Garlic Fights Off Infection
"The old remedy of eating raw or crushed garlic to help ward off or fight infections."
Garlic has been used as a folk remedy across many different cultures for thousands of years, and modern chemistry has actually found a real mechanism behind it. Crushing or chewing raw garlic releases a compound called allicin, first identified in 1944, which has been shown in laboratory studies to have genuine antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral activity, including against some antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. Allicin works by reacting with and disabling key enzymes that bacteria and fungi need to survive. One important practical catch: allicin is unstable and breaks down quickly once heated above about 80°C, so cooked garlic loses most of this specific antimicrobial effect that raw garlic has.