GARLIC/condiments pros & cons.....

[AdrianaH]

I also thought GARLIC had wonderful curing properties..... Please prove me wrong.........


7. Are Onions And Garlic A Food?

In order for a food to be considered an acceptable part of our diet it must not contain harmful or toxic substances. It must not furnish the body with digestive and eliminative problems. Neither garlic nor onions qualify in this respect.

The food must be delicious. We should be able to eat it with relish. We can't really say we relish the strong flavors of garlic or onions. Just peeling onions is a job most people dread!

The food must be easy of digestion and assimilation. Does not qualify here!

The food must contain a rather broad range of nutrients and be fairly complete in their complements of nutrients. Both onions and garlic offer little food value.

We should be able to make a mono meal of the food if we desire. No one could make a complete mono meal of either garlic or onions or even consider doing so. Whereas, a mono meal of watermelon, mangoes, grapes, peaches, cherries, or oranges is very appealing.

The conclusion is undeniable that neither garlic nor onions is a true food and they both should be excluded from our diet. I cannot really imagine that anyone would greatly miss these items as they are not really appealing and their after-effects (such as bad breath) are so disturbing. Do yourself a favor and eliminate garlic and onions and you will reap the benefits by increased health and vigor.


They both contain toxic irritants which result in much harm when included in the diet and should, therefore, never be consumed
http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/junk-foods-garlic-and-onions/are-onions-and-garlic-a-food.html

An other one are condiments, spices, dressing etc.... on these, is't not the first time I've read they're not very good for us and must be consumed in small quantities..... and again, if must be taken with precaution... why consume them at all????



The simple truth is that we should not be eating food that requires condiments to camouflage, modify or heighten its taste.

The catalog of condiments is long. Vinegar, herbs, catsup, aromatic seeds, seasoning, salts, dried peppers, pickles, mustard, sauces, relishes, onions, dressings, garlic, shallots, spices, etc. all fall under the heading of condiments. Some have food value and some don't. But one thing they all have in common is that they all contain poisonous compounds. These compounds irritate not only the taste buds but other body cells and tissues as well.

As s rule, reject condiments. Whole raw foods taste fine in themselves, one food at a time. If they don't give you any "kick," then you must give your sensing mechanisms a rest and the opportunity to rejuvenate. Fasting will accomplish this and a raw food diet will do it too. But the taste buds regenerate more slowly while on the raw food diet than when fasting.
http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/condiments/are-any-condiments-acceptable-in-the-hygienic-diet.html

[RawMark]

I glanced around that site and would definitely not recommend the place as a good source of information. One of their articles said that the vitamin RDA was too high, which pretty much every serious research I've ever read disagrees with.

Garlic is good for you, unless you're allergic to it or intolerant to sulfur. See my reply on your honey thread for a little bit more reasoning, but their "all or nothing" argument is fallacious.

[AdrianaH]

@ RawMark: well, I too thought it was nonsense for all three; Garlic, Onion & Honey. I've always thought and have read all three of them are great for the human body & health... But on the other hand I wanted to make sure what others thought on the topic.
It's interesting to read what others think of them.... Thank you all for your replies.

[dime]

You should look at garlic as a medicine, and thus take it only when you're sick. It doesn't really provide any essential nutrients to a healthy person and should be avoided.
Onion -- pretty much the same. Additionally you should be really careful with onions, as far as I know they are a real bacteria magnet, leave them for some minutes/hours cut and you'll eat a lot of bad stuff long with the onion.

[green goddess]

Just about anything that grows, that can be eaten, will have nutritional properties - some more 'medicinal' than others. Just because it can be eaten doesn't mean it is an idea food (as for mono-eating), but there is still nutritional benefit to be had from foods like garlic and onions.

