carvacrol and thymol could “significantly reduce” infection with oral candidiasis—a fungal infection of the tissues of the mouth—in animals.

More from Oregano

There is provocative research on oregano’s possible role in alleviating other diseases.

Metabolic syndrome. This condition is a combination of overweight, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and high triglycerides, a blood fat (lipid). Researchers in Italy found that oregano extracts worked in the same way as drugs used for metabolic syndrome. Their study, said the researchers, showed the extracts could help with “weight reduction” (overweight), “prevent atherosclerosis” (from high blood pressure), and “ameliorate the lipid profile” (high triglycerides).

Making Sense of “Mexican Oregano”

So-called “Mexican oregano” isn’t oregano. It’s not even in the same botanical family. When dried, however, it looks like oregano and tastes like oregano, except it’s stronger. And that makes a big difference when you add it to tacos or empanadas.

Like “real” oregano, it’s rich in carvacrol and thymol.

And like “real” oregano, it’s used in folk medicine throughout Mexico and South America for digestive and respiratory complaints, and research shows it’s a bacterial fighter, antioxidant, and anti-tumor agent.

“The results warrant further investigation of oregano extract for its potential to prevent and ameliorate metabolic syndrome and its complications,” concluded the researchers in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

High cholesterol. Turkish researchers studied 48 people with mildly elevated cholesterol, dividing them into two groups. One group took oregano extract after every meal, and one group didn’t. Three months later, the oregano group had greater decreases in “bad” LDL cholesterol and in C-reactive protein, a biomarker of artery-damaging inflammation. They also had greater increases in arterial blood flow. The findings were in the Journal of International Medical Research.

When researchers in Turkey tested spices in the laboratory for their ability to stop the oxidation of LDL cholesterol (the key step in the formation of artery-clogging plaque) they found oregano had “the most pronounced effect.”

Researchers in Spain took the process a step further: they measured the ability of oregano extract to stop the process that occurs after oxidation of cholesterol—the activation of immune components calledcytokines that attack the oxidized cholesterol as if it were a foreign invader, sparking the inflammation that worsens heart disease. The extracts stopped the release of three of those cytokines (TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, and IL-6).

“These results may suggest an anti-inflammatory effect of oregano extracts . . . in a cellular model of atherosclerosis [heart disease],” concluded the researchers in Food and Chemical Toxicology.

Colon cancer. “Oregano spice is widely used in the Mediterranean diet, which is associated with a low risk for colon cancer,” said Italian researchers in the journal Nutrition and Cancer. When they mixed oregano extract in a test tube with colon cancer cells, the spice stopped cellular growth and killed the cells, an effect the researchers labeled “oregano-triggered death.”

“Our findings suggest that oregano in the amounts found in the Mediterranean diet” can kill cancer cells, said the researchers.

Additional test tube and animal research on carvacrol and other compounds in oregano show they can slow or kill cancers of the lung, colon, blood, and uterus.

Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers screened 139 spices for their ability to possibly boost the brain chemical acetylcholine, the same action as drugs that slow Alzheimer’s disease—and only an oregano extract was as “potent” as the drugs.

Age spots. Researchers in Taiwan found that a compound in oregano can reverse the “hyperpigmentation” that causes age spots (solar lentigos) and “may be useful in skin-whitening agents.” The findings were in Journal of Dermatological Science.

Staph infections. Infections with Staphylococcus aureus usually start in the hospital and are sometimes fatal. Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center found oregano oil was “the most potent” killer of S. aureus among several compounds tested. Giving it daily to animals injected with the bacteria quadrupled their expected lifespan. Oregano oil “may prove to be useful” for the “prevention and therapy” of Staphylococcus aureus infections, concluded the researchers.

Getting to Know Oregano

Hippocrates, the “father of medicine” from ancient Greece, knew about oregano’s antiseptic properties, and used it to treat digestive and respiratory diseases. The ancient Egyptians also used it as a healing disinfectant. The Romans favored it for stimulating hair growth. In Turkish folk medicine, oregano oil is used for pain relief from tooth decay, as an antiseptic for wounds, and as a remedy for inflammation of all kinds—psoriasis, tonsillitis, mouth ulcers, and inflamed gums, to name a few.

Oregano pairs well with these spices:

Ajowan

Basil

Bay

Chile

Cumin

Garlic

Marjoram

Onion

Pumpkin seed

Rosemary

Sage

Sun-dried

tomato

Thyme

and complements recipes featuring:

Black beans

Cheese

Chowders and soups

Eggplant

Game

Grilled meat

Ground beef

Mushrooms

Pastas

Pizza

Poultry

Provolone cheese

Rabbit

Salsa

Seafood

Tomato sauces and

dishes

___________________________________

Other recipes containing oregano:

Adobo

All-American Chili con Carne

By-the-Bay Fisherman’s Chowder

Chimichurri Sauce

Green Pumpkin Seed Sauce

Grilled Pork Chile Adobo

Pizza Spice Blend

Roasted Tomato Soup with Fennel and Mint

Yucatan Pickled Red Onions

is an easy-to-grow perennial that is cultivated in many areas of the world, including the United States.

Oregano oil is a popular dietary supplement in the US, used for digestive upset, yeast infections, and as preventive therapy during cold and flu season.

Oregano is just as popular in American kitchens as it is everywhere else. Aside from being a staple in American pizzerias and Italian restaurants, it is a popular spice in Tex-Mex and Southwest cuisines. It is also popular as a flavoring in Mexican restaurants in the United States, where it’s used in soups, chili blends, salsas, and refried beans.

In Mexico, however, “Mexican oregano” is used—it’s not botanically related to European oregano, but has a similar (though stronger) taste.

How to Buy Oregano

Oregano is an easy-to-grow perennial that is cultivated in many areas of the world, including the United States. Spice-lovers say the best oregano comes from Turkey. The US is a major importer of Turkish oregano, so chances are that when you buy oregano, this is the type you’re buying. But Greek oregano is also imported into the US. The only way to know for sure where your oregano originated is to purchase the spice from a specialty retailer, who will know the country of origin.

You can purchase oregano fresh, dried, or ground. The flavor of the dried oregano is more robust than fresh. (And dried is preferred over ground because it’s more flavorful.) Dried oregano keeps for about a year in a dark, dry place, in an airtight container.

The flavor of oregano is pungent and balsamic, and comes from carvacrol and thymol oils, which vary in strength depending on where the plant was grown. The strongest oregano is from Turkey. Oregano grown and dried in backyard herb gardens in the US is delicate in comparison.

Chicken Oreganata

The name says it’s Italian, but Turkey claims to have developed it first. Whatever its origin, this classic is enjoyed in many parts of the world.

2 boned chicken breasts, split

1 cup lemon juice

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Salt to taste

1. Wash and pat dry the chicken. Combine the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, oregano and pepper in a small mixing bowl. Put the mixture in a plastic ziplock bag, add the chicken, and seal. Shake the bag to make sure the chicken is evenly coated with the marinade. Refrigerate overnight.

2. Remove chicken from the marinade. Discard the marinade. Place the chicken in a shallow baking dish coated with non-stick spray. Bake the chicken in a 375°F oven for 30 minutes, turning once mid-way through.

Makes 4 servings.

Oregano is also referred to as wild marjoram, and is often mistaken for marjoram (which is also called sweet marjoram). Though they both come from the same botanical family, and are often used interchangeably in the kitchen, there is only a vague resemblance in taste.

In the Kitchen with Oregano

Chefs prefer dried oregano to fresh because its flavor is more intense. You can intensify the flavor of fresh oregano, however, by rubbing the leaves between your palms and letting it drop in the dish.

Oregano is an easy spice to work with because it goes with just about everything. When experimenting, keep in mind that oregano is strong and can overpower a dish; it marries best with stronger flavors. It’s typically used in garlic-based and tomato-based dishes, rich meat and game dishes, chilies and salsas, and pasta dishes.

A few ideas to put more oregano in your diet:

• Use it in marinades.

• Use it as a rub for grilled meat. Combine 1 teaspoon of oregano with ½ teaspoon each of red pepper flakes, salt, and freshly ground pepper, and rub the mixture into a thick steak before grilling.

• Put it in salad dressing.

• Add it to olive- and vinegar-based recipes.

Clove: Pain Relief’s Loyal Servant – Fighting Infections

“Is it not remarkable, simple oil of clove. How amazing the results. Life can be so easy—relief or discomfort.”

That could be your dentist talking. But in this case it’s Lawrence Olivier, playing a sadistic dentist in the 1976 film Marathon Man, as he repeatedly drills into Dustin Hoffman’s tooth and then relieves the pain with . . . oil of clove.

Fortunately, oil of clove can relieve dental pain in real life. Along with a lot of other health problems.

