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Garlic flu thingy

Submitted by Blog - Henriette on 26 September, 2005 - 19:00
Blog categories: 
Recipes
Botanical name: 
Allium sativum
Problems: 
Influenza

This is so delicious that I'm waiting for flu season to arrive.

It's:

1 large clove of garlic, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice

mix in the bottom of a mug, add boiling water, wait until it's drinkably hot, drink.

This is so tasty that you immediately go on to make another mugful.
If you use more lemon juice it's too sour, so you add more honey which makes it too sweet, so you add more boiling water... but really, the basic recipe is just great. The basic recipe also specifies that you should stay in bed after drinking this; it's for the very first signs of flu.

You can chew up the garlic slices, but I usually leave them in the mug; they do have a very strong taste.

There are fridge storage variants on the theme, ("take the cloves of 1 garlic, the juice of 1 lemon, and 300-500 g honey; crush up the peeled garlic cloves, mix with the rest, leave in the fridge"). But while the stored variants are easier to use ("add 1 tablespoon to a mugful of boiling water"), they taste disgustingly of old garlic.

So I'm not using any stored-up garlic-lemony honey.

It's not really necessary to always keep lemons on hand, either: leftover juice from your previous lemon can be frozen in icecube trays.

Or just buy one of those pretty plastic lemon juice lemons before flu season starts, and keep it unopened in the fridge. It'll keep almost forever, or until you open the lid.

Comments

Submitted by Amy (not verified) on 30 September, 2005 - 03:33.

Thank you for this! I felt a cold coming on and made a cup of this (then two) as per your recipe. I felt better immediately, and today I don't have any remnants of that "impending cold" feeling. (A garlic press is faster than slicing the garlic, btw, and makes it easier to get down when you get to the bottom of the cup)

Submitted by Henriette on 30 September, 2005 - 09:09.

Sometimes the taste of garlic comes through too strongly if you press it instead of slicing.

Submitted by Albert (not verified) on 19 June, 2007 - 21:07.

Thanks for this article. I have a cold and I am taking garlic which seems to help. The only problem is body odor.

Is it true that one can remove the interior center part of the garlic clove (which often turns green) to make it less pungent?. Does this affect the therapeutic propeties?.

Thanks.

Submitted by Henriette on 20 June, 2007 - 07:31.

I've never heard of that one, but I doubt that it'd work. The only thing that has a chance for garlic breath is solidarity, that is, give it to all your friends, too.

Submitted by Chris Locke (not verified) on 2 August, 2007 - 09:01.

I have been taking Garlic for years now mainly to ease my heart condition.
The best way for me to take garlic is to chop up the little gems into little pieces, about 2mm thick until Ihave about 2/3 heaped teaspoons. Then I just swallow it all down with a glass of juice....easy peasy, no after taste or bad breath, keeps away colds and flu and perks up the old sex life as well, try it see!