Garlic Gives Bigger Benefits When You “Chop, Then Stop”
The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) is serving up a valuable piece of kitchen advice for cooks who are trying to make their meals healthier: Chop, then stop, when using garlic in your recipes.
As their experts explain, garlic’s natural cancer-fighting properties first get activated when you chop or crush it, but those benefits can be lost if you immediately expose it to high temperatures in a cooking pot, oven, or microwave.
To fix the problem, they recommend preparing the garlic at the beginning of your cooking process and then giving it a ten-minute break at room temperature before exposing it to extreme heat. Research indicates that this delay allows an amino acid in the garlic, known as alliin, to restructure itself into various anti-cancer components called allyl sulfur compounds.
Letting the garlic rest on your cutting board a few additional minutes gives the enzymes responsible for the transformation the time they require to complete their work and provides you–and your dinner guests–the maximum health benefits from this popular ingredient.
Source: American Institute for Cancer Research
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Related Study: Journal of Nutrition
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