TLC For Teeth and Gums

The scientific name for oil of clove is eugenol. And biting into a clove (the dried flower bud of an Asian tree, and a culinary spice enjoyed around the world) reveals just how powerful eugenol is: there’s an instant rush of localized numbness. The eugenol and other aromatic molecules in clove make it one of the most penetrating spices on the planet. And that penetrating power is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the dentist’s chair—or while waiting through a tooth-aching weekend to get into one!

Yes, oil of clove is a mild anesthetic. (In fact, clove oil is just as powerful as benzocaine in numbing oral tissue before needle sticks at the dentist, reported a team of researchers in Journal of Dentistry.)And it can boost circulation: when it’s rubbed around a painful tooth, blood vessels near the gum dilate, bringing blood to the surface with a warm, soothing sensation. And it’s an analgesic, reducing pain.And it’s anti-inflammatory, reducing redness and swelling around an injury. And it’s antibacterial, killing germs.

All those therapeutic powers help explain why eugenol is not only a home remedy for an untreated toothache, but a formidable medicine against many forms of oral disease. It can fight gingivitis, the early stage of gum disease, when gums are inflamed. It can fight periodontitis, the later stage, when gums recede and bone erodes. It’s also effective against stomatitis, a painful inflammation of the mucous lining of the mouth, caused by factors such as medications, poor dental hygiene, or ill-fitting dentures.

“Clove oil has been used to cure dental problems for ages” and is “an integral part of the dentist’s kit,” said a team of Indian researchers who investigated a long-lasting eugenol-treatment to battle periodontal disease, reporting their results in Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy.

Fighting Infections

Eugenol’s germ-fighting powers aren’t limited to your teeth and gums. It can fight bacteria (and viruses) throughout the body. Such as:

Helicobacter pylori. These bacteria cause stomach ulcers and are also linked to stomach cancer. An international team of researchers from India noted that conventional medical treatment to eradicate H. pylori is only 80 to 90 percent effective, and that the bacteria are also developing resistance to various antibiotics. Since eugenol had already proven effective at stopping the growth of so many other types of nasty, disease-causing bacteria—including E. coli (food poisoning), Staphylococcus (staph infections), Proteus (bladder infections), Klebsiella (respiratory infections), Enterobacter (hospital-acquired infections), and Pseudomonas (urinary tract infections)—they decided to test it against H. pylori too. And in a laboratory study, they found that eugenol stopped the growth of 30 strains of H. pylori—and did so 25 percent faster than amoxicillin (Amoxil), a common antibiotic. And they found that the bacteria didn’t develop any resistance to eugenol.

In their discussion of the study, the researchers noted that eugenol is already part of the diet in many countries and is likely to be “non-toxic”; that it was used by modern medicine as early as 1950 to treat ulcers; and that its “benefits could be multiple” because it’s also a powerful antioxidant. They urge other researchers to duplicate their findings to help establish eugenol as a treatment and overcome the “treatment failures and antibiotic resistance in the area of H. pylori management.”

Herpes simplex. Japanese researchers found that using the antiviral medication acyclovir (Zovirax) and eugenol was more powerful against the virus that causes cold sores (HS-1) than using acyclovir alone, both in the test tube and in animals. Thai researchers found that the virus that causes genital herpes (HS-2) couldn’t replicate in the presence of eugenol. And US researchers found that eugenol protected animals against infection with HS-2.

Hepatitis C. Millions of Americans are infected with the hepatitis C virus, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Japanese researchers found that eugenol caused near total “inhibition” of the virus. “Natural products” including eugenol “could play a great role as anti-hepatitis C agents,” conclude the scientists in Phytotherapy Research.

Clove Loves You—All of You

Researchers have found many other ways that eugenol can protect the body.

Mosquito finito. Put away your citronella candles and get out your clove oil—it might be the best way to stop mosquitoes from biting. That’s what Thai researchers discovered when they tested 38 different essential oils against mosquito bites, including the popular citronella.

The researchers enlisted volunteers to stick their forearms into an area dense with mosquitoes. Only a few essential oils protected against the bites, including citronella, patchouli, and clove oil, providing two hours of “complete repellency.” When those oils were retested, only clove oil gave “100 percent repellency” for four hours.

Stopping blood clots. Blood clots that plug arteries are the cause of most heart attacks and strokes. And blood clots are caused in part by platelet aggregation—plate-shaped blood cells become sticky and clump together. Researchers in Denmark tested eugenol against two “blood-thinning” medications that fight platelet aggregation—aspirin and indomethacin (Indocin)—and found eugenol stronger than aspirin and equal to indomethacin.

Anti-cancer. Studies in animals with lung and skin cancer show eugenol can stop cancer cells from multiplying.

Getting to Know Clove

In the ancient days—BT, or Before Toothbrushes —cloves were used to clean teeth and keep breath smelling clean. In the ancient imperial court of China, during the Han Dynasty, no one was allowed to speak to the emperor without a clove in his or her mouth. And that traditional use has continued to this day in Asia, where cloves are often used as an after-meal breath freshener.

The Coveted Clove

Cloves have a bloody history. They were coveted for their medicinal and culinary use, and brought enormous wealth to the intrepid explorers who went in search of them. Nations fought over them.

At the height of the Spice Wars, in 1605, the Dutch wrested possession of the Moluccas, or “spice islands,” from the Portuguese, breaking their 60-year monopoly of the clove trade. Then the Dutch uprooted and burned all the clove trees, and restricted clove plantations to the remote island of Ambon—keeping the source of cloves secret and the price high. Inquisitive explorers in search of the spice were turned away. Anyone caught trying to pirate seedlings from the island was put to death. It took nearly 200 years to break this stranglehold. But in the early 1800s, a Frenchman by the name of Pierre Poivre (Peter Pepper)—the Peter Piper of nursery rhyme fame—managed to smuggle flowering clove buds off the island. Poivre took the buds to the French West Indies in the Caribbean and cultivated the tree there. Eventually, the tree spread to other countries with the right climates for cultivation. Today, cloves grow from South America to North Africa.

Cloves are dried flower buds from an evergreen tree.

In traditional and folk medicine, clove and clove oil have been used for a variety of ills—indigestion, for nausea, gas, diarrhea, bloating, and colic; against infections of all kinds; for muscle spasms, and to prepare for labor; for skin problems, including acne, ulcers, and sores; as an aid to memory; and even as an aphrodisiac. And, of course, for toothache.

It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that clove caught on in the kitchen, and today cloves are a common culinary spice in virtually every cuisine. Spice blends the world over make liberal use of cloves. In China, clove is a key ingredient in Chinese five-spice powder. Clove is found in many of India’s spice blends, including the basic blend garam masala. Clove is one of the four spices in French quatre épices. And it’s a key ingredient in the Moroccan spice blend ras-el-hanout and the Ethiopian baharat.

Cloves are a popular spice in the United States, used in both sweet and savory dishes, with more than 1,000 tons imported every year. Americans stud hams with cloves, include them in apple spice mixes, put them in pickled eggs and soused herring, and add them to homemade sausages and Christmas fruitcakes. Cloves add to the distinctive flavor of Worcestershire sauce and are reportedly one of the “secret” spices in Heinz ketchup.

Clove may help prevent and/or treat:

Bad breath

Blood clots

Cancer

Cold sores

Denture problems (stomatitis)

Food poisoning

Genital herpes

Gum disease (gingivitis and periodontal disease)

Hepatitis C

Mosquito bites

Toothache

Ulcer

___________________________________

Clove pairs well with these spices:

Allspice

Amchur

Cardamom

Chile

Cinnamon

Cocoa

Coriander

Cumin

Ginger

Kokum

Nutmeg

Star Anise

Tamarind

Turmeric

and complements recipes featuring:

Apple pie

Cakes

Chocolate

Ham

Mincemeat

Orange

Pickled eggs

Pumpkin

Red cabbage

Stewed fruit

___________________________________

Other recipes containing clove:

Apple Pie Spice

Baharat

Berbere

Caribbean Curry Paste

Chesapeake Bay Seafood Seasoning

Chinese Five-Spice Powder

Colombo Powder

Garam Masala

Grilled Pork Chile Adobo

Mulling Spice

Pickling Spice

Quatre Épices

Ras-el-hanout

Spicy Vanilla Rice Pudding

Spiced Mixed Nuts

Nutritionists recommend eating a daily handful of nuts—high in heart-healthy polyphenols and monounsaturated fats—as a wholesome snack. Spicing them with these five healing spices makes them even healthier. These nuts make a nice gift at holiday time.

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon salt (optional)

1 egg white

2 tablespoons water

2 pounds whole mixed nuts, such as almonds, cashews, pecans, and walnuts

1. Spray two pastry sheets with non-cook spray and preheat the oven to 275°F.

2. Combine the sugar, spices, and salt (if using) in a large bowl. Stir in the egg white and water, and mix. The mixture should resemble a smooth paste. Add the nuts and gently stir so each nut is thoroughly coated with the spice mixture.

