It’s well known that garlic is something of a superfood with a great many health benefits. Garlic is a vasodilator for one, which means that it helps to widen the blood vessels, thus aiding the flow of blood around the body and increasing energy, muscle growth and brain function.

Then there’s the fact that garlic aids indigestion and that it contains a great number of different vitamins and minerals.

Plus garlic is also a potent anti-bacterial and can kill off bugs as readily as scaring away vampires. This then also gives it a number of different specific uses for those willing to get a bit creative, including treating chest infections.

Let’s look at how you might do that and at why it’s such an effective treatment…

The Recipe

To make this garlic syrup, you’re going to need:

• 1 cup of boiling water (around 250ml)
• 125g of garlic, peeled and sliced
• 1tbsp of crushed fennel seeds
• ¼ cup of vinegar (around 70ml)
• 250g of sugar

Now take the boiling water and add it to your garlic. Cover them both in a pot and stand them for 12-24 hours.

Once that’s done, take a small pan and simmer your fennel seeds in the vinegar. Now get out your garlic pot and add the two together. Heat the mixture and simmer it until the garlic grows soft. Now stain it through muslin and press the garlic in order to extract the juice. Heat this liquid and gradually add more and more sugar.

Stir this constantly and you’ll find that it gradually dissolves the sugar (don’t let it boil). This will create the syrupy texture that you’re going for.

Now allow the syrup to cool on the side. Once it has, pour it into a sterilized bottle and leave it in a dark place.

Usage

You should find that this syrup is sweet and that it goes down smoothly when you drink it. It’s comforting while at the same time doing the job of fighting the infection on the way down.

When you need it, you can take anywhere up to three teaspoons in a day and it should help to speed up your recovery.

The strongly scented oil will partly be inhaled by the lungs at the same time and this will help to further clear the infection. You can also try adding just a little salt which also acts to kill bacteria – but keep it to a pinch so you don’t ruin the flavor.

Garlic has been used as a powerful treatment for all manner of conditions for many years. It was once used to treat asthma for instance and has since been used in the treatment of coughs, hoarseness, chest complaints, other infections and phlegm build-up.

Keep some garlic to hand at all times then! And if you make it a habit to use garlic in your cooking then you might well find that it helps to prevent you from getting ill in the first place. Just make sure your partner has some too so you don’t gas them!