How to get rid of garlic odor from your mouth: recipes for fresh breath. How to quickly remove and neutralize the smell of garlic from your mouth: the best ways

Eating garlic is good for human health. The exception is persons suffering from diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. Many people eat garlic both fresh, dried, and pickled, after which the smell is immediately noticeable to others. The persistent odor appears due to the essential oils contained in the plant. The specific aroma sticks firmly to the skin and mucous membranes, and is difficult to remove even by brushing your teeth and washing your hands.

Folk remedies against the smell of garlic in the mouth

Garlic has a specific aroma due to the presence of allicin. One meal consisting of foods that neutralize its effect will help restore fresh breath at home. Before brushing your teeth, you should eat certain fruits, vegetables, herbs or spices. Hygiene procedures are recommended to be carried out after meals.

Fruits

• peach;
• pears;
• apricot;
• apple;
• prunes;
• plums

The zest of lemon, orange, and tangerine has the same properties.

Vegetables and greens

Potatoes cooked in any way suppresses the pungent odor. Spinach, herbs and parsley roots can cope with the problem. You need to chew them immediately after eating garlic.

Nuts and seasoning

To get rid of garlic smell, chew walnuts, pine nuts or almonds for 2 minutes and then spit them out. Repeat this manipulation 3 times.

If there are no nuts in the kitchen, spices will do: cloves, cinnamon, coriander, cardamom.

Beverages

Black and green tea freshen your breath after spicy and spicy dishes, including garlic. For a lasting effect, add mint or a slice of lemon to your tea.

REMEMBER! Using mint gum or menthol toothpaste will only make your breath smell worse.

Hygiene

To get rid of garlic odor, brush your teeth using dental floss and mouth freshener. Pay special attention to the tongue and cheeks. Microparticles of plant fibers remain on the mucous membrane.

The best remedies for the smell of garlic on the skin of the hands

The aroma of garlic remains on the hands for a long time and does not disappear after washing the palms with running water.

You can solve the problem if:

1. Rub your hands thoroughly with soap. Pay special attention to your nails, as essential oils penetrate deeply into the nail plate. Then rinse your hands with lemon juice or rub with lemon peel.
2. After contact with garlic, treat your palms with sunflower oil.
3. Rinse with dish soap and apply moisturizer.

For maximum effect, use all methods in turn.

Video tips

The benefits and harms of garlic

Garlic is a valuable low-calorie food product containing a lot of vitamins and microelements. However, it should be used with caution, and not as a panacea for all diseases. After all, garlic also contains toxic substances.

Benefit

• The greatest effect is obtained from eating garlic raw.
• Regular consumption of food reduces the risk of acute respiratory viral infections and influenza.
• The plant is effective for the prevention of intestinal infections.
• Garlic has a beneficial effect on joint cartilage.
• Fibers cause blood vessels to dilate and reduce blood pressure.
• Garlic is recommended for men suffering from prostatitis and problems with potency.

Harm

• Persons suffering from diseases of the gastrointestinal tract (gastrointestinal tract) should limit the consumption of fresh garlic.
• Consumption can cause headaches and epilepsy attacks.
• Pregnant and lactating women are not recommended to eat garlic.

Excessive consumption of garlic will not improve your well-being, but will cause an exacerbation of chronic diseases. The permissible amount is 1 – 2 cloves per day.

Before eating garlic, drink a glass of milk or yogurt. The calcium contained in the product neutralizes the aroma.

Add parsley leaves to a salad with fresh garlic, which will reduce the strength of the unpleasant odor.

Eat dishes containing garlic with white or gray bread and bad breath will not appear. This advice only applies when they are used simultaneously.

You can get rid of the unpleasant smell of garlic using the special properties of some products. Fresh fruits, herbs and tea will help remove the persistent and pungent aroma from your mouth and hands. To avoid negative health effects, consume garlic with caution by following our tips and recommendations.

