As soon as COVID-19 resulted in economic shutdowns around the country, consumers flocked to stores and stripped them bare of essentials. But it wasn’t just bread, flower, water, and basic staples that were bought and hoarded. Anything that people thought could help prevent them from contracting the virus quickly flew off shelves.
In the first place that meant vitamins such as vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc. But one surprising food item very quickly found itself in short supply: garlic. Whether it was heads of garlic, garlic salt, or garlic powder, the initial reaction to the COVID shutdown was that consumers bought as much garlic as they could.
Garlic’s health benefits have been known for years, and it is has a reputation as both an antibacterial and an antiviral. So it was no surprise that shelves were quickly denuded of garlic. And what garlic is on shelves now is often rushed to market to satisfy burgeoning demand.
If you want to learn more about garlic’s benefits, here are a few resources you might find helpful:
- Garlic’s potential therapeutic effects;
- Garlic protescts against breast cancer;
- Garlic protects against colorectal cancer;
- How garlic fights colds and flu;
- How best to use garlic.
As a cheap and easily available remedy, there’s no reason not to use garlic in your cooking or as part of any healing remedy. Even better, garlic is easy to grow at home. You can plant store-bought garlic cloves in springtime for fall harvest, or plant in fall for a spring harvest. Or if you want to grow different varieties of garlic, you can find numerous vendors online who sell various cultivars, from soft-neck garlic to hard-neck garlic to elephant garlic.
With so many options to choose from, there’s something out there for everyone. Don’t wait any longer to make garlic part of your culinary and restorative repertoire.