One way of looking at it: garlic and onions are the bulbs of plants, the life-centre, as it were. Eat a few shoots (like chives) from the plants, and the plants will be ok, they will grow more. Eat the bulbs, and the plants meet their demise. It's hardly in their best interest for their bulbs to be eaten! In this course of reasoning, it's logical to think that as plants don't want their bulbs to be eaten, they are not very tasty or attractive to us (of course, this theory is questionable given that there are 'rooting' animals like pigs that specifically eat roots, which are similar to bulbs). Yes, we can get some nutrition from bulbs, but they are slightly 'poisonous' so that we don't eat an abundance.

Maybe we would be better off eating the greens of onions and garlic instead of the bulbs; it would be better for the plants themselves and I'm sure there's still some good nutrition in the leaves (leaves? Chives.).

Ultimately, it's up to you! If you like garlic and onions, go for it. I find them to be rather strong, and I made a soup recipe a while back with a couple of cloves of garlic, and found I didn't like it; I couldn't eat it, when in the past I've loved the taste of garlic. I dunno, I'd rather have a bowl of mango pudding these days! ;)

Eat what attracts you most!

[Revvell]

If you enjoy eating them; do so. If not, don't. Your body will tell you whether they are good for you at any particular time..... not any article you read or anyone here.

Victoria Boutenko has told stories about how her kids ate LOTS of one food for a time... until their bodies didn't want/need that particular food anymore.

I'm not a big fan of any of those yet, if my body craved them, I'd eat them no matter what anyone else says.

[kaleboy]

well one thing is for sure there is a massive difference between eating raw garlic compared to cooked garlic. Only need a tiny bit when eating it raw....

[rawlight]

Any article with that many 'shoulds' makes me want to do the opposite...where's the devil smilie?!!

Ain't no one takin' my garlic....:)

[smiley]

Here's my personal experience:

I did an experiment where I took garlic out of my diet for 30 days, then reintroduced it in a recipe. I got stomach cramps pretty quickly. So, I listened to my body and kept garlic out of my diet.

About a few months later, I came down with a cold/flu and was seriously craving garlic so I put the clove in my mouth and it tasted "sweet" for a short period of time before it started tasting pungent.

A couple days after this incident, I tried garlic again in a recipe and again got stomach cramps.

I did the same experiment with onions and again had stomach cramps. The only onions that don't give me stomach cramps are green onions.

[RawMark]

I think everyone should live on garlic mashed into honey.

[siennagray]

I think everyone should live on garlic mashed into honey.
:ROFL:

Yeah, after reading these excerpts, I have no interest in checking out that site. Sure, I'm not going to go and eat only onions and garlic for a week, but having small amounts of them in my diet isn't going to hurt me. In fact, garlic is a key ally for me in my battle against candida.

Essentially, they're saying if you're eating anything other than mono eating- if you're enhancing the flavor of any food in it's natural state by combining it with another flavorful food, you are poisoning yourself. Give me a break.

[sport]

There is a difference between acceptable and ideal. Garlic and onions may be acceptable but are far from ideal.

[Stina]

Little tip, if you cut a clove of garlic length wise and pop out the center core, you'll spare yourself the horrible breath and stomach ache!

[Mrs. Papaya]

Adriana, there is a lot of crazy/wrong/misinformed/incomplete information out there online. We can't believe everything we read....

[dime]

I myself like garlic/onions a lot, traditinally they are used a lot back at home. But again, garlic is a medicine. Here you go some crazy/wrong/misinformed/incomplete information written by scientists (I'm pretty sure you can find a milion of these):

Antimicrobial properties of allicin from garlic (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VPN-439NFC3-3&_user=1629077&_coverDate=02%2F28%2F1999&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1701029100&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000053987&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1629077&md5=2b786be34da57f380452df13367ea6d5&searchtype=a)
Therapeutic actions of garlic constituents (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291098-1128%28199601%2916:1%3C111::AID-MED4%3E3.0.CO;2-5/abstract)
Garlic for Treating Hypercholesterolemia (http://www.annals.org/content/133/6/420.short)

You use medications to treat sick people, not healthy people.
Would you use some antibiotic (say penicilin) daily in your diet just because it has some specific taste?