Image copyright Thinkstock

It’s not so easy to fight off this unpleasant odor, and you can’t do it without understanding the chemical processes in our body, explains the BBC Future columnist.

Fans of dishes containing garlic were unpleasantly surprised to learn that this plant has an extremely persistent odor. Its aroma can accompany a person hours and even days after consumption. In fact, the smell can appear even if the garlic itself has not entered your mouth.

In 1936, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article about a patient whose breath smelled like garlic. And although he did eat the garlic soup, he was fed through a special feeding tube.

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Another doctor reported that during labor he smelled a strong, recognizable odor from the mother's breath, and when the baby was born, she also smelled like garlic. "When I tell this story, people usually think it's a joke," he added.

Sulfurous substances give garlic its specific strong smell. During the digestion of food, molecules are formed that are absorbed by our body, after which they are removed from it through the bloodstream. These molecules can have a very unpleasant odor, which, when it enters the lungs, occurs when exhaled.

And no matter how much you brush your teeth, you will not be able to get rid of the smell, since it is not caused by food debris in your mouth, but by chemical processes in your body.

Image copyright iStock Image caption Garlic enters the bloodstream, then into the lungs, and only then leaves the body in the form of bad breath within three days.

As you know, we fight against each other, and chemistry can only be overcome with the help of chemistry. Several years ago, Ohio State University scientist Cheryl Berringer, who was studying how volatile organic compounds affect taste, assigned a graduate student to research how to eliminate garlic breath.

By that time, it had been proven that foods such as mushrooms, basil, lettuce, chicory, celery, potatoes, parsley and mint leaves helped neutralize garlic odor.

However, why they have such an effect was not known. Berringer and his graduate students decided to investigate how well certain foods eliminate garlic odor from the mouth and why this happens.

The researchers focused on lettuce, mint and apples. “We discovered the effectiveness of apples by accident,” explains Berringer.

During a control experiment, one of the experiment participants, who ate garlic and washed it down with water, had surprisingly few garlic odor molecules in his body. While recalling everything he had eaten that day, the student mentioned a couple of apples that he had eaten a few hours earlier.

Eureka! When the subjects began chewing the apples immediately after the garlic, the smell noticeably weakened.

The fact is that the sulfur compounds contained in garlic enter into a chemical reaction with a number of other molecules, so-called phenols.

During the experiment, participants chewed garlic while eating a variety of foods. They then breathed into a mass spectrometer, which isolated the molecules in their breath.

The scientists experimented with different food combinations, including crushed garlic with water and pure enzyme or certain phenols, such as rosmarinic acid, found in mint. And each combination was analyzed in a mass spectrometer.

It was immediately possible to find out that apples, lettuce or mint were much more effective when eaten raw than when cooked. This proves the participation of enzymes, which catalyze chemical reactions but break down at high temperatures.

Image copyright iStock Image caption The most effective tool in combating the smell of garlic from the mouth is an ordinary apple.

As experiments have shown, mint turned out to be the most effective of all options.

Firstly, it contains a large amount of phenolic compounds. Chemists don't need to explain that sulfur compounds and rosmarinic acid can combine relatively easily, producing molecules that have no odor at all.

Although apples contain fewer phenolic compounds, they are still present in sufficient quantities to eliminate garlic odor.

However, the least amount of phenols was in the salad - there were even less of them than in green tea, which did not affect the smell of garlic at all.

"It was hard to explain," Berringer says. But the team later found that the pure enzyme alone was not able to eliminate sulfur compounds. However, in combination with phenols, the enzymes in lettuce acquire rather unusual properties.

Despite the fact that scientists cannot yet explain this behavior of the molecules, this does not prevent them from using their benefits in the fight against the pungent garlic odor.

However, we should not forget that no matter how much we fight odors, this will not change the fact that people are living chemical production plants.

The air we exhale or our sweat will tell not only what we recently ate, but also the presence of certain bacteria in our mouth or diseases of the body.

Scientists have long been exploring how to use molecules in our breath to diagnose lung cancer.

