» Articles » Health Tips

Mint leaves are the most effective natural way to combat garlic breath. [Photo: Bigstock]

Neutralise garlic breath naturally

Garlic – you either love or hate the taste. But one thing is for certain, no one likes it when the scent of it lingers in the form of bad breath.

Now, garlic lovers may have a new solution to their halitosis problem. A study published in the September issue of the Journal of Food Science has shown that found that eating raw apple or lettuce could help reduce garlic breath.

Researchers gave participants 3g of garlic cloves to chew for 25 seconds. They were then immediately given water raw, juiced or heated apple, raw or heated lettuce, raw or juiced mint leaves, green tea, or water as a control substance.

The volatile oils responsible for garlic breath include diallyl disulfide, allyl mercaptan, allyl methyl disulfide, and allyl methyl sulfide. The levels of these volatiles on the breath after consumption were analysed in each person.

Here’s what they found:

• Raw apple and raw lettuce and mint leaves decreased the concentration of volatiles in breath by 50% or more compared to the control for the first 30 minutes.
• However, mint leaves had a higher deodorisation level compared to raw apple and raw lettuce for all volatile compounds measured.
• Apple juice and mint juice reduced the levels of volatiles, but not as effectively as chewing raw apple or raw mint.
• Both heated apple and lettuce produced a significant reduction of volatiles.
• Green tea had no deodorising effect on the garlic volatile compounds

According to the researchers, the rosmarinic acid in the mint was likely the reason why it was so effective at deodorising breath.  But in a more general sense enzymes and antioxidant phenolic compounds in the plants were found to work both separately and together to help destroy volatiles and deodorise garlic breath. Because enzymes are found in raw foods rather than cooked ones this may explain why the raw foods were generally more effective at freshening the breath.

So now you know that folk wisdom was right all along. If you are going to indulge in some garlic, make sure you keep some mint on hand to keep your breath sweet.