3. Spread out the nuts on the pastry sheets, separating them so they don’t touch and stick together. Bake for 40 minutes or until the coating is crisp and golden brown. Cool and transfer to an airtight jar.

Makes about 5 cups.

The French stud onions with cloves to add aroma to stocks and stews. Germans are fond of adding cloves to pot roast and other long-cooking meat and game dishes. The British put cloves in Christmas pudding and apple tart.

Clove is a key ingredient in mulled wine, and an element of many other alcoholic beverages. Germans use cloves to spike popular fire-tongue punch (Feuerzangenbowle), which is made with wine, hot rum, citrus juices, and sugar. The French add cloves to a home-brewed orange liqueur made with coffee beans and vodka. Similar versions are also made in Italy and Spain. Clove is also used in some sweet vermouths.

But for all their culinary popularity, the largest share of the world’s cloves goes into producing the popular Indonesian cigarette called kretek. The cigarettes contain 40 percent clove, which give the cigarettes a crackling sound as they are smoked.

How to Buy Clove

Clove comes from the Latin word clavus, meaning nail—because cloves resemble nails. A clove is the still-closed bud from an evergreen that flowers twice a year. Growing and harvesting cloves is tricky, because they have to be picked by hand at precisely the right time.

Cloves are native to the Malukus (“spice islands”) of Indonesia, but the best cloves don’t come from there. Among clove aficionados, penang cloves from Malaysia are considered the best, followed by cloves from Zanzibar and Madagascar. The majority of the cloves imported into the United States come from Madagascar or Brazil.

The only way to buy cloves by their place of origin is from a specialty spice shop or online.

The “Buyer’s Guide” has a list of recommended dealers.

However, it’s not necessary to go out of your way to buy exotic cloves. For culinary flavor, what’s most important is keeping cloves as fresh as possible. That means buying them whole and grinding them yourself. Once ground, they start to lose their volatile oil, which weakens their aroma.

When buying, look for cloves that are large—meaning you can clearly make out the head and stems. (Penang cloves are the largest.) In fact, you should be able to recognize the four would-be petals of the bud, and the stamen inside them, forming the nail-like head. You don’t want to buy cloves that look like little bits of sticks; those are just stems. The color should be reddish-brown.

Whole cloves will keep for a year or more in an airtight container away from light and heat.

In the Kitchen with Clove

Cloves have a distinctive aroma—pungent and somewhat woodsy—and a sweet and musty taste. They will mellow somewhat from cooking, but they can definitely overpower a dish.

The food writer Tom Stobart, author of Cook’s Encyclopedia, advises, “As a flavoring, cloves are best when kept below the level of recognition.” Keep this in mind when using cloves. It takes only a fewcloves to add aroma to a pot of savory stew, or a few ground cloves to flavor a pastry.

When adding whole cloves to a savory dish they should be removed before serving, as unknowingly biting into a whole clove can spoil the taste, not to mention chip a tooth. One way to avoid inadvertent clove-crunching is to stud a small onion with cloves and add it to the broth. When the dish is finished, retrieve the onion and throw it out.

Clove: Pain Relief’s Loyal Servant – Fighting Infections

“Is it not remarkable, simple oil of clove. How amazing the results. Life can be so easy—relief or discomfort.”

That could be your dentist talking. But in this case it’s Lawrence Olivier, playing a sadistic dentist in the 1976 film Marathon Man, as he repeatedly drills into Dustin Hoffman’s tooth and then relieves the pain with . . . oil of clove.

Fortunately, oil of clove can relieve dental pain in real life. Along with a lot of other health problems.

TLC For Teeth and Gums

The scientific name for oil of clove is eugenol. And biting into a clove (the dried flower bud of an Asian tree, and a culinary spice enjoyed around the world) reveals just how powerful eugenol is: there’s an instant rush of localized numbness. The eugenol and other aromatic molecules in clove make it one of the most penetrating spices on the planet. And that penetrating power is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the dentist’s chair—or while waiting through a tooth-aching weekend to get into one!

Yes, oil of clove is a mild anesthetic. (In fact, clove oil is just as powerful as benzocaine in numbing oral tissue before needle sticks at the dentist, reported a team of researchers in Journal of Dentistry.)And it can boost circulation: when it’s rubbed around a painful tooth, blood vessels near the gum dilate, bringing blood to the surface with a warm, soothing sensation. And it’s an analgesic, reducing pain.And it’s anti-inflammatory, reducing redness and swelling around an injury. And it’s antibacterial, killing germs.

All those therapeutic powers help explain why eugenol is not only a home remedy for an untreated toothache, but a formidable medicine against many forms of oral disease. It can fight gingivitis, the early stage of gum disease, when gums are inflamed. It can fight periodontitis, the later stage, when gums recede and bone erodes. It’s also effective against stomatitis, a painful inflammation of the mucous lining of the mouth, caused by factors such as medications, poor dental hygiene, or ill-fitting dentures.

“Clove oil has been used to cure dental problems for ages” and is “an integral part of the dentist’s kit,” said a team of Indian researchers who investigated a long-lasting eugenol-treatment to battle periodontal disease, reporting their results in Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy.

Fighting Infections

Eugenol’s germ-fighting powers aren’t limited to your teeth and gums. It can fight bacteria (and viruses) throughout the body. Such as:

Helicobacter pylori. These bacteria cause stomach ulcers and are also linked to stomach cancer. An international team of researchers from India noted that conventional medical treatment to eradicate H. pylori is only 80 to 90 percent effective, and that the bacteria are also developing resistance to various antibiotics. Since eugenol had already proven effective at stopping the growth of so many other types of nasty, disease-causing bacteria—including E. coli (food poisoning), Staphylococcus (staph infections), Proteus (bladder infections), Klebsiella (respiratory infections), Enterobacter (hospital-acquired infections), and Pseudomonas (urinary tract infections)—they decided to test it against H. pylori too. And in a laboratory study, they found that eugenol stopped the growth of 30 strains of H. pylori—and did so 25 percent faster than amoxicillin (Amoxil), a common antibiotic. And they found that the bacteria didn’t develop any resistance to eugenol.

In their discussion of the study, the researchers noted that eugenol is already part of the diet in many countries and is likely to be “non-toxic”; that it was used by modern medicine as early as 1950 to treat ulcers; and that its “benefits could be multiple” because it’s also a powerful antioxidant. They urge other researchers to duplicate their findings to help establish eugenol as a treatment and overcome the “treatment failures and antibiotic resistance in the area of H. pylori management.”

Herpes simplex. Japanese researchers found that using the antiviral medication acyclovir (Zovirax) and eugenol was more powerful against the virus that causes cold sores (HS-1) than using acyclovir alone, both in the test tube and in animals. Thai researchers found that the virus that causes genital herpes (HS-2) couldn’t replicate in the presence of eugenol. And US researchers found that eugenol protected animals against infection with HS-2.

Hepatitis C. Millions of Americans are infected with the hepatitis C virus, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Japanese researchers found that eugenol caused near total “inhibition” of the virus. “Natural products” including eugenol “could play a great role as anti-hepatitis C agents,” conclude the scientists in Phytotherapy Research.

Clove Loves You—All of You

Researchers have found many other ways that eugenol can protect the body.

Mosquito finito. Put away your citronella candles and get out your clove oil—it might be the best way to stop mosquitoes from biting. That’s what Thai researchers discovered when they tested 38 different essential oils against mosquito bites, including the popular citronella.

The researchers enlisted volunteers to stick their forearms into an area dense with mosquitoes. Only a few essential oils protected against the bites, including citronella, patchouli, and clove oil, providing two hours of “complete repellency.” When those oils were retested, only clove oil gave “100 percent repellency” for four hours.

Stopping blood clots. Blood clots that plug arteries are the cause of most heart attacks and strokes. And blood clots are caused in part by platelet aggregation—plate-shaped blood cells become sticky and clump together. Researchers in Denmark tested eugenol against two “blood-thinning” medications that fight platelet aggregation—aspirin and indomethacin (Indocin)—and found eugenol stronger than aspirin and equal to indomethacin.

Anti-cancer. Studies in animals with lung and skin cancer show eugenol can stop cancer cells from multiplying.

Getting to Know Clove

In the ancient days—BT, or Before Toothbrushes —cloves were used to clean teeth and keep breath smelling clean. In the ancient imperial court of China, during the Han Dynasty, no one was allowed to speak to the emperor without a clove in his or her mouth. And that traditional use has continued to this day in Asia, where cloves are often used as an after-meal breath freshener.

The Coveted Clove

Cloves have a bloody history. They were coveted for their medicinal and culinary use, and brought enormous wealth to the intrepid explorers who went in search of them. Nations fought over them.

