Onions and Garlic are vegetables witch have both many health benefits – most of our ancestors knew and now our generation has almost totally forgotten about them. Actually both contain a variety of natural chemicals that are capable of fighting infections and healing the human body. Never let the unpleasant odor of any of these foods cause you to avoid them as these foods can easily be added to recipes.
Onions are cultivated and used around the world. And the Garlic was known to Ancient Egyptians, and has been used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
The Garlic fights a great number of bacteria and viruses and therefore helps to prevent infections and it decreases the risks of a number of different types of cancer, with an emphasis on cancers of the stomach. It is important to note that garlic is best eaten in its raw state and its medicinal properties are at their height when garlic is cut up, sliced up or chopped. Cooking garlic, especially for too long or at high temperatures is responsible for destroying some of the compound known as “allicin” in it as it is allicin that makes garlic as healing in nature as it is.
The Onions have many benefits to health as well. Much like garlic, onions help to increase the HDL cholesterol in the blood, especially when they are eaten in their raw state. Onions also help to decrease the bad cholesterol or LDL in the blood and they increase the ability of the blood to dissolve blood clots. Onions are excellent at decreasing the risk inherent in developing diabetes and help to fight off the bacteria that are responsible for causing many infections in the human body.
The health benefits of garlic
Garlic has more than just a few medicinal properties:
- High content food, full of Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, manganese and selenium…with noteable amounts of calcium, fiber, copper potassium, iron, and so on…
- Helps to both prevent and cure colds, flus, and other annoying everyday illnesses.
- Reduction in high blood pressure, and debatably, it does so just as well as prescribed medication. And, while we are in the cardiovascular system, we should mention better cholesterol levels, lessening the risk of other heart problems.
- Brain-friendly, with antioxidants believed to prevent cell damage and ageing, in turn preventing serious illnesses like Alzheimer’s and dementia.
- Detoxes the body. The sulfur in garlic protects internal organs from heavy metal toxicity.
The health benefits of onions
- Sleep and mood: Folate, found in onions, may help with depression by preventing an excess of homocysteine from forming in the body, which can prevent blood and other nutrients from reaching the brain. Excess homocysteine interferes with the production of the feel-good hormones serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which regulate not only mood, but also sleep and appetite as well.
- Skin and hair: Adequate intake of vitamin C is needed for the building and maintenance of collagen, which provides structure to skin and hair.
- Cancer: Allium vegetables have been studied extensively in relation to cancer, especially stomach and colorectal cancers. Their beneficial and preventative effects are likely due in part to their rich organosulfur compounds. Although the exact mechanism by which these compounds inhibit cancer is unknown, possible hypothesis include the inhibition of tumor growth and mutagenesis and prevention of free radical formation.
- A source of the strong antioxidant vitamin C that helps to combat the formation of free radicals known to cause cancer.
- Colon cancer: High fiber intakes from all fruits and vegetables are associated with a lowered risk of colorectal cancer.
- Prostate cancer: In a study published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers used a population-based, case-controlled study to investigate the relationship between allium vegetable intake and prostate cancer. They found that men with the highest intake of allium vegetables had the lowest risk for prostate cancer.
- Esophageal and stomach cancer: Frequent intake of allium vegetables has been inversely related with the risk of esophageal and stomach cancer.3 Several survey-based human studies have demonstrated the potential protective effects of consuming alliums, as well as reports of tumor inhibition following administration of allium compounds in experimental animals.