[AdrianaH]

I also believe that Garlic should be looked at and taken as a medicine and like many of you I also don't see anyone out there eating either Garlic not Onion as a mono meal. I love purple onion onion in my salads... :drool:...!!!

I also remember reading on some posts here how Aleesha used Garlic as an aid to eliminate parasites. and even before I read it from her, I had seen it and heard the same in different occasions.

Like I mentioned before, I have been using Garlic; in small quantities and Onion without a problem so far, but when I stumbled on this site and saw what they had to say about Honey, Garlic and Onion.... I wanted to get some others opinion on it.


Little tip, if you cut a clove of garlic length wise and pop out the center core, you'll spare yourself the horrible breath and stomach ache!

I will try this next time I take a green smoothie!!!...

@: RawMark, dime, green goddess, Revvell, kaleboy, rawlight, smiley, siennagray, sport, Stina, Mrs. Papaya, ... thank you all for all of your comments and feedbacks...:cheer:.... like you can see, I'm just a newbee trying ot learn more and more...

[RawMark]

RawMark, dime, green goddess, Revvell, kaleboy, rawlight, smiley, siennagray, sport, Stina, Mrs. Papaya, ... thank you all for all of your comments and feedbacks...:cheer:.... like you can see, I'm just a newbee trying ot learn more and more...

You're welcome. :)


You use medications to treat sick people, not healthy people.
Would you use some antibiotic (say penicilin) daily in your diet just because it has some specific taste?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Treating yourself with foods is nothing at all like treating yourself with allopathic medicine. "Medicinal" foods lead to health. So you're not really treating the disease, you're building a state of health within your body in order for the problem to be resolved. Basically, you're assisting your body in its fight. I agree that larger doses would be taken at such times, but I think that there is nothing wrong with smaller amounts at any time.

Otherwise, I hope you also avoid ginger, peppermint, chilli, any kind of sweetener (agave, etc.), cloves, and so on.

But many foods have beneficial qualities for our health, even those that grow in larger amounts naturally. Celery, for example, is great for the heart and blood pressure. Arguably, anything that's good to eat is beneficial to our health. It's a sliding scale. I think that's my main issue with this argument: it's really not as black and white as those authors made it out to be. Interestingly, they sell chocolate and maca. How does that fit in with their philosophy of "if you can't live off it, don't eat it at all"? Funnily enough, they also sell honey. :)

[dime]

I don't know, my philosophy is more like -- if you're healthy trying to help your body is not a good idea. All kinds of bacteria/parasites and what not goes into your body all the time. Trying to help your immune system in it's job will make it weaker over time, and much less effective when you actually get sick.

If you really want to eat garlic, I'd rather cook it a bit first, that largely elminites its medicinal properties, and makes it much easier for digestion.

[dime]

Interestingly, they sell chocolate and maca. How does that fit in with their philosophy of "if you can't live off it, don't eat it at all"? Funnily enough, they also sell honey. :)
I don't think it's the same guys who run the site that also write these articles. If I were to sell something I would definitely not post articles against it :)

From http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/articles.html

In this section we will post articles from contributing sources for expanded points of view. We would love to hear from you. If you would like to contribute please contact us to submit your article.

[streetsurfer]

Medicine, preventive medicine, maintenance, fuel, fuel additive, food, condiment.....it's all good.

[RawMark]

I don't think it's the same guys who run the site that also write these articles. If I were to sell something I would definitely not post articles against it :)

They might not write them, but it was funny to find both things in the same place. :)


Trying to help your immune system in it's job will make it weaker over time, and much less effective when you actually get sick.

Anything that is good for you builds your immune system--sleeping well, exercising, etc. These things improve your recovery when you get sick.

[Tenuviel]

I love garlic but it doesn't love me back... i used to have the occasional issue with it when cooked, but now whenever i eat it my intestines bloat up to 5 months pregnant size, cramps in the descending colon, sulfurous body odor, and flavor coming out of my pores! once I ate garlic in the evening, got up, and later the next evening came home and did laundry... my pj's reeked of garlic, and it stayed through 2 washes... never again lol!