At the height of the Spice Wars, in 1605, the Dutch wrested possession of the Moluccas, or “spice islands,” from the Portuguese, breaking their 60-year monopoly of the clove trade. Then the Dutch uprooted and burned all the clove trees, and restricted clove plantations to the remote island of Ambon—keeping the source of cloves secret and the price high. Inquisitive explorers in search of the spice were turned away. Anyone caught trying to pirate seedlings from the island was put to death. It took nearly 200 years to break this stranglehold. But in the early 1800s, a Frenchman by the name of Pierre Poivre (Peter Pepper)—the Peter Piper of nursery rhyme fame—managed to smuggle flowering clove buds off the island. Poivre took the buds to the French West Indies in the Caribbean and cultivated the tree there. Eventually, the tree spread to other countries with the right climates for cultivation. Today, cloves grow from South America to North Africa.

Cloves are dried flower buds from an evergreen tree.

In traditional and folk medicine, clove and clove oil have been used for a variety of ills—indigestion, for nausea, gas, diarrhea, bloating, and colic; against infections of all kinds; for muscle spasms, and to prepare for labor; for skin problems, including acne, ulcers, and sores; as an aid to memory; and even as an aphrodisiac. And, of course, for toothache.

It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that clove caught on in the kitchen, and today cloves are a common culinary spice in virtually every cuisine. Spice blends the world over make liberal use of cloves. In China, clove is a key ingredient in Chinese five-spice powder. Clove is found in many of India’s spice blends, including the basic blend garam masala. Clove is one of the four spices in French quatre épices. And it’s a key ingredient in the Moroccan spice blend ras-el-hanout and the Ethiopian baharat.

Cloves are a popular spice in the United States, used in both sweet and savory dishes, with more than 1,000 tons imported every year. Americans stud hams with cloves, include them in apple spice mixes, put them in pickled eggs and soused herring, and add them to homemade sausages and Christmas fruitcakes. Cloves add to the distinctive flavor of Worcestershire sauce and are reportedly one of the “secret” spices in Heinz ketchup.

Clove may help prevent and/or treat:

Bad breath

Blood clots

Cancer

Cold sores

Denture problems (stomatitis)

Food poisoning

Genital herpes

Gum disease (gingivitis and periodontal disease)

Hepatitis C

Mosquito bites

Toothache

Ulcer

___________________________________

Clove pairs well with these spices:

Allspice

Amchur

Cardamom

Chile

Cinnamon

Cocoa

Coriander

Cumin

Ginger

Kokum

Nutmeg

Star Anise

Tamarind

Turmeric

and complements recipes featuring:

Apple pie

Cakes

Chocolate

Ham

Mincemeat

Orange

Pickled eggs

Pumpkin

Red cabbage

Stewed fruit

___________________________________

Other recipes containing clove:

Apple Pie Spice

Baharat

Berbere

Caribbean Curry Paste

Chesapeake Bay Seafood Seasoning

Chinese Five-Spice Powder

Colombo Powder

Garam Masala

Grilled Pork Chile Adobo

Mulling Spice

Pickling Spice

Quatre Épices

Ras-el-hanout

Spicy Vanilla Rice Pudding

Spiced Mixed Nuts

Nutritionists recommend eating a daily handful of nuts—high in heart-healthy polyphenols and monounsaturated fats—as a wholesome snack. Spicing them with these five healing spices makes them even healthier. These nuts make a nice gift at holiday time.

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon salt (optional)

1 egg white

2 tablespoons water

2 pounds whole mixed nuts, such as almonds, cashews, pecans, and walnuts

1. Spray two pastry sheets with non-cook spray and preheat the oven to 275°F.

2. Combine the sugar, spices, and salt (if using) in a large bowl. Stir in the egg white and water, and mix. The mixture should resemble a smooth paste. Add the nuts and gently stir so each nut is thoroughly coated with the spice mixture.

3. Spread out the nuts on the pastry sheets, separating them so they don’t touch and stick together. Bake for 40 minutes or until the coating is crisp and golden brown. Cool and transfer to an airtight jar.

Makes about 5 cups.

The French stud onions with cloves to add aroma to stocks and stews. Germans are fond of adding cloves to pot roast and other long-cooking meat and game dishes. The British put cloves in Christmas pudding and apple tart.

Clove is a key ingredient in mulled wine, and an element of many other alcoholic beverages. Germans use cloves to spike popular fire-tongue punch (Feuerzangenbowle), which is made with wine, hot rum, citrus juices, and sugar. The French add cloves to a home-brewed orange liqueur made with coffee beans and vodka. Similar versions are also made in Italy and Spain. Clove is also used in some sweet vermouths.

But for all their culinary popularity, the largest share of the world’s cloves goes into producing the popular Indonesian cigarette called kretek. The cigarettes contain 40 percent clove, which give the cigarettes a crackling sound as they are smoked.

How to Buy Clove

Clove comes from the Latin word clavus, meaning nail—because cloves resemble nails. A clove is the still-closed bud from an evergreen that flowers twice a year. Growing and harvesting cloves is tricky, because they have to be picked by hand at precisely the right time.

Cloves are native to the Malukus (“spice islands”) of Indonesia, but the best cloves don’t come from there. Among clove aficionados, penang cloves from Malaysia are considered the best, followed by cloves from Zanzibar and Madagascar. The majority of the cloves imported into the United States come from Madagascar or Brazil.

The only way to buy cloves by their place of origin is from a specialty spice shop or online.

The “Buyer’s Guide” has a list of recommended dealers.

However, it’s not necessary to go out of your way to buy exotic cloves. For culinary flavor, what’s most important is keeping cloves as fresh as possible. That means buying them whole and grinding them yourself. Once ground, they start to lose their volatile oil, which weakens their aroma.

When buying, look for cloves that are large—meaning you can clearly make out the head and stems. (Penang cloves are the largest.) In fact, you should be able to recognize the four would-be petals of the bud, and the stamen inside them, forming the nail-like head. You don’t want to buy cloves that look like little bits of sticks; those are just stems. The color should be reddish-brown.

Whole cloves will keep for a year or more in an airtight container away from light and heat.

In the Kitchen with Clove

Cloves have a distinctive aroma—pungent and somewhat woodsy—and a sweet and musty taste. They will mellow somewhat from cooking, but they can definitely overpower a dish.

The food writer Tom Stobart, author of Cook’s Encyclopedia, advises, “As a flavoring, cloves are best when kept below the level of recognition.” Keep this in mind when using cloves. It takes only a fewcloves to add aroma to a pot of savory stew, or a few ground cloves to flavor a pastry.

When adding whole cloves to a savory dish they should be removed before serving, as unknowingly biting into a whole clove can spoil the taste, not to mention chip a tooth. One way to avoid inadvertent clove-crunching is to stud a small onion with cloves and add it to the broth. When the dish is finished, retrieve the onion and throw it out.

Black pepper: The King of Spices – Jumpstarting Digestion and Fighting Cancer

This common condiment has a royal pedigree.

During the Middle Ages, black pepper was considered the “King of Spices”—and it was more valuable than gold. Only the wealthy could afford it, and social status was measured by how much black pepper you had stored away.

To increase its mystery and desirability, Arab traders kept its origins a closely guarded secret, inventing wild tales of perilous searches for the spice in make-believe lands.

And when the Spice Wars—the conflict between nations to dominate the spice trade—intensified during the 15th century, tariffs and taxes drove the price of pepper up 30-fold. That sent Christopher Columbus westward from Spain to discover the land of pepper—and riches for the Queen of Spain.

But Columbus was off course by about 8,000 miles. The “secret” land of pepper was India’s Malabar Coast, where the best-tasting pepper in the world is still grown today.

Pepper, Healer for Millennia

Indian black pepper is considered superior because it’s particularly rich in piperine, the compound that zaps your taste buds and triggers a sneeze when it hits the nerve endings inside your nose.

The Ayurvedic physicians of India—the practitioners of the millennia-old science and art of natural healing native to that country—may not have known about piperine, but they did know about pepper’s curative power. They prescribed black pepper for a variety of everyday and serious conditions, including constipation, diarrhea, insect bites, tooth decay, sunburn, arthritis, heart disease, and lung disease.

When pepper reached China, the spice was incorporated into traditional Chinese medicine—another millennia-old medical tradition—where one text described it as able to “warm the middle, disperse cold . . . while dispelling phlegm . . . and relieving diarrhea.” One Chinese herbal remedy still in use today consists of a dried powder made from one radish—and 99 peppercorns!

In ancient Rome, pepper was more valued for its culinary impact—the Romans loved to season their food with pepper, and they buried meat and other perishable foods under piles of pepper to keep it from spoiling. (That was the first clue that the spice had potent antibacterial powers. Scientist now know that piperine can even inhibit the deadly bacteria that cause botulism.)

When in Rome—or anywhere else in the world—pepper as the Romans peppered. Because pepper is very good for you. Starting the moment you eat it.

