Things I Like - Sciences

I knew it! Garlic really is good for you. Mr. White always says I use too much garlic when I cook (I'm Italian, garlic goes into just about everything). Now it seems that I've been looking out for his health. You're welcome Mr. White.

Garlic has long been used in herbal medicine and you can even find jars of garlic supplement in health food stores. But there was no scientific evidence that garlic did you any good. Thank goodness the researchers at Queen's University in Canada looked into the matter. They knew that garlic was chock full of allicin, the world's greatest antioxidant. What they didn't understand was how the allicin was activated given that garlic does not contain the components that are usually linked to high antioxidant activity. The key turned out to be decomposition:

'Basically the allicin compound has to decompose in order to generate a potent antioxidant,' explains Dr Pratt, who is Canada Research Chair in Free Radical Chemistry. 'The reaction between the sulfenic acid and radicals is as fast as it can get, limited only by the time it takes for the two molecules to come into contact. No one has ever seen compounds, natural or synthetic, react this quickly as antioxidants.'
~From Science Centric

I don't know if the allicin in the garlic I cook with is decomposing or not but I do know that I'll continue to put garlic into just about everything. Can't hurt.