Organic Garlic Part 3
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Dear Friends, 
It came to my attention that after over a year of publishing our weekly newsletter, it needs a name! So this Memorial Day Weekend of 2010 we christen it—Forward Thinking. Our world today needs a good dose of forward thinking, doesn’t it? Economic systems failing, human health collapsing, ecosystem disasters intensifying, geo-political conflict mounting—our flawed worldviews are bearing their fruits. We need a new working paradigm that will right this experience we call life. We all need to become trans-cultural and local at the same time. What do you think? At BioImmersion we try to contribute to the betterment of human life in two ways. One is through the creation of foundational foods and their medicinal platform, and the other, is to educate on the meta-issues, the over-arching causes for human suffering—social inequity, economic un-sustainability and environmental deterioration. Our purpose is that through growing awareness, we can spawn activism within the holistic community. Forward Thinking highlight these activities. We would like to open up the conversation—to hear more from you! Tell us about your thoughts, ideas and actions in response to the topics presented. How do we right our corporate ship—this world we live in together? Do keep the foregoing invitation in mind as I continue our discussion on garlic, overview the Therapeutic Foods Platform in Clinical Notes, and give you, in Green Facts, a very special link to a talk given by Hernando de Soto entitled: Shadow Economies. I am excited to hear from you! The Therapeutic Food Platform Our criteria for excellence Many factors come into play in the selection of a food for the Therapeutic Foods line. Our criteria is rigorous: we research the food’s historical use, the scientific discoveries surrounding it, the soil location and composition, climate, varietal differences, harvest date and post-harvest handling, and finally the manufacturing technology into a supplemental form. Because it is food—we honor its cyclical nature and the powerful attributes nature provides us for our survival and good health. Our Garlic serves as a great example of this process. Garlic is an important therapeutic food as it is one of the most researched plants. Much scientific research in the 20th Century has been conducted on it, confirming its effectiveness—as of 1996, 1158 pharmacological studies and 650 chemical studies have been published. The majority of the analytical and pharmacological research on garlic has focused on its sulfur compounds, not only because of their high abundance in garlic (the sulfur content of garlic is four times greater than other high sulfur vegetables and fruits), but because they are compounds that have powerful pharmacological activity. First, we take great care in our sourcing. In garlic, about 85% of the alliin and other cysteine sulfoxides are found in the bulb. Remember from our discussion last week that alliin is the major precursor molecule for the formation of allicin—garlic’s strongest and most important antimicrobial compound. The amount of alliin present in the bulb increases several fold in the four weeks prior to harvest time. Furthermore, alliin increases about 25% during the typical curing process (whole plants dried in the shade for at least two weeks). Finally, extending the normal harvest date by 2 weeks—until the plants are almost completely brown—increases the content of these compounds an additional 20% on a dry weight basis. Secondly, we employ the absolute “state of art” manufacturing methods for drying and encapsulating in order to preserve the actives of these high potency cloves. Freeze drying is clearly the best method of drying to achieve the maximum yield of alliin in the dried powder. However, the amount of alliin present after the drying can vary considerably depending on the care used in slicing and handling of the cloves. The slices can be dried faster if the slices are thinner, but more slicing increases the alliin loss. This is where technology comes in and the utilization of state-of-the-art facilities. We are able to dry the uncut whole clove at extremely low temperatures until the clove is reduced into a frozen powder. With this process 100% of the alliin is preserved, as no moisture is present to enable the crushed clove to react. Finally, we encapsulate without using any flowing agents such as mag. stearate. This necessitates encapsulating machines to be run at a much slower speeds which means lowers temperatures, again maximizing the alliin yield in the finished capsule. The net result is 4-5 cloves of garlic in each capsule with an alliin content of 20,000 ppm and above—two and half times higher than the standard high potency found in the marketplace. Feel a cold coming on? Take couple capsule and experience the Russian Penicillin effect. Across the board each of our therapeutic foods comes under the same rigor of sourcing, handling, and manufacturing. Our wild blueberries come from Nova Scotia, rated by the USDA as the number one berry in North America for their ORAC values, due to their unusually wide diversity of anthocyanins. Our cruciferous sprouts were selected for their high levels of glucosinolates, maximized by harvesting them on the third day of their growth. The net result of such rigor enables us to make the claim that the Therapeutic Foods Line is the strongest whole food supplement in the marketplace today. Good food is important! Sincerely yours, Seann Bardell Clinical Note: The need to harness the power of foods is founded on the paradigm principle that the pace of life will in fact become faster and although we purpose to slow down and properly eat 5 to 9 organically produced fruits and vegetables a day, hormone and antibiotic free meat and dairy, fermented foods and wholesome organic grains, nuts and seeds—it is not enough. We need more. We designed the Therapeutic Foods Line to deeply nourish and combat the growing multi-factorial assault on our bodies (The Therapeutic Foods Paradigm Principle). Next week’s Forward Thinking will focus on the selection of medicinal foods that together create a powerhouse therapeutic platform. You will get reacquainted as to how they synergistically work in concert to Help Your Body in our world today. The Last Quiz Answer: Nothing like the heart of a mother! It transcends all boundaries. This amazing picture is from the National Geographic 2009 Best Photo Collection.
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