And also how effective electronic devices will be that can use smell to detect signs of serious diseases in our blood, urine or tissue samples: from ovarian cancer to brain damage.

And although we try to minimize our body odors for aesthetic and ethical reasons, it is still interesting to realize that important information can be encoded in them.

Garlic contains bactericidal compounds, zinc and selenium, as well as sulfurous substances, the transformation of which during the digestion process gives a characteristic odor. When garlic begins to be digested and its components enter the bloodstream, our body begins to smell of garlic notes, and regular consumption of garlic in large portions leads to a change in the natural aroma of the skin.

The interesting thing is that the smell comes not only from the mouth. Decay products also leave the body during breathing, so caustic ingredients such as garlic, onions, and oriental seasonings are recommended to be eaten in free time when you are not planning to go out in public.

The dining etiquette of many cultures dictates that spicy dishes are served at a communal table, and if you order something individually, eating aromatic spices is considered bad manners towards companions who did not eat the spices. For a person who has had garlic in their blood (the same applies to other seasonings), your smell will not be noticeable, but for those who have not eaten garlic, the difference will be very noticeable.

The smell of your mouth determines a lot. Microparticles of food that remain in the oral cavity get stuck between the papillae of the tongue and in the dental crevices provoke the development of bacteria, the formation of plaque on the teeth and an unpleasant odor. Normally, after eating, the mouth should be rinsed. But fortunately, even in situations where it is not possible to carry out hygiene procedures, you can get out of the situation using improvised methods.

How to kill the smell of garlic with other products

1. Fruits. An excellent way to eliminate garlic odor are sour fruits. They restore the pH balance in the mouth and neutralize unpleasant odors. If you chew a slice of apple, peach, pineapple, lemon or other citrus fruit, the problem will be eliminated. It is better to take fruits that oxidize in the open air and darken. Such components will “process” garlic compounds faster and freshen your breath.
2. Milk. Another group of products that neutralizes the unpleasant garlic odor is the milk line. A glass of fresh milk or kefir during lunch with garlic will help suppress bad breath. You can use yogurt, fermented baked milk and even cottage cheese, the main thing is to consume dairy together with garlic, and not when its components have already entered the blood.
3. Carbohydrates. Cereals are also an “absorbent” for garlic gases. It is believed that the aroma of garlic is enhanced in the body, which does not have enough carbohydrates. If you eat garlic with bread or porridge, its smell will not be so pungent. The same applies to potatoes; in combination with these components, garlic disappears faster. To eliminate unpleasant exhalation after eating garlic, eat lean boiled rice; it is a good absorbent.
4. Greenery. A couple more helpers are spinach and parsley. This green is able to remove garlic fumes even after consuming the spice or neutralize its intensity in a salad thanks to the polyphenols it contains. A large bunch of parsley will smooth out even the harsh aroma of young garlic. Dill is also able to absorb garlic odor. It is abundantly used in tandem with spices when preparing vegetables and meat.

If you urgently need to meet someone after lunch with fragrant dishes, it is recommended to chew a few sprigs of greenery as an emergency remedy. After this, be sure to rinse your mouth, since such products have a coloring effect and can also get stuck between the teeth. To avoid embarrassment, do not forget to look in the mirror after such “rehabilitation procedures”.

If you don’t want to exclude this healthy spice from your diet, remember a few tricks to cook deliciously with garlic and not worry about “fumes.”

1. To cook with garlic correctly, choose sour combinations: with tomatoes, grapefruit, lime. Sweet and protein components, on the contrary, enhance the smell of garlic in dishes.
2. Heat-treated or dried garlic is less intense and does not leave a pungent odor on the skin or in the exhalation.
3. In salads, garlic is combined with parsley, basil and dill, and in hot dishes - with milk or tomato sauce, cereals and potatoes.