Jumpstarting Digestion

Piperine stimulates the taste buds, triggering the pancreas to start producing digestive enzymes. It also tones the lining of the intestines. That boost in digestive power and speed is very helpful:

Speeding up transit time. In a study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, gastroenterologists found that 1.5 grams of black pepper (about 1/20 of an ounce) sped up “transit time”—the time it takes for food to move all the way through the digestive tract. Slow transit time has been linked to many GI problems, from constipation to colon cancer. The researchers noted that black pepper “is of clinical importance in the management of various gastrointestinal disorders.”

Enhancing the effectiveness of medications. Pepper helps you digest food better—and metabolize medications faster. In studies on animals and people, researchers have found that piperine can increase the bioavailability of a range of drugs, including antibiotics, beta blockers for high blood pressure, calcium channel blockers for heart disease, cough medicines, and also drugs used to treat arthritis, epilepsy, respiratory problems, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. It works by influencing enzymes in the liver that are active in the metabolism of drugs. “Piperine is exceptional in its influence on the liver drug-metabolizing enzyme system,” concluded a team of Indian researchers in the Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology.

Fighting Cancer

Laboratory studies on animals and on human cells show that piperine may play a role in preventing or treating cancer.

Colon cancer. In the laboratory, researchers in the US found that adding black pepper to a culture of human colon cancer cells produced “significant inhibition” of growth. Regular intake of low doses of black pepper may “offer preventive effects against colon cancer,” concluded the researchers in Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science.

Lung cancer. “Black pepper has been used widely in various systems of traditional medicines,” wrote a team of Indian researchers in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry—which led them to test the power of pepper against lung cancer. In their animal study, they found that treating lung cancer with piperine changed the level of several enzymes, “which indicated an anti-tumor and anti-cancer effect.”

Breast cancer. A team of Indian researchers found that adding black pepper extracts to the diet of mice with breast cancer increased their lifespan by 65 percent. The findings were in Cancer Letters.

Pepper Your Health

Scientists around the world have discovered many other ways that black pepper may enhance health.

Easing arthritis. Korean researchers tested piperine against arthritis in two ways: they added the black pepper extract to a culture of human rheumatoid arthritis cells, and they fed it to animals with experimentally induced arthritis. In the human cells, piperine reduced compounds known to worsen inflammation, the hallmark of rheumatoid arthritis. In animals, piperine reduced inflammation and other arthritis symptoms. Piperine may have a role as a “dietary supplement for the treatment of arthritis,” the researchers concluded in Arthritis Research & Therapy.

Preventing Alzheimer’s. Researchers in Thailand tested piperine in animals with Alzheimer’s-like brain changes and found the extract “significantly improved memory impairment and neurodegeneration [the destruction of brain cells].”

Better brains. In another study, the same team of researchers found that piperine had “anti-depression-like activity and cognitive-enhancing effect” when fed to laboratory animals. Piperine may “improve brain function,” they concluded.

Helping seniors stand up. Researchers in Japan found that sniffing black pepper oil stabilized the ability to stand (and therefore lowered the risk of falling) in 17 people aged 78 and older. “Olfactory stimulation” with black pepper “may improve postural stability in older adults,” they concluded in the journal Gait and Posture.

Helping with post-stroke swallowing. After a stroke, many people suffer from dysphagia—difficulty swallowing. The same team of Japanese researchers found that sniffing black pepper oil for one minute helped improve the ability to swallow in more than 100 people who had suffered a stroke. “Inhalation of black pepper oil . . . might benefit older post-stroke patients with dysphagia, regardless of their level of consciousness or physical or mental status,” concluded the researchers in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society.

Helping brain-damaged children on feeding tubes. In a third study, the Japanese researchers found that sniffing black pepper oil could stimulate the appetite of neurologically damaged children on feeding tubes, helping them eat more solid foods.

Quitting smoking. Scientists at the Nicotine Research Laboratory in Durham, North Carolina, found that the craving for cigarettes decreased after smokers puffed on a vapor containing black pepper essential oil. “Cigarette substitutes delivering pepper constituents may prove useful in smoking cessation treatment,” they concluded in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependency.

Lowering high blood pressure. A study by Pakistani researchers in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology showed that piperine lowered blood pressure in laboratory animals.

Preventing heart disease. High-fat diets and heart disease go hand in hand. Researchers in India found that laboratory animals fed a high-fat diet and black pepper or piperine had much less oxidation—a crucial step in the process that turns dietary cholesterol into artery-clogging plaque. “Supplementation with black pepper or piperine can reduce high-fat diet induced oxidative stress to the cells,” concluded the researchers.

Healing hyperthyroidism. Indian researchers found that piperine worked as effectively as thyroid medication in treating overactive thyroid in animals.

Protecting hearing. Korean researchers found that piperine protected cells in the cochlea (the sensory organ of hearing in the ear) from chemical damage. Cochlear damage leads to hearing loss.

Reversing vitiligo. In the skin disease vitiligo, a malfunction in pigment-producing cells called melanocytes leads to irregular patches of pale skin. Researchers in the UK found that piperine promotes the growth of melanocytes. “This finding supports the traditional use of [black pepper] in vitiligo,” concluded the researchers in the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology.

Getting to Know Black Pepper

Like grapes, black pepper grows on perennial vines. But pepper vines soar to a height of 30 feet or more—you can see them trellising swaying palm trees in the state of Kerala on India’s Malabar coast, where black pepper is big business and pepper vines are everywhere.

The vines have large, shiny leaves with spiky extensions called catkins that fill with peppercorns, the fruit of the pepper vine. A catkin full of peppercorns is a twisty stalk densely packed with what looks like shiny beads.

Black pepper grows on vineswith large, shiny leaves.

After peppercorns bud, they gradually turn dark green—the sign that they’re ready to be picked and dried.

As peppercorns dry, the peppercorn’s outer layer (called the pericarp) turns thick, rough, oily, and black. At this point, the peppercorn is pepper—warm, penetrating, full-bodied, with lingering heat.

But not all peppercorns that you find in the market are black.

Green peppercorns (which became all the rage in the 1970s, with the popularity of French nouvelle cuisine) are unripe black peppercorns that have been plunged into boiling water, which inactivates the ripening enzymes and stops them from turning black. They have a fresh, hot bite but are much more subtle than the black. You can eat them whole and still smile!

White peppercorns—also known as white pepper—are black peppercorns with the pericarp removed, revealing a smooth, creamy white center, called the heart. Removing the pericarp is arduous, which is why white peppercorns are considered a gourmet spice, and are more expensive than black. White peppercorn is hotter and sharper than black, but slightly sweet.

Pink peppercorns have been left on the vine, turning from green to yellow to ripened red. Then they’re picked and sold as so-called pink peppercorns. Like white, they’re considered a gourmet spice. They’re aromatic, with a benign and subtle flavor.

Black pepper may help prevent and/or treat:

Alzheimer’s disease

Arthritis, rheumatoid

Cancer

Constipation

Depression

Dysphagia (difficulty swallowing)

Falls

Hearing loss

Heart disease

High blood pressure

(hypertension)

Indigestion

Memory loss (age-related, mild cognitive decline)

Neurologically

damaged children

Smoking addiction

Thyroid problems

Vitiligo

___________________________________

Black pepper pairs well with all spices and complements all recipes, especially those featuring:

Eggs

Game

Red meat

Sauces

Seafood

Piperine is found in all the peppercorns, but it’s most abundant in black pepper. And there’s a lot of black pepper out there.

Next to salt, pepper is the world’s most frequently used spice. It is an ingredient in about 95 percent of recipes, and you can find it on almost every table in America. And no wonder—it offers a “bite” not found in any other spice. Even restaurants that consider salt an insult to the chef will offer pepper, usually freshly ground at tableside.

Indian cuisine makes elaborate use of black peppercorns, but eschews the other colors. Black pepper is a principal ingredient in many of India’s most beloved spice blends, including garam masala and sambaar masala. Black peppercorn is also the key ingredient in baharat, a spice mix used throughout the Middle East.

The French are fond of white pepper, which blends nicely with the many cream-based sauces in their cuisine. They also grind white and black pepper into a blend called mignonette. White pepper is one of the four ingredients in the spice blend quatre épices. But black peppercorns aren’t totally disgracié—they’re often bundled in the bouquet garni found in many kitchens.

In America, black peppercorns are key to fiery Cajun and Creole cooking.

Peppercorns require a warm climate, and most of the black pepper imported into the US comes from Indonesia or Brazil. Other pepper-growing countries include Malaysia, Madagascar, Tasmania, and Vietnam, which recently surpassed India as the world’s largest producer of peppercorn.

