Garlic is a powerful immune boosting food item that can fight viral conditions such as common cold and its related symptoms of sneezing, coughing, sore throat and runny nose.
Viral infections usually take their own time to go, therefore the chemical based drugs are not very useful. They just give you symptomatic benefits by suppressing the symptoms during the infection periods. You can easily get these benefits from garlic and other natural products plus no side effects.
Though it does not cure common cold, it increases your immunity that reduces the stay of viral infection in your body.
Table of Contents
- How does Garlic Help to Treat Common Cold symptoms?
- 7 Effective Ways to Use Garlic for Common Cold
- Other Tips and Precautions
How does Garlic Help to Treat Common Cold symptoms?
- Allicin, a sulphur containing compound in garlic has been found as the most useful agent in fighting cold
- Other components such as saponins and amino acid derivatives have also been found to play an important role in reducing the impact of cold virus and shortening its stay in the body.
- A combinations of minerals such as sulphur, Selenium with various enzymes help to fight cold virus
- Studies have revealed that the people who take garlic gets faster relief from the cold as compared to people who do not take garlic.
- Some more studies have indicated that the people who take garlic suffer less symptoms of cold as compared to those who do not take garlic.
- The oil in garlic is in natural expectorant that clear the throat
- Overall garlic is antiviral antibiotic and antiseptic natural product to not only help you fight the symptoms of cold but also improve your overall health.
7 Effective Ways to Use Garlic for Common Cold
If you consume garlic regularly on a daily basis, particularly eating crushed raw garlic, then your immunity will improve and you will not catch viral infections such as common cold easily. Prevention is always better than cure. So, add garlic to your cooking and if you can manage to learn to eat 1-3 crushed garlic cloves daily then you will do great favor to your overall health. However, if you have got a cold then you can use garlic in the following way to thrash the cold virus out of your body quickly.
1. Raw Garlic
- Cut 2 mm thick slices of a garlic clove and keep it in the mouth. Suck it and finally chew it
- Take 4-5 minutes to finish the stuff
- Eat 3 cloves a day in the similar way to get the best results to treat your cold.
- This is the best way to consume garlic and it provides the highest fight against cold virus
- The allicin gets released as you chew it.
- It is also the toughest method of consuming garlic as it leaves a strong smell as well as it is difficult to eat
2. Garlic Tea
- Formation of allicin is lost in heating and cooking therefore the tea has to be made in a different way than usual.
- Put a cup of water in a boiling pot and put the pot on the heating surface/burner/hotplate
- Crush a clove of garlic and keep it aside for 10 minutes so that allicin is formed. Crushing helps allicin formation.
- Remove the pot from the burner and keep the lid on for the water to cool down slowly
- Once the water temperature is palatable add the crushed garlic in the water and stir it well
- If you want to add a teaspoon of honey, then add it. It will enhance the taste as well as add more antimicrobial capabilities of honey to the drink.
- Sip and enjoy the tea to get rid of your cold.
- Chew the leftover garlic at the bottom of the cup
- Do it 3 times a day to consume 3 cloves during the day
3. Garlic Soup
- Prepare a soup of your choice
- Crush a clove or two of garlic and keep it for 5-10 minutes for allicin to form
- Add the crushed/minced cloves to the hot soup
- We are not cooking garlic at all. We are adding it to the already cooked soup to cure your cold effectively
- Have your soup with garlic twice daily
- You can keep changing your your soup but retain the quantity of cloves same all the time
4. Garlic with Honey
- After the raw garlic chewing, this is the second best method to consume it for treatment of cold.
- This method also is more acceptable as the smell is reduced and taste improves
- Crush a clove of garlic
- Add a teaspoon of honey to make a thick pate
- Lick the paste
- Do it 3 times a day
5. Garlic and Orange Juice
- Crush/mince one garlic clove
- Leave it for 10 minutes for allicin to form
- Add to a glass of orange juice
- Drink the juice
- Orange with high vitamin C also helps improve immunity and fight the cold virus
- Do it 2 times a day for 4-5 days
6. Garlic Rub
- This is the topical application of garlic to fix the common cold.You are not consuming it in this method
- Use it before going to the bed
- Crush/mince 2-3 cloves
- Add a tablespoon of olive oil
- Let is sit for 30 minutes
- Rub it on both soles of your feet
- Wear socks and go to bed for it to stay overnight
- Wash your feet in the morning with warm water.
7. Garlic Supplements
- If you don't like the smell of garlic then take supplements
- Garlic comes in three different types of Supplements, powdered garlic, Aged garlic extract and garlic oil
- Scientifically garlic oil has been found to be toxic so avoid this type of Supplements.
- Powdered garlic loses allicin in the powdering process, so it is less effective
- Aged garlic extract is the best garlic supplement. This also doesn't contain allicin but researchers have found that this helps in flu and cold.
- So eating raw garlic is certainly best option, but if you have to go for the supplements then it is aged garlic supplement.
- Always consult your doctor before taking any supplements to treat your cold or other health conditions.
Other Tips and Precautions
Usually consumption of Garlic not only reduces symptoms of your cure but is also highly beneficial to your overall health. Over-consumption may however cause some problems. Following tips will help you to get the best benefits to treat your cold:
- Over conjunction of garlic may cause bad body odor and mouth irritation.
- It may also cause indigestion and other stomach problems in some cases
- If you have never taken garlic before and want to try it out then try with small quantities first to see whether you have allergy or not. If you are not allergic to garlic then you can increase the quantity.
- It is a blood thinner so if you are taking any blood pressure medicine then it might interfere with them so check with your doctor adjust medicine doses by monitoring your blood pressure
- Garlic also reduces blood sugar therefore your medicine for diabetes have to be adjusted
- Mincing and eating raw garlic is more beneficial then cooking it. If you continue to use it in cooking then add it at the last of the cooking cycle. Overcooking of garlic destroys the health benefits provided by its main compounds.
In addition to the above precautions, if you take sufficient rest, drink lots of water to remain fully hydrated, eat nutritious food and do a little bit of exercise, then garlic is one of the best remedies for the common cold. You can try one or more of the above methods that suits you well.