For thousands of years, cooks and health practitioners alike have revered garlic’s pungent taste and substantial potential for well-being.
Scholars have written about garlic since the beginning of recorded history. Cloves of garlic were found in ancient Greek temples and Egyptian pyramids, including King Tutankhamen’s tomb.
In early days, garlic’s potential was used across cultures to help:
- Maintain and increase strength to help laborers work harder.
- Enhance performance for Greek and Roman athletes.
- Supply strength and courage for soldiers and sailors.
- Preserve food and supplement diets.
- Support digestion and other body functions.
One of the most striking features about the early use of garlic was its widespread popularity. Garlic was, and continues to be, valued in many different cultures.
Over 250 million pounds of garlic are consumed annually in the U.S. in multiple forms. Add to that the plentiful consumption in countries where it was first used, such as the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean countries, as well as India and China.
With this staggering amount of consumption and with over 300 varieties of garlic grown around the world, you may not be aware that there’s more to garlic than just an exceptional taste.
A Common Vegetable with a Secret Weapon
Garlic belongs to the allium genus of vegetables that includes onions, leeks, chives and shallots.
Containing a wide array of phytocompounds (plant nutrients) that act together to create various responses and reactions in your body, raw garlic provides many vitamins and minerals including:
- Vitamins B6 and C.
- Magnesium.
- Calcium.
- Phosphorus.
- Selenium.
Aside from these nutrients, what makes garlic such a potent vegetable? It has a unique hidden secret weapon, and it all has to do with the interesting fact that a clove of garlic has very little aroma by itself.
It's not until garlic is chewed (not many people enjoy doing this) or crushed in some sort of food preparation that the very distinct odor comes out and the secret is revealed.
The end result of all this is a chemical reaction that creates one of the most pungent and potent antioxidants from the plant kingdom called allicin. The finer the chopping and intensity of crushing, the more allicin is produced and the greater its potency.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to get allicin up to biologically active levels in your body. Allicin is very short-lived – in most cases lasting less than an hour. Cooking, crushing, aging and processing garlic causes allicin to quickly break down into other compounds.
It's through these other compounds (particularly one) that fermentation can come into play to provide a whole new dimension of potential health benefits.*
What’s the Scoop on Black Garlic?
One particular form of garlic has recently risen in popularity, and that’s black garlic.
Thought to have originated in China, Japan or Korea centuries ago, black garlic has been rediscovered in recent years for its culinary and health benefits.
What exactly is black garlic?
Black garlic is simply regular garlic that’s been aged in a carefully controlled, heated environment. This aging process changes the garlic from white and sharp tasting to black and sweet.
The black color occurs due to aging, carmelization and fermentation. The fermentation process involves high heat and aging time. Even though the process may seem simple, what occurs chemically (called the “Maillard reaction”) and biologically is quite complex.
Throughout the process, enzymes are broken down, and proteins and sugars in garlic combine to create the distinct black color – as well as create the sweet balsamic taste and chewy texture.
There's another very important thing that happens during the garlic fermentation process. Remember our raw garlic secret weapon (allicin mentioned above)? Well, the majority of allicin is destroyed during fermentation.
How could this possibly be important if it's destroyed in the process? Well, an exciting biologically conversion takes place with the allicin that creates an even more potent antioxidant in black garlic.
From Raw Garlic to Black Garlic for a More Potent Antioxidant
Some of the most eye-opening discoveries about black garlic is how the fermentation process enhances nutrients and converts existing nutrients to new ones.
For example, studies of the effects on essential amino acids in raw garlic before and after fermentation, show the resulting black garlic as appearing to provide more potential benefits than raw garlic.*
And even though the fermentation process destroys the allicin “secret weapon” in raw garlic, it is biologically converted into S-allyl-cysteine (SAC) – a more potent antioxidant.* When compared to allicin, SAC:
- Is better absorbed by your body.*
- Offers greater stability.*
- Provides enhanced antioxidant effects.*
The main purpose of most antioxidant compounds is to quench specific free radicals. However, in addition to its direct antioxidant effect on free radicals, black garlic, along with the SAC it contains, also indirectly influences numerous antioxidant mechanisms, making it truly a “complete antioxidant.”