Other recipes containing black pepper:

Adobo

Alamelu’s Salt Substitute

All-American Chili con Carne

Baharat

Basic Barbecue Rub

Berbere

Bloody Mary Soup with Jumbo Lump Crabmeat

Boeuf Bourguignon

Caribbean Curry Paste

Chaat Masala

Chesapeake Bay Seafood Seasoning

Chicken Oreganata

Chimichurri Sauce

Cocoa Rub

Coconut Meatballs with Peanut Sauce

Colombo Powder

Dukkah

Garam Masala

Grilled Pork Chile Adobo

Hot Curry Powder

Jamaican Jerk Marinade

La Kama

Madras Curry Paste

Madras Curry Powder

Malaysian Curry Paste

Pickling Spice

Potato Cauliflower Curry

Prawns with Almond Hot Pepper Sauce

Quatre Épices

Roast Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

Rosemary Barbecue Rub

Sambaar Masala

Spiced Milk Tea

Vindaloo Curry Paste

Yucatan Pickled Red Onions

How to Buy Black Pepper

While India is no longer the world’s largest supplier, it still produces the finest quality—90 percent of which is harvested on the Malabar coast, a variety prized for its high content of piperine and other volatile oils.

There are two varieties from this region: Malabar peppercorns (formerly called Alleppy peppercorns) and Tellicherry peppercorns. Of the two, Tellicherry is the superior. The best Tellicherry is labeled TGSEB, which stands for: Tellicherry (place of origin), Garbled (free of grit and inferior berries), Special (the finest quality), and Extra Bold (largest in size). Malabar Garbled No. 1 (MG1) indicates top-grade, cleaned peppercorn.

The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) also applies its standards to peppercorn. ASTA on a label means that the pepper meets standards of cleanliness, volatile oil content, moisture level, and other technical specifications.

Black pepper comes whole, cracked, or ground.

Your best strategy: buy whole peppercorns and grind them as needed, for the best taste and maximum health benefit. Once pepper is ground, it begins to lose its piperine and other volatile oils. It retains its bite, but loses flavor.

The best black peppercorns are large, with dark brown to jet black rough skin, and a dull patina. A shiny patina indicates inferior quality.

Ground pepper is available as coarse or fine. There’s also an indication of inferior quality in ground pepper—it’s too black. Here’s why:

When peppercorns are harvested and dried, there’s always a percentage that are hollow inside, lacking white hearts. They are referred to as light berries. There’s typically a government-mandated specification that limits the percentage of light berries permitted in a crop, but growers sometimes circumvent the rules. The best ground black pepper is gray, because the entire berry—black pericarp and white core—was ground. Pepper that is too black is an indication that too many light berries were part of the grinding.

White peppercorns are sold whole. The best quality is Montok.

You can purchase green and pink peppercorns either dried or in brine.

The best dried green peppercorns—called late-picked berries—are freeze-dried. They should look full, plump, and bright green. They’re excellent for cooking but shouldn’t be put in a peppermill, as they’re too soft and can clog the mechanism.

Pink peppercorns are the least popular because they have the least flavor. They’re also too soft for a peppermill.

There is also a pink “peppercorn” from Brazil that belongs to the cashew family. It has no relationship to true peppercorns, and isn’t considered particularly useful in cooking. They were banned from the US several years ago because of concern about toxicity, but shipments sometimes make it to store shelves. Be sure the pink peppercorns you buy are Piper nigrum.

Both whole and ground pepper will keep indefinitely, although old ground pepper won’t have much flavor.

Both green and pink peppercorns purchased in brine should be used within two weeks of opening.

There are numerous varieties of black pepper, including popular Chinese Szechwan peppercorns, but they aren’t true pepper. Szechwan pepper has no resemblance in taste to black pepper. Neither makes a satisfactory substitute for the other.

Black Pepper Rice with Almonds

Rice is a staple in Indian cooking, but you’ll never find it plain. The combinations of spices that complement rice are huge. This pepper-rich recipe, compliment of Alamelu Vairavan, author of Healthy South Indian Cooking, is one of my favorites.

1 cup basmati or extra long-grain rice

1 tablespoon canola oil

3 curry leaves (optional)

1 small dried red chile

1 teaspoon black mustard seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seed

1 cup chopped onions

1½ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

½ teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon salt

¼ cup sliced almonds

1. Cook rice according to package directions, but omit using salt or oil. Cool rice for about an hour. Stir so the grains do not stick together.

2. Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, add the curry leaves and red chile. Add the mustard and cumin seeds. Cover and heat until the mustard seeds pop, about 30 seconds.

3. Add the onions and cook for one minute. Add the cooked rice and stir well. Add black pepper, ground cumin, and salt and mix well. Stir in the almonds and serve.

Makes 4 servings.

In the Kitchen with Black Pepper

Black pepper is the most useful and indispensable of all culinary spices. When faced with a plate of uninspiring food, the judicious grind of a peppermill can salvage a meal.

The robust flavor of black pepper is most closely associated with strong-flavored food. Apply it liberally to red meat, game, seafood, beans, and lentils. Use it lightly on more delicate food.

But you can put black pepper on anything, even fruit. Berries, apples, pears, and even cheese take well to a grind of fresh black pepper. Use black pepper to flavor soups, stews, fish, and poultry.

Keep white peppercorns on hand for those times you want to give a dish a pepper bite without an overpowering pepper fragrance.

And you should always add pepper to liquids and sauces at the last minute. If added early in cooking, it loses its aromatic fragrance and can leave a bitterness that is hard to erase.

Keep black peppercorns in a metal, plastic, or glass peppermill, not wood. Wood will leach pepper of its volatile oils.

Here are a few ways to get more black pepper into your diet:

• Rub coarsely ground peppercorns into red meats before grilling, roasting, or braising. Don’t be timid. It can take a lot.

• Add whole peppercorns to marinades, stocks, and dishes being pickled.

• Slice strawberries over watercress and sprinkle generously with black pepper. Dress lightly with a balsamic vinaigrette.

• Add cracked pepper to homemade salad dressing.

• Keep a peppermill, rather than a shaker of already ground pepper, on your table.

Garlic: Strong Enough to Battle Heart Disease – Fighting Infection and Colon Cancer

When scientists in England entered the words “diet” and “anti-aging” into the search engine of a medical database, up popped studies on garlic—study after study after study.

“The accumulated knowledge over the last few years suggests that intake of garlic by humans may either prevent or decrease the incidence of major chronic diseases associated with old age, such as atherosclerosis, stroke, cancer, immune disorders, cerebral [brain] aging, arthritis, and cataract formation,” concluded the researchers.

That’s a powerful statement for a spice popularly called “the stinking rose.” But garlic works because it “stinks”—its explosive aroma is based on its most active ingredient, allicin, which transforms intoorganosulfurs, and those are the very compounds that minimize the oxidation, inflammation, and other cell-destroying processes underlying every one of the “major chronic diseases” on the researchers’ list. In addition, garlic is brimming with vitamins, minerals, and other powerful antioxidants that guard against heart disease and cancer.

In short, garlic is one of the world’s most potent natural medicines. The medical database of the National Institutes of Health contains more than 3,200 studies on the therapeutic power of garlic. Many of those studies are about preventing, slowing, and reversing cardiovascular disease—the heart attacks and strokes that kill more Americans than any other health problem.

Help for Your Heart

Back in 3000 BCE, Charak, the father of India’s Ayurvedic medicine, claimed that garlic “strengthens the heart and keeps blood fluid.”

Here in 2010, a team of medical researchers reviewed what they called the “vast scientific literature” about garlic and heart disease, and declared, “Garlic consumption has a significant protective effect against atherosclerosis.”

And when a team of researchers analyzed the garlic-rich Mediterranean diet—often equated with heart health—they figured out that if everybody ate one or two garlic cloves a day, the worldwide risk of heart disease would drop by 25 percent. (But you don’t have to eat fresh cloves to get an effect. Many studies show that dried or powdered garlic is more therapeutic than fresh.) Let’s look at all the ways garlic can help your heart.

Masking Garlic Breath

Garlic’s reputation for being a strong spice is well deserved. Even though it mellows when it is cooked, your garlic dinner can “hang around” for days. This is especially true if you eat it raw.

If you or others in your company are offended by the lingering smell of garlic, here are a few tried-and-true home remedies to diminish the odor:

• Drink red wine with your garlic meal.

• Add parsley to garlicky dishes.

• Chew on fresh parsley sprigs at the end of the meal.

• Chew a few roasted fennel, anise, or cardamom seeds.

To get the smell of garlic out of your hands after working with it:

• Wash your hands with water and lemon juice.

• Rub your hands with a stainless steel spoon, then wash both your hands and the spoon.

• Moisten your hands and rub baking soda between your palms.

Lower blood pressure. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. In a recent “meta-analysis” of 11 studies on garlic supplements and high blood pressure, garlic lowered systolic blood pressure (the upper number in the reading) by an average of 8.4 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure (the lower number) by an average of 7.3 mm Hg—very significant decreases. “Garlic preparations are superior to placebo in reducing blood pressure in individuals with hypertension,” the researchers concluded in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders.

