- Region
- Africa
- Origin
- Cultivated worldwide; documented in ancient Egypt, Greece, and India
- Sanskrit
- Rasonam
Africa · Food · № 12
Allium sativum
Food · Africa
Garlic
Allium sativum
A food with a long history of use. Supplement research suggests only limited effects and does not establish a treatment.
Safety notes
Supplements can increase bleeding risk and interact with anticoagulants. Raw topical garlic can cause severe irritation or burns.
Cautions by tradition (6)
- Herbal medicine worldwide: Can irritate the stomach.
- Ayurvedic materia medica: Do not take the oil internally yourself. Serious illnesses such as infections, cancer or hepatitis need a doctor: there is no evidence that this remedy cures them.
- Herbs for viral infections: Not with garlic allergy, pregnancy or breastfeeding.
- Everyday Ayurveda: Leave out with heat complaints or bleeding. Do not combine with milk.
- Chinese materia medica: Not with yin deficiency with heat; not on the skin for long (can cause burns). Food poisoning with fever or dehydration: see a doctor.
- Kallawaya healing in Bolivia: Take care together with blood thinners.
Preparation
Use fresh, cooked, or dried as food and seasoning; do not apply raw garlic to skin.
Use in traditions
NCCIH notes ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Indian writings describing garlic as food and for health purposes.
Applications
Use by tradition
How different herbal traditions describe this herb. Amounts are traditional guidelines checked for obvious errors; they are not medical advice. For poisonous plants no dosage is given on purpose.
Herbal medicine worldwide
Attributed effects
Antibiotic, expectorant, induces sweating, lowers blood pressure, antithrombotic, lowers cholesterol and blood sugar, antihistamine, antiparasitic; to prevent infections and cardiovascular disease, for gut infections, dysentery and worms.
Preparation and amount
Fresh cloves on acne, corns and warts; regularly in food (3–6 cloves a day in acute complaints); juice or tincture; capsules/pearls (2 g powder a day to prevent heart complaints); combine with coriander, anise or fennel.
Caution: Can irritate the stomach.
Ayurvedic materia medica
Attributed effects
Stimulating, carminative, promotes menstruation, antirheumatic, cleansing, lowers cholesterol; for tuberculosis, whooping cough, bronchiectasis, stomach ulcers, indigestion, wind, colic, earache, worms.
Preparation and amount
Fresh cloves 1.5–6 g; inhale the juice; juice as ear drops or on the skin.
Caution: Do not take the oil internally yourself. Serious illnesses such as infections, cancer or hepatitis need a doctor: there is no evidence that this remedy cures them.
Herbs for viral infections
Attributed effects
Antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal (allicin); especially against colds, also flu and herpes simplex; further for high blood pressure, digestion, stomach ulcers, blood clotting, impotence; antiseptic.
Preparation and amount
Raw in food (preferably), or as powder, tablet or capsule; 2–5 g a day.
Caution: Not with garlic allergy, pregnancy or breastfeeding.
Everyday Ayurveda
Attributed effects
Warming, aids digestion, helps prevent colds and cough.
Preparation and amount
1–3 cloves in pilaf, chutney and pasta; extra in spring and winter or at the start of a cold.
Caution: Leave out with heat complaints or bleeding. Do not combine with milk.
Chinese materia medica
- Nature and taste
- pungent, warm
- Meridians
- lung, spleen, large intestine, stomach
Attributed effects
Da suan was used against parasites in the intestine, the vagina and the skin, and in food poisoning from shellfish. Crushed with sesame oil on hot swellings.
Preparation and amount
Traditional dosage: 6–15 g a day, usually in a decoction. The book also describes a garlic enema against pinworms and candida; we deliberately do not include it.
Caution: Not with yin deficiency with heat; not on the skin for long (can cause burns). Food poisoning with fever or dehydration: see a doctor.
Kallawaya healing in Bolivia
Attributed effects
Against intestinal worms, for spots and to 'neutralise' an acid stomach.
Preparation and amount
A raw clove with a meal.
Caution: Take care together with blood thinners.
Folklore and herbal magic
Symbolic meanings from folk use and modern herbal magic. These are handed-down associations, not effects.
Healing, house blessing, protection, lust, against theft, banishing, purification, health.
Home, kitchen and folk use
Preparation and amount
Gazpacho, tomato soup, herb bread.
- Ways to prepare herbs
- DecoctionTinctureCompress, poultice and pasteSteam and bathPowder and kitchen
- Formulas
- Qing e wan
Tags
Sources
- www.nccih.nih.gov
- Michael & Lesley Tierra, Chinese Traditional Herbal Medicine, vol. II: Materia Medica and Herbal Resource (1998)
- Penelope Ody, The Complete Medicinal Herbal (1993; 2017)
- L. D. Kapoor, CRC Handbook of Ayurvedic Medicinal Plants (1990)
- Joseph W. Bastien, Healers of the Andes: Kallawaya Herbalists and Their Medicinal Plants (1987)
- Louis Girault, Kallawaya. Guérisseurs itinérants des Andes (1984)