Aids

In our kitchen you can find a lot of useful products that help get rid of unpleasant odors. Basically, these are components based on refreshing essential oils found in spices. The most famous fighters for fresh breath are coffee beans, citrus zest (lemon, grapefruit, orange, tangerine), mint leaves, cardamom. Dill seeds, anise and fennel will also cope with the task. To get rid of bad breath, you need to chew a little zest, fresh leaves or dry grains of the listed products.

Tea leaves will help quickly remove decay products from the body and eliminate unpleasant odors. A more effective remedy would be green raw materials, which retain their natural antioxidants, but black tea is also suitable. It is enough to chew a few leaves to remove bad breath. You can make tea to rinse your mouth. Mixtures with bergamot, jasmine, lemon balm, lemon and classic tea leaves are suitable.

Hot drinks help in three ways:

1. Drinking plenty of liquid helps flush your mouth of food debris and garlic juice.
2. Hot temperatures accelerate the breakdown of odorous compounds. And from a radical point of view, it accelerates cellular metabolism on the mucous membrane of the tongue, eliminating cells soaked in garlic juice. Of course, this does not mean that you need to drink boiling water to combat the smell of garlic; be careful.
3. Tea or fruit infusion neutralizes the unpleasant aroma of garlic.

Hygiene products

To effectively eliminate the smell of garlic, you need to not only rinse your mouth, but also brush your tongue and teeth. Dental floss and an herbal-based oral conditioner or fresh breath spray can help with this. You can use a toothbrush with a rubber attachment to remove plaque from your tongue.

Another effective remedy is chewing gum. It stimulates salivation, which makes the oral cavity naturally cleansed faster. In addition, chewing gum helps eliminate plaque, absorbs some of the unpleasant odor, and refreshes exhalation. In extreme cases, the same effect can be achieved using herbal or menthol lozenges.

Fun fact: Surprisingly, sour gummies are more effective at eliminating garlic fumes than mint gum. Menthol from chewing gum only superficially masks the odor, but ascorbic candies can quickly restore the acid-base balance.

If your hands smell unpleasant after cooking with garlic, the suggested products can also be used to clean your hands: lemon juice, green tea or coffee dripped onto the skin quickly eliminates many odors. You can rub citrus zest or fennel seeds between your fingers; other essential herbs will also help muffle the garlic smell - chamomile, tea tree oil, lavender.

Infusions with lemon, anise and green tea are used to wash dishes after containing fragrant spices. Lemon or cumin are also used to neutralize the smell of garlic in food when the seasoning is used only for pickling and preserving foods.

If the shelves or refrigerator smell of garlic, you can put open zest, tea or rice there; these products absorb odors and deodorize the space.

Let's summarize the above with a selection of tips on how to avoid bad breath after eating garlic:

1. Eat garlic with cereals or potatoes, as well as dairy products. Complex carbohydrates and milk components will reduce the intensity of the flavor of the seasoning.
2. Choose spicy old cloves of garlic for food, which, unlike fresh ones, do not contain pungent juice with a pronounced aroma.
3. Rinse your mouth with water with lemon, mint or green tea, and drink unsweetened coffee.
4. Use dental rinse or dental floss.
5. Chew some spices: fennel, cinnamon, cumin and other spices neutralize the smell of garlic.
6. Use chewing gum to produce saliva, so the oral cavity will be quickly “washed” of food debris.

Attention: if the breath constantly smells of garlic even though a person does not eat it, this may indicate a hormonal disorder and the presence of a disease. It’s worth seeing a doctor and getting examined!

Video: how to quickly and easily remove the smell of garlic

Fragrant garlic makes food very tasty. In addition, the fragrant vegetable is useful, especially during flu season. However, the garlic smell can nullify all arguments in favor of using this product. How to remove the smell of garlic is a question that needs to be answered correctly.

How to remove the smell of garlic

How to remove the smell of garlic from your mouth

There are mechanical ways to get rid of the consequences of eating garlic dishes. You can thoroughly brush your teeth, use dental floss to remove pieces of garlic from between teeth, rinse your mouth with a special product, and chew gum.