In a study from Poland, researchers found that garlic supplements not only lowered blood pressure, but also prevented DNA damage from oxidation. “These findings point out the beneficial effects of garlic supplementation in reducing blood pressure and counteracting oxidative stress, and thereby offering cardioprotection in hypertensives,” concluded the researchers in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry.

Thinner blood. People take baby aspirin to help prevent heart attacks because it “thins” the blood, reducing the risk of artery-plugging blood clots. Specifically, aspirin reduces the stickiness of platelets, blood compounds that can clump together to form a clot, a process called platelet aggregation. Garlic can thin blood, too.

Researchers in England gave people daily supplements of aged garlic extract for 13 weeks, measuring their levels of platelet aggregation at the beginning and end of the study. The garlic supplements “significantly inhibited” the percentage of platelets that were aggregating and the speed at which they were aggregating. Aged garlic extract “may be beneficial in protecting against cardiovascular disease as a result of inhibiting platelet aggregation,” the researchers concluded in the Journal of Nutrition.

Lower total cholesterol. Okay, garlic doesn’t lower “bad” LDL cholesterol. At least that was the result of a recent and much-publicized six-month study conducted by researchers at Stanford Prevention Research Center, who gave nearly 200 people with high LDL a daily dose of either raw garlic, powdered garlic supplement, aged garlic extract, or a placebo. “None of the forms of garlic used in the study had clinically significant effects on LDL,” concluded the researchers in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

But when researchers at the University of Connecticut analyzed this and 28 other studies on garlic and cholesterol in a meta-analysis, they reached a more positive conclusion. Garlic, they found, significantly reduced total cholesterol and triglycerides (another heart-hurting blood fat), even though it had no effect on “bad” LDL or “good” HDL.

Less artery-clogging plaque. Year by year, plaque can build up inside arteries, narrowing the passageway—and a chunk of that plaque can break off, clog the artery, and trigger a heart attack or stroke. That plaque-accumulating process is called atherosclerosis—and garlic can stop, slow, or reverse it.

Research in the Division of Cardiology at UCLA gave 23 people with heart disease a daily supplement containing aged garlic extract. After one year, those taking the placebo had triple the rate of plaque progression as those taking garlic. In another year-long study by the same researchers, involving a supplement containing aged garlic extract, B-vitamins and an artery-nourishing amino acid, the progression of plaque was “significantly lower” in those taking garlic. Aged garlic extract therapy, with additional nutrients, “reduced progression of atherosclerosis,” the researchers concluded in Preventive Medicine.

DURING THE MIDDLE AGES, GARLIC WAS HUNG ON DOORS AT NIGHT TO REPEL EVIL SPIRITS.

And in a German study, 142 people took garlic powder tablets daily. After four years, they had 5 to 18 percent less plaque in their arteries. “Not only a preventive but possibly also a curative role in atherosclerosis therapy may be ascribed to garlic,” wrote the researchers in the medical journal Atherosclerosis.

Elephant Garlic: A Big Mistake

If you come across elephant garlic at the market, there’s no reason to think you’ve stumbled upon something special. You haven’t, if garlic is what you’re looking for. Elephant garlic onlylooks like garlic—huge garlic, weighing up to a pound. But it doesn’t have anything like the flavor of garlic, and cooks consider it inferior. In fact, elephant garlic is botanically related to a leek and should be used like a leek: braised or baked like a vegetable or sliced into a salad.

More flexible arteries. The lining of the artery is called the endothelium, and it generates a compound (nitric oxide) that relaxes and widens the blood vessel. Researchers in New Zealand gave 15 men with heart disease either a garlic supplement or a placebo. After two weeks, the “endothelium-dependent dilation” of the arteries of those taking garlic had increased by 44 percent. And those men were alreadytaking aspirin and a statin.

Lower risk of heart attack. Russian researchers gave either a garlic supplement or a placebo to 51 people with heart disease. A year later, they calculated the supplement had reduced the risk of a heart attack by an average of 40 percent.

Colon Cancer Is No Match for Garlic

There are more than 600 scientific studies—in cells, on animals, and in people—on the power of garlic to prevent and treat cancer. Some highlights:

Preventing colon cancer. In a meta-analysis of 18 studies by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, people with the highest consumption of garlic had a 41 percent lower risk of colon cancer, compared to those with the lowest intake.

Stopping the advance of early colon cancer. Japanese researchers studied 51 people with colorectal adenomas—pre-cancerous lesions of the colon. They divided them into two groups, giving one group aged garlic extract and one group placebos. After one year, those on the placebo had more adenomas, and garlic had “significantly suppressed both the size and number of colon adenomas,” wrote the researchers in the Journal of Nutrition.

Preventing stomach cancer. Researchers in China studied more than 5,000 people, giving half a high-dose garlic supplement and half a placebo. After five years, those taking garlic had a 47 percent lower rate of stomach cancer.

Preventing endometrial cancer. Researchers in Italy analyzed diet and health data from 454 women with endometrial cancer and 908 free of the disease—and found that those who ate the most garlic were 38 percent less likely to develop endometrial cancer than those who ate the least.

Preventing other cancers. Other studies show a link between increased intake of garlic and decreased risk for lung cancer (22 percent less), prostate cancer (36 percent less), and brain cancer (34 percent less).

How does garlic work to block cancer? Doctors from the International Agency for Research on Cancer say garlic can help:

• stop carcinogens from damaging DNA.

• boost the activity of enzymes that detoxify carcinogens.

• clean up free radicals—cell-damaging, cancer-causing molecules.

Fighting Infection

Garlic has a storied history as an infection-fighter. Louis Pasteur discovered its antibacterial activity. It was on the frontlines in World War I, helping prevent gangrene and blood poisoning. The Russians relied on it so heavily during World War II that it was dubbed “Russian penicillin.” And several recent studies confirm its power to fight bacteria and viruses.

Preventing airborne infection. Finnish researchers studied 52 airplane travelers, giving half a garlic-containing nasal spray (Nasaleze Travel) and half a placebo. Those taking the placebo had nearly three times more infections after traveling.

Preventing colds. Researchers in England studied 146 people from November to February, giving half a garlic supplement and half a placebo. In total, those taking the placebo had 65 colds, compared to 24 for those taking garlic.

And Russian researchers studied 600 children, aged 7 to 16, giving some a garlic supplement and some a placebo. Those taking the placebo had four times as many colds.

I recommend a clove of garlic a day to help reduce your risk of cold or flu—and for general good health.

Garlic Galore

There are many other possible benefits to a garlic-rich life:

Diabetes. Researchers in Russia studied 60 people with type 2 diabetes, dividing them into two groups—one received garlic supplements with timed-release garlic powder and the other a placebo. After one month, those taking garlic had a healthy drop in fasting blood sugar, from 138 mg/dL to 113 mg/dL.

There are white, pink, and purple varieties of garlic that come as hardneck (with a long thin stem) or softneck (no stem).

Prostate problems. Researchers in Italy studied more than 1,800 men and found that those who ate the most garlic were 28 percent less likely to develop benign prostatic hypertrophy—the enlarged prostate that causes urinary difficulties in older men.

Aging skin. German researchers found that taking garlic powder boosted blood flow to the skin—a must for a youthful, glowing complexion.

Oral candidiasis. Researchers in India found that garlic paste was just as effective as a conventional drug in clearing up oral candidiasis (thrush), a yeast infection of the mucous membranes of the mouth.

Sickle cell anemia. Researchers at the UCLA School of Medicine found that four weeks of supplementation with garlic extract decreased by 30 percent the number of damaged red blood cells that are characteristic of this disease.

Alopecia areata. In this disease of patchy hair loss, adding garlic gel to the standard treatment regimen improved results.

Getting to Know Garlic

As medicine and food, garlic goes way back. It was featured in ancient medical textbooks from Egypt, India, China, Greece, and Rome. The ancient Egyptians fed it to the slaves who built the pyramids, and it was part of the diet of Olympic athletes in ancient Greece. During the Middle Ages, people put it on their door at night to repel evil spirits.

Today, garlic flavors virtually every cuisine in the world—and it’s the signature spice in the cuisines of Mexico, India, Asia, Greece, and Italy.

Garlic is synonymous with Italian cuisine and goes in just about every savory dish. Well-known Italian-based garlic sauces include pesto, which also features basil and olive oil, and gremolata, which also contains parsley, and is traditionally served with the famous slow-cooked veal shank called osso bucco.

Garlic may help prevent and/or treat:

Aging

Alopecia areata (generalized hair loss)

Benign prostatic

hypertrophy

Blood clots

Cancer

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Flu

Heart disease

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Garlic pairs well with virtually all spices, but particularly well with:

Ajowan

Basil

Caraway

Chile

Coriander

Cumin

Curry leaf

Kokam

Marjoram

Mint

Mustard seed

Oregano

Parsley

Rosemary

Sun-dried tomato

Thyme

and complements virtually all savory dishes, especially:

Marinades

Lamb

Soups

Spice blends

Stir-fries

The French aren’t known for garlicky food, but they have three famous garlic sauces: Aioli is a garlic mayonnaise used in enrich fish soups and flavor vegetables; pistou is the French version of pesto and goes in a vegetable soup by the same name; and rouille is a garlic, red pepper, and saffron-based mayonnaise that is stirred into bouillabaisse, bourrides, and other fish stews and soups. Persillade is a French-inspired garlic sauce used in Louisiana cooking.

