Some Garlic a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

A reflection-turned-rant about unnecessary supplementation and the superiority of real food.

May 08, 2025

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Any medical residency program includes “didactics,” which are dedicated educational sessions. Some examples include skill sessions, mock codes, formal lectures, and case studies on interesting patients. Recently, a co-resident of mine presented on a patient he admitted overnight. I don’t remember the main concern of the patient, or why they were admitted to the hospital, however I do remember a unique part of their history.

To give some context, it’s good practice to review a person’s medications. This is to see if poly-pharmacy is playing a role in their symptoms (it probably is) or if there are any known side effects of their medications that could be contributing. With this person in question, in her medication list she had listed “garlic supplements.”

In a not uncommon moment of mind-mouth synergy, I found myself blurting out, “Garlic supplement?! Just eat garlic!”

Not the most sophisticated analysis.

Afterwards, this moment kept nagging me. The question, “why would you take garlic pills?” kept ringing in my head and wouldn’t leave me alone. Plus, I figured it’s not great form to immediately disregard a patient’s choice to use garlic supplements. As a result, I concluded I was in dire need of reflection. Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong…

What follows is said reflection.

Garlic Gains

The first question we must ask ourselves is, what does one gain from garlic supplementation? This is in comparison to ingesting garlic the old-fashioned way. To answer, let’s get organized by talking first on supplements themselves.

Supplements are built with the same logic as early modern medicines. Find something naturally occurring that has health benefits, find the part of the “thing” that does the benefitting, extract it, concentrate it, study it, and prescribe it. A classic example is penicillin.

John Parkington, an English apothecary, used moldy bread to treat infected wounds going back to 1640. Fast forward a few centuries and Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician and researcher, discovered that a mold called Penicillium notatum halted the growth of Staphylococcus bacteria. Soon after, he was able to discern the active component: Penicillin. The rest is history.

undefined — Fleming in his lab. Photo is public domain via wikimedia.

Ever humble, Fleming was quoted in his 1945 Nobel Prize lecture saying that, “[the discovery of] penicillin started as a chance observation. My only merit is that I did not neglect the observation.”1

Supplementation borrows this same process. Take garlic. You find the component of the garlic itself that is responsible for health benefits (cholesterol lowering, supporting immune function, etc). Once you isolate that, you concentrate and repackage it in an easy-to-use form.

Voila!

The result is an easy-to-use daily pill with all the health benefits of garlic, without the smell or hassle of cooking. With garlic supplementation, you get more “garlic” with less effort. Plus, you know exactly how much garlic you’re getting, whereas with a natural garlic plant, the yield is variable.

The supplement industry’s core mantra could be summed up as the following: specific dose, concentrated dose, and do more with less.

However, this then raises the question… what do you lose when you use garlic pills instead of actual garlic?

1. Garlic is cheap.

Now, one could argue that, on the whole, a bottle of concentrated garlic is probably more cost-effective than buying oodles of garlic bulbs. More bang for your buck, as they say. However, this assumes that the worth of garlic is measured solely by its ability to benefit our health, not our palette or in food’s general worth in building community and connection. Second, I’d wager that many people who decide to purchase a bottle of garlic pills do so with good intentions and take them daily for a time… but eventually the bottle becomes forgotten in the back of one’s pantry as it’s effects, if any, aren’t readily apparent.

Besides, on a practical note, how much does a garlic bulb cost? A dollar? Dollar fifty at most? If that. In the end, an unfinished bottle of garlic pills costs more than an infinite number of fully used garlic bulbs.

2. Garlic is worth the “hassle.”

Eating garlic from the ground keeps the hassle that garlic pills jettison. Implicit in most supplement’s claims is that cooking or preparing food is a tedious hassle not worth the effort. Therefore, get the health benefits of said food without the hassle of cooking. Here’s this supplement that can do just that. Of note, companies that make microwaveable food, like Lean Cuisine and Hungry Man, offer similar assumptions.

However, I put forth here that the “hassle” is a feature to be embraced, not a bug to be fixed. Yeah, I said it — the hassle is not worth losing. An odorless, mechanized, corporatized garlic pill robs the individual of garlic’s ability to produce joy, an immaterial, but very real aspect of food. Let me explain.

Cooking can be a way to express oneself. What comes to mind is someone cooking for those they love and for whom they care. A well-cooked meal — containing garlic, no doubt — is a vehicle to give and receive joy. It can be a joy to experience, a joy to prepare, and a joy to share. There is no sharing or joy with a garlic pill… only consumption.

