Want to Kill Garlic Mouth?

The BBC has recently reported that drinking a glass of milk can stop garlic breath.

It seems that there are sulphur compounds in garlic which make it particularly difficult on the breath. If you are worried about this problem, there may be relief in your refrigerator. "Drink a glass of milk" say scientists who claim it can stop the lingering odor issues.

In tests with raw and cooked garlic cloves, milk "significantly reduced" levels of the sulphur compounds that give garlic its flavor and pungent smell. This research recently showed up in the Journal of Food Science. They say it is the water and fat in milk that deodorizes the breath.

For optimum effect, drink a glass of the milk as you eat the food with garlic, they say. For me, that's tough, because often the food containing garlic goes better with a glass of fine wine than it does with milk.

Mixing milk with garlic in the mouth before swallowing had a higher odor neutralizing effect than drinking milk after eating the garlic in the trial that scientists performed. And full-fat milk provided better results than skimmed milk or just water, according to breath samples taken from a volunteer.

Although garlic is good for you - containing several vitamins and minerals - once eaten, it can cause bad breath and body odor lasting hours or even days.

Plain water, and some foods, such as mushrooms and basil, may also help neutralize garlic smells, the study authors Sheryl Barringer and Areerat Hansanugrum say.

But it is the mixture of fat and water together that works best, the Ohio State University team say.

"The results suggest that drinking beverages or foods with higher water and/or fat content such as milk may help reduce the malodorous odour in breath after consumption of garlic and mask the garlic flavor during eating," they say.


Dave