The Greeks enjoy skordalia, a garlic sauce made from almonds, olive oil, and soaked bread that is served with salt cod or as a dip. In Serbia, people consume garlic as a snack with slivovitz, a strong plum brandy.

Garlic is also a key ingredient in the popular Middle Eastern side dish hummus, which also includes chickpeas, olive oil, and pine nuts. It is also an ingredient in Tunisia’s infamous fiery condiment harissa, and in the Moroccan meat marinade chermoula. Cacik is a Turkish garlic sauce based on yogurt and olive oil, and served as a side dish.

Thai cuisine is loaded with garlic—virtually no savory dish is made without it.

How to Buy Garlic

The taste of fresh garlic ranges from mild and sweet to strong and pungent, depending on the type of garlic and where it was cultivated. There are white, pink, and purple varieties that come as hardneck (with a long thin stem) or softneck (no stem). Hardneck is the most pungent.

Ninety percent of the garlic sold in the United States is softneck white, and comes from California. Its taste is strong and pungent. All garlic, however, mellows when cooked, turning mild to slightly sweet.

According to top chefs, the best garlic comes from France, with a taste and aroma very different from California garlic. If you come across French garlic, it’s well worth trying. You can recognize it by its pink-tinged skin. Other varieties of note include Prussian white and Spanish red (roja).

For the best flavor, buy fresh bulbs. They vary in size, containing anywhere from a few cloves to two dozen. When it comes to taste, however, size doesn’t matter—taste is determined by the freshness of the bulb. For maximum freshness, look for bulbs that are plump, dry, and don’t have broken skin. Buying bulbs with large cloves makes working with them in the kitchen easier.

You can also purchase fresh garlic in a jar preserved in liquid, crushed, sliced, minced, chopped, or in a tube.

Other recipes containing garlic:

Adobo

All-American Chili con Carne

Basic Barbecue Rub

Berbere

Boeuf Bourguignon

By-the-Bay Fisherman’s Chowder

Caribbean Curry Paste

Chicken Oreganata

Chimichurri Sauce

French Onion Soup

Garbanzo Beans with Mushrooms and Toasted Almonds

Green Pumpkin Seed Sauce

Grilled Lamb Patty Pockets with Cucumber Mint Sauce

Grilled Pork Chile Adobo

Hungarian Goulash

Jamaican Jerk Marinade

Madras Beef Curry

Madras Curry Paste

Malaysian Curry Paste

Mediterranean Vinaigrette

Mussels with Thai Red Curry Sauce

Onion and Tomato Chutney

Penne and Sausage with Fennel Tomato Sauce

Pizza Spice Blend

Pomegranate Guacamole

Potato Cauliflower Curry

Prawns with Almond Hot Pepper Sauce

Shellfish in Saffron Broth

Sol Kadhi

Spaghettini with Basil-Tomato Sauce

Spicy Hash Brown Potatoes

Tabil

Tamarind Sauce

Thai Red Curry Paste

Yucatan Pickled Red Onions

Dried garlic comes powdered, granulated, flaked, ground, minced, or chopped. You can also find garlic salt and garlic juice.

You can find just about any type of garlic in most supermarkets.

Store fresh garlic uncovered, in a cool place away from heat and direct sunlight. It shouldn’t be refrigerated; it will sprout. You can also freeze fresh garlic, although that alters the taste and texture somewhat.

Untouched, fresh bulbs keep for about two weeks. Once you break open a bulb, you reduce its shelf life to about a week. Once it starts to sprout, throw it out, because sprouted garlic turns bitter when cooked.

Before they sprout, garlic cloves start to turn green. Always cut away any green (or any discoloration) on the cloves. For the best flavor, use only white flesh.

Store dried garlic, garlic powder, and garlic salt in an airtight container in a dark, cool place. Dried garlic should keep for about a year, and garlic salt will keep for several years. But when powder or salt start to clump, they’ve absorbed moisture; throw them away.

If you don’t get garlic regularly in your diet, consider taking garlic supplements, especially if you have one or more risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight, diabetes, or you’re over 65. The most-studied form is aged garlic extract. Follow the dosage recommendations on the label, or your doctor’s recommendation.

In the Kitchen with Garlic

Garlic is extremely versatile and goes with just about anything savory. It can be used raw, where you’ll experience its strong, lingering flavor. Garlic has little smell when whole, but it releases its notoriously strong aroma when crushed. When cooked, the aroma and flavor mellows, becoming slightly sweet.

To work with garlic, pull the cloves from the head. Unless you are preparing a dish in which the cloves are intended to be eaten whole, you need to remove the papery skin. This is an arduous task only if you try to peel it with a paring knife, as you would an apple or onion. Instead, do it as chefs do: set a clove flat on a cutting board and set the flat side of a chef’s knife on top, with the blade point away from you. Grip the handle securely with one hand and give the knife a good thump with the base of the palm of your other hand. The paper-like sheaths will come undone. Just pull them off and throw them away. Snip off any parts of the clove that are discolored or green, as they make garlic bitter. (Don’t use a wooden cutting board when working with garlic, as the oil will get in the wood and leave a lingering aroma.)

Roasted Garlic: Spice Heaven

If you can’t imagine eating an entire garlic bulb in one sitting, then you haven’t tasted roasted garlic—the ultimate proof that garlic can be mellow and sweet. Garlic lovers rave about roasted garlic and can’t get enough of it. They pop it clove by clove right from its skin into the mouth. Sometimes they smear it on bread. (A great idea for your next dinner party: serve roasted garlic with crusty bread as an appetizer, and let everyone join the flavorful fun.)

Making roasted garlic is simple. Keep the bulb intact, but remove the loose paper skins. Line one or more bulbs up on tinfoil large enough to completely enfold them. Sprinkle them with olive oil, fold tightly, and roast them on a cookie sheet in a 424°F oven for 30 minutes.

To dice, cut the cloves into thin slices, then into thin slivers.

Be careful when browning garlic—burning makes it bitter. When a recipe calls for browning onions or other vegetables and garlic, it’s best to start the onions first, then add the garlic when the other ingredients are already softened. Cook for just one minute.

Roast Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

This is a classic French dish that is special enough to serve at a dinner party. Encourage your guests to eat the garlic; it’s the most interesting part of the meal. Serve with a big green salad and crusty French bread. You can substitute chicken pieces for the whole chicken, but brown the chicken pieces before putting in the oven.

1 whole chicken, about 3 pounds

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon dried sage

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried parsley

1 teaspoon ground roasted fennel seed

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 lemon, quartered

2–3 heads of garlic with large plump cloves (about 40)

1½ cups chicken stock

1 cup white wine

1. Rinse and dry the chicken. Combine the rosemary, sage, thyme, parsley, fennel, salt, and ground pepper in a small bowl and add the oil. Rub the spice mixture into the flesh of the chicken. Place the lemon quarters in the cavity. Truss the chicken, if desired, and place in a casserole dish. Cover and refrigerate for four hours.

2. Remove the chicken from the refrigerator and bring to room temperature. Remove and separate the cloves of garlic but do not remove the skins. Scatter the cloves around the chicken. Combine the stock and wine and pour around the chicken. Place in a 425°F oven, covered, for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375°F, uncover, and cook, basting occasionally, for 40 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F. Let the chicken sit for 30 minutes to let the juices settle before slicing. Serve with several bulbs of garlic on each plate.

Makes 4 servings.

Here are a few of the innumerable ways to add more garlic to your diet:

• To make garlic bread, blanch unpeeled garlic cloves in water for five minutes to soften them. Cool and remove the paper skins. Slice a loaf of crusty Italian bread lengthwise, brush the bread with olive oil, spread the cloves over top, sprinkle with dried rosemary and thyme, and bake on a cookie sheet in a 400°F oven for 10 minutes.

• Make tiny little pockets in red meat roasts with the tip of a chef’s knife. Slice a few garlic cloves and stuff a sliver in each “pocket.”

• Slice or press fresh garlic into extra-virgin olive oil to use in a marinade, salad dressing, or as a dipping sauce.

• Blanch garlic cloves as above for garlic bread and mash them into potatoes to make garlic mashed potatoes.

• Try this specialty from Trinidad: slice an eggplant into thick slices, stud the slices with garlic cloves, sprinkle with ground coriander and ground ginger, and grill until tender.

• Add a little extra spice to your salads by rubbing the bottom and sides of the salad bowl with garlic before adding the greens and dressing.