16 facts about garlic

16 facts about garlic

1. Botanically, this plant is a relative of the onion.

2. In garlic, not only rhizomes are edible, but also leaves and inflorescences, however, they are not eaten so actively.

3. Genetically, common garlic is indistinguishable from the wild-growing spiky onion, from which it originated in the course of evolutionary processes.

4. Garlic comes from Central Asia. The researchers found that people began to domesticate this plant for the first time in the territory of modern Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

5. Depending on the variety of garlic, its bulb may contain from 2 to 50 cloves.

7. Breeders bred garlic with a whole bulb that does not divide into individual cloves.

8. The stalks of garlic can reach one and a half meters in height.

9. In Russia, 26 different varieties of garlic are officially registered.

10. In the French province of Gascony, the so-called "touraine", a traditional garlic soup, is very popular. Quite a peculiar dish, it should be noted.

11. Garlic is not officially included in the list of medicinal plants in Russia, but it is widely used in folk medicine.

12. Most of the world's garlic is consumed in China, Korea and Italy. In these three countries, on average, about 10 cloves of garlic are eaten daily per capita.

13. In ancient India, garlic was actively used as a medicinal plant, but it was not eaten there because of its pungent smell.

14. Scientists discovered that garlic contains antibiotics back in the 19th century.

For cats and dogs, garlic is quite toxic and therefore dangerous.

15. Garlic is mentioned as a remedy for diseases and demons even in the Atharva Veda, an ancient Indian book, one of the oldest in the world in general.

16. In 2009, there was an epidemic of swine flu in China, and because of rumors that garlic is helping to cope with this dangerous disease, prices for it increased 40 times during the year due to the manifold increase in demand.