You may be saying now, “but I can’t cook” or, “I don’t know how to cook with garlic.” Fair point. However, I feel my response is just as fair: then learn. In the Internet age, it’s impossible not to learn something new. Go to YouTube and watch a video on how to mince garlic. Invest in some cookware. Go to a cooking class.

“But I have no one to cook for!” Then find someone. I guarantee you there are many out there who would love a home-cooked meal.

“But I don’t like garlic!” Why? Garlic is great. It’s tasty and good for you. If this is your belief about yourself, then I ask, “where did it come from?” I reckon this is a grand opportunity for your own reflection… and an opportunity to retrain your taste buds.

“But I’m allergic to garlic!” Well… you got me here. If this is you then… yea… you probably shouldn’t eat garlic…

Nevertheless, let me make my point clear. A garlic pill’s purported “ease” is a trap. In reality, it tricks the individual into believing cooking is a hassle, and that true nutrition rests in supplements, injections, pills, and the like. Unfortunately, this person fails to see the opportunity to learn a new skill and contribute. This is a tragedy as what else is there to do? Watch Netflix?

3. We lose garlic itself.

Some garlic supplement companies use garlic powder in their pills, which is literally dried bulbs of garlic ground into a powder. It is no different than the spice you can get at the store. In my opinion, you’d be better off seasoning some chicken or potatoes with it instead of swallowing it in pill form.

However, most of these companies don’t use garlic powder, but a component of garlic called aged garlic extract.2 This is the component of garlic that’s been shown responsible for its health3 benefits.4 This means that when we ingest garlic pills, we are actually ingesting “aged garlic extract” pills.

Additionally, the process of extracting aged garlic extract is quite a lengthy process. To offer a brief overview — for over a year, fresh garlic is stored in ethanol. This alcohol breaks the garlic down into its chemical components and stabilizes them. This is the part that also takes away the odor. Once we have our aged garlic extract, we must have a vehicle with which to ingest it. Enter the pill casing, which truly is a marvel of human ingenuity and engineering. Pill casings are made from gelatin, glycerin, and water. However, some companies add phthalates, which are plastic additives, to help stabilize the membrane of the pill wall. Then you can fill it with whatever you’d like — aged garlic extract, black pepper extract, cod liver oil, etc.

When I say that this is a marvel of human engineering, I mean it. The process of making these capsules is, admittedly, genius. This general process has been tremendous in mass-producing high-quality medicines like the aforementioned penicillin. However, when it comes to naturally-occurring foods like garlic, it is simply eating with many, many extra steps. Even when you consider gardening your own garlic, the process is much simpler.

Take clove.
Bury it.
Water it.
Wait a few months.
Get garlic.

This is without touching on the “other stuff” that you may get when you take a supplement: gelatin, glycerin, and if you’re one of the lucky ones, microplastics. All of this done in the name of health.

Which leads me to my final critique of this particular health supplement and of the industry as a whole…

“Superfoods” and Supplements

Here’s the issue: the line between supplement and food is blurry. Or, put a different way, their roles are blurred.

It is natural for the person looking to improve their health, spurred on with newfound fervor, to add something to their routine. This is almost always the first move. It is the same phenomena that drives January gym memberships. However, this approach skips an important first step: health accounting. Without accounting for the food they eat, this person adds garlic pills and black pepper extract while still consuming daily McDonald’s, Diet Dr. Pepper, and their local coffee shop’s mocha-frappe-caramel-hazelnut-chocolate macchiato. The belief is that the supplement will somehow counteract flawed lifestyle habits. This is not true. Yet, based on my professional experience, much of the hubbub surrounding supplements is based on this belief. What results is the deception of earnest and well-meaning people.

“Super-Garlic” - created with Substack Image Generator

For clarity, here’s an analogy — Food is a load-bearing wall in your home; supplements are the wall art you hang on it.

Any effect a supplement may have will be null and void in the context of poor diet, low exercise, and minimal sleep. With diet, the thought process ought not be “health food and the rest.” In my opinion, a better way to think about it is to use the standard of “real food and the rest.”

The majority of the food you eat are the load-bearing walls of your house — your foundation. It should consist of real food. This is food that’s grown from the ground or plucked from trees. Your food should have once clucked, gobbled, splashed, or mooed. Your food should be colorful, enticing, joyful, and readily shared.

Once a solid foundation is established, then you can look to hang the pictures you fancy. But never before. In general, it is best to repair first and beautify later. These are the more appropriate roles of food and supplements. Food solidifies and builds; supplements enhance and augment. Distinct roles. Food first, supplements later… if at all.

As I conclude this reflection-turned-rant, one I hope you’ve found entertaining and helpful, I find myself echoing my initial “blurt-ation…”

Just eat garlic.

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