However, the source of the smell will not go away. Until the garlic is digested in the stomach, odorous substances will make themselves known through specific breathing. The problem can be partly solved by neutralizing the amber with other foods.

How to remove the smell of garlic? The following will help in the fight for fresh breath:

Garden parsley;

A piece of fresh ginger;

Fresh mint leaf;

A slice of lemon or a piece of lemon peel;

A handful of pine nuts or walnuts;

Nutmeg;

Cardamom seed.

Due to the high content of polyphenols in these products, gas formation is reduced, putrefactive processes are stopped, and the specific odor is neutralized. After eating a garlic dish, you can simply chew any of the listed foods or drink a cup of coffee, green or mint tea. A hot drink will wash away any remaining garlic oil and freshen your breath.

In addition, you can try folk remedies. How to remove the smell of garlic from your mouth? You can hold a stainless steel spoon in your mouth. A simple but effective technique will help make your breathing cleaner. Another option is to mix 1 tsp. soda and salt with ½ tbsp. water and rinse your mouth.

How to remove the smell of garlic from the room and from dishes

After preparing dishes with garlic, the aroma of a delicious vegetable can be felt in the kitchen for a long time. The air in the room, kitchen surfaces, and dishes will smell. If nothing is done, your hair and clothes can absorb the strong odor.

How to quickly remove the smell of garlic? Here's what you can do:

Boil 1 liter of water over low heat with the addition of 1 tbsp. l. vinegar (9%), 15 minutes is enough;

Heat 3-4 tbsp in the oven. l. salt, scattering them over the surface of the baking sheet and placing slices and peel of lemon, orange or grapefruit on top of the salt;

Garlic has a pungent taste and a sharp, recognizable smell. It can be a good seasoning for first and second courses, as well as an excellent remedy for the treatment or prevention of viral respiratory diseases. But, with all the advantages of garlic, it has one significant drawback - after eating it, an unpleasant heavy smell remains, which many people do not like. Therefore, lovers of this vegetable try to get rid of the aroma as quickly as possible. There are several methods available for this.

Why does your breath smell like garlic?

The pungent taste and specific aroma of garlic is determined by the sulfur-containing substance allicin, which is part of its chemical composition, which is formed after the destruction of vegetable cells during the process of cutting or chewing. Some of this substance remains in the mouth, where it is processed by bacteria. In addition, not all sulfur compounds in garlic are processed during digestion (for example, allylic methyl sulfide) and are then released unchanged into the external environment through respiration and sweat.

This is the reason why the appearance of annoying bad breath becomes possible. It can last for several hours after the garlic itself or dishes seasoned with it have been consumed. This smell is quite persistent, so it is not so easy to eliminate it.

Of course, the most basic way to ensure that the garlic smell does not appear is to avoid eating this hot and overly aromatic vegetable. But this is not a solution for those who adore garlic and cannot imagine food without it. Such people can be advised not to chew garlic cloves, but to swallow them whole - this will help significantly reduce the likelihood of garlic spirit, since the integrity of the cloves will not be compromised.

Hygiene products

The most affordable and least labor-intensive method that allows you to easily remove the unpleasant odor of garlic from your mouth is to cleanse your mouth using standard hygiene products designed for this purpose.

It can be:

• toothpaste;
• powder;
• dental floss.

To do this, immediately after eating the hot vegetable, you need to take a toothbrush, apply the paste to it and clean your mouth of small particles of garlic. This must be done carefully, brushing not only over the teeth, but also over the tongue to remove plaque that contains bacteria. It would also be a good idea to clean the spaces between your teeth with dental floss: there may be small pieces of garlic remaining there that the bristles of the brush could not reach.

If for some reason it is difficult to clean your mouth with toothpaste after eating garlic, you can simply rinse it with a balm-rinse, although the effect of this procedure will not be so obvious. The easiest and fastest way to freshen your breath is to chew chewing gum. It will not only absorb plaque and the smallest particles of food, but will also give your breath a pleasant aroma.

