3 Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Rid of Garlic Breath

Whether it’s in pasta sauce, roasted and spread on bread or raw to ward off attention from vampires, we love garlic.

Unfortunately, it’s easy for everyone else to tell that we love it too. We learned a lot about the ancient history of garlic from How Does It Grow this week, and can only imagine that garlic breath has plagued mankind since we started digging bulbs out of the ground. Enter Ohio State University to help. Researchers there have evidence suggesting that we can neutralize bad breath naturally before it offends those around us. According to the science, here are three ways to do it.

1. Eat Apples, Raw Apples

We all know that if you cut an apple and leave it out, it will turn brown. The color is caused by an enzyme that not only makes the fruit a bit less appealing to look at when it sits out, but also acts as a natural deodorant to the bad-breath causing sulphides in garlic.

2. Drink Lemon Juice

This works particularly well with crushed garlic. The acid in lemon juice neutralizes alliinase, an enzyme produced by crushing garlic that causes our unfortunate odor situations.

3. Green Tea

Green tea is very high in antioxidants called polyphenols. As with the enzymes in the apple, polyphenols cover up the odor-causing chemicals in garlic.

Sheryl Barringer, one of the study’s lead researchers, said that it’s best to use the bad breath cures at the same time you’re eating garlic. So we’d recommend adding some apples to that salad with garlicky dressing or using some lemon juice in your next garlic dip. Unless you want to squeeze the citrus straight into your mouth, that is.

UPDATE: Barringer has continued her research and claims there are even better ways to kill your bad breath.

Related: Everything You Need to Know About Garlic Scapes
How to Make Garlic Paste in a Baggy
8 Recipes Every Garlic Lover Should Know