A comprehensive review of black garlic and its SAC content (in both in-vivo and in-vitro scenarios) reports that black garlic’s superior antioxidant effect over raw garlic is a result of multiple complex mechanisms, including how it:
- Scavenges free radical reactive oxygen species (ROS) – including superoxide, hydrogen peroxide, hydroxyl, peroxynitrite radicals as well as hypochlorous acid and singlet oxygen.*
- Increases the activity of endogenous antioxidant enzymes – such as glutathione peroxidase, NAD(P)H: quinone oxidoreductase and superoxide dismutase (SOD).*
- Inhibits pro-oxidant enzymes – such as nitric oxide synthase (NOS), xanthine oxidase, NADPH oxidase and cycloxygenase (COX). An imbalance of these enzymes can increase oxidative stress.*
- Chelates metal ions – including iron and copper ions. Iron and copper ions are involved in the generation of ROS and increased levels have been shown to cause oxidative stress.*
In a nutshell, these complex processes demonstrate just how potent black garlic's antioxidant capability can be.
What Research Reveals About Black Garlic
With its array of phytonutrients and as a result of its fermentation process yielding more potent antioxidants, black garlic has been shown in human and rodent studies to offer many potential health benefits:
- Promotes heart health.*
- Supports cholesterol levels already within the normal range.*
- Helps support blood sugar levels already within the normal range.*
- Promotes healthy immune function.*
- Helps support blood pressure levels already within the normal range.*
- Supports cellular health.*
- Aids in liver protection.*
- Helps maintain a normal inflammatory response.*
With all these potential benefits, what’s the best way to take advantage of all black garlic has to offer?
The Ideal Approach to Unlocking the Beneficial Properties of Black Garlic
Enjoying the sweet, caramel-like taste of black garlic can be a great reward for your taste buds. That said, if you're looking to reap the potential benefits from SAC, it’s best to consider a high-quality supplement.
This is not often the case because more often than not, eating the whole food itself is better than taking a supplement.
However, since black garlic is created from raw garlic, inconsistencies can occur during the fermentation process that can potentially impact the overall quality and quantity of the SAC – the most important nutrient in black garlic.
Unfortunately, it’s doubtful you'll find companies that produce black garlic bulbs listing SAC in the Nutrition Facts of their products. They simply don't have to do this, and in most cases, they probably don't have a clue how much SAC is consistently there in the first place.
This is where a high-quality black garlic supplement comes into play. The key is high-quality and finding a supplement that identifies how much SAC is in each serving.
This can be a real challenge because not all black garlic supplement producers even bother listing the SAC content.
Why Black Garlic Supplements Are Not Created Equal
Just as is the case with other supplements widely available in the marketplace, all black garlic supplements are not produced with the same level of quality.
The most glaring formula differentiator is the SAC content. With our Fermented Black Garlic formula, this differentiator clearly shows itself because the per-serving SAC amount is identified within the Supplement Facts right on the product label.
But there are other reasons why Fermented Black Garlic stands apart – and that has to do with the unique fermentation and other high-quality processes it undergoes to deliver you this extraordinary supplement.
Fermented Black Garlic is unique because it:
- Includes two varieties of fermented black garlic – This formula incorporates both Fermented Black Garlic Bulb Powder and highly-concentrated powder from Fermented Black Garlic Extract. Since research has shown potential benefits from both the whole bulb and extract, Fermented Black Garlic includes a blend of both for optimal benefits.*
- Utilizes natural enzymatic fermentation – Produced under mild heat, the natural aging/fermentation of black garlic increases the levels of SAC and helps to increase the oxygen radial absorption capacity.*
- Employs a gentle drying process – This process helps keep the end product stable and ensures a normal shelf life of two years. This process also helps maintain consistent ingredients (including SAC).
- Maintains the stability of SAC – The innovative processes work in unison to ensure the quality and consistency of SAC is available in each and every serving.
- Is exclusively produced by a high-quality manufacturer – Our manufacturing partner is committed to substantiated quality practices that include qualification metrics, compliance, certification, traceability and safety from field to formula.
All this should give you a good picture as to why Fermented Black Garlic is truly special.
Reap All the Super-Antioxidant Benefits of Black Garlic Today*
From a health standpoint, the importance of knowing how much SAC is in your black garlic supplement cannot be stressed enough.* And this is where our Fermented Black Garlic formula clearly shines.
With Fermented Black Garlic, you're ensured that there will be a minimum of 1.2 mg of S-allyl-cysteine (SAC) in each recommended serving.
Offering a total fermented black garlic amount of more than 800 mg (bulb and extract powders) per recommended serving, Fermented Black Garlic can help promote your optimal health, including your heart, immune and cellular health, and more.*
Take action to start reaping the potential powerful benefits of black garlic, order your Fermented Black Garlic today.*