Would you be willing to eat pitch-black garlic cloves if it didn’t give you stinky breath? Researchers in Australia are studying and hoping to popularize a unique, specially aged variant of the cooking herb. The blackened variety apparently has a sweet taste, but still offers the potential health benefits that raw garlic brings.
The exact origins of black garlic are unclear, but it has reportedly been eaten regularly in parts of South Korea, Japan and Thailand for centuries. In recent years, the variant has attracted increasing attention as a high-end variant culinary curiosity. And now scientists at the University of Queensland in Australia want to help black garlic go mainstream in a way that white garlic never could.
“Everyone already knows how healthy garlic is, but the pungent taste and strong smell of white garlic can be off-putting to many,” said Susanne Schmidt, a professor at the Queensland School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability, in a statement opinion from the university.
Schmidt and her colleagues are researching black garlic through a collaboration with the group Empathy Herbal through the university Alliance for Agricultural and Food Innovation Kickstarter funding program. Among other things, they plan to better understand the characteristics of the charred herb.
Black garlic is produced by ripening fresh white garlic for a period of time at controlled high temperatures (140 to 194 degrees Fahrenheit) and high relative humidity (80-90%). This causes the garlic to turn black through a process known as the Maillard reaction, which also explains the flavor and browning of many other popular foods, from roast pork to French fries. In garlic, this process reduces levels of allicin, the compound primarily responsible for the herb’s distinctive smell. The resulting preparation should be sticky and sweet and at the same time healthy and suitable for consumption. Some studies Schmidt notes that black garlic is associated with numerous health benefits, from improving the gut microbiome to helping keep our blood sugar under control.
The team hopes to quantify the exact plant chemicals, or phytochemicals, in black garlic that could explain these benefits. And they will try to figure out what methods are needed to create the healthiest version of it. “We analyze black garlic that has undergone various processing methods to identify those with the most beneficial bioactives,” Schmidt said.
The researchers also hope their work can make black garlic more popular with farmers, thereby reducing food waste, as they may be able to use white garlic that would otherwise have been thrown away.
“Black garlic is a win-win for foodies, health enthusiasts, farmers and the environment,” Schmidt said.