Home Remedies for Garlic Odor

After eating garlic, you can simply rinse your mouth with a weak solution of hydrogen peroxide (1.5 tsp per 0.5 cup of warm water). The liquid will cleanse the oral cavity of the remnants of an overly aromatic vegetable and disinfect it.

You can also remove the persistent smell of garlic from your mouth with table mustard: for this you need to take 1 tsp. powder, hold it in your mouth for a while until saliva comes out, then spit it out and rinse your mouth with warm water. A liquid paste of baking soda and salt can also fight off the garlic smell if you brush your mouth with it soon after eating instead of toothpaste. Even ordinary vegetable oil can be used in this case: you need to take a sip of oil into your mouth, hold it in it for several minutes, spit it out and rinse your mouth with water.

Foods against garlic odor

You can protect yourself from the garlic aroma while eating. Many vegetables and fruits familiar to everyone tend to overwhelm this persistent aroma, so you shouldn’t stop at eating a dish with garlic.

After it you need to eat dishes that include:

• potato;
• carrot;
• mushrooms;
• parsley (root or greens);
• lettuce;
• spinach;
• celery;
• ginger;
• chicory.

These vegetables are able to dull the pungent garlic flavor, not only in the mouth, but throughout the digestive tract.

In addition to vegetables, fruits with a high acid content also work well with the garlic spirit, for example:

• green sour apples;
• kiwi.

It is enough to eat just 1 fruit and not worry about the smell.

Even better, the garlic smell is interrupted by citrus fruits: grapefruits and especially lemons, and to a lesser extent tangerines and oranges. To improve the taste, you can sprinkle the slices with sugar. Citrus peels have a good effect, so you can chew them too.

You can also squeeze the juice from 1 fruit into a glass or mug filled with mineral water and drink this drink 10-15 minutes after eating.

Nuts and seeds, herbs from the aroma of garlic

Fresh spicy herbs will help remove the garlic smell.

After using a spicy vegetable, you need to rinse your mouth with clean water and then chew a few sprigs:

• parsley;
• basilica;
• cilantro;
• mint;
• dill.

You need to chew the twigs slowly, without rushing, and do not wash it down with water or other drinks. The herbal juice remaining in the mouth will be able to “suppress” the smell of garlic for a while. If it appears again, you need to take a few branches again and repeat it all over again. The same effect as from herbs can be obtained by chewing a couple of laurel leaves.

You can also chew nuts and seeds, which are not only very tasty, but also do a good job of eliminating the specific garlic smell.

These are products such as:

• peanut;
• pine nuts;
• almond;
• nutmeg;
• Walnut;
• hazelnut;
• sunflower or pumpkin seeds.

To get the desired effect, you should eat at least a handful of any of the listed products. We must also remember that they can only be consumed by those who are not allergic to them.

Drinks against the smell of garlic

Even plain water can somewhat weaken the garlic smell if you just drink a glass of plain water immediately after eating food with this vegetable.

But a stronger effect will be produced by:

• lemonade;
• water with lemon juice;
• fresh milk;
• kefir, fermented baked milk, yogurt;
• carbonated drinks, such as Cola;
• sweet coffee with cream;
• black or green tea;
• hot water with cardamom, cinnamon or cloves.

You can use coffee and seasonings not in the form of drinks, but simply take a few coffee beans or a few cloves and chew them. They will act no worse than when brewed.

Other means

The smell of garlic can appear for several hours after the vegetable has been eaten. This time cannot always be spent at home; you often have to go somewhere and contact people. To avoid breathing an unpleasant odor on them, you can apply the following before the meeting:

• strong-smelling chewing gum or pills;
• mouth freshener spray;
• menthol or mint candy.

To always have them at hand, you need to accustom yourself to constantly keep them in your pocket, purse, or car glove compartment. Just one application will be enough to remove not only the garlic aroma, but also other persistent odors and aftertastes.