The Miracle of Garlic: Practical Tips for Home & Health

Garlic, wonderful garlic. Love it or hate it, many people swear by it for its taste and its health-treating powers. For others, it might not keep a cold away but it sure keeps away the opposite sex.

This book is a light-hearted but detailed look at this purportedly versatile ingredient, ranging from its history and its actual composition to its practical uses in both food and as a natural remedy. Despite being well-written and easy-to-follow, some of the more detailed "technical" observations might be beyond the scope of the average reader, yet things may be easily skipped as required or the book consulted as an "ad hoc" resource. No position is taken as to the health benefits and treatment opportunities ascribed to garlic, that is beyond the scope of this review, but nonetheless the information examined did appear credible, compelling and be something that will be utilised by the reviewer.

Reading through the text was an "eye opener" in any case and one feels a lot more informed as a result. Those fearful of the smell of garlic can also find solace and some tips as to how one can reduce the impact of garlic breath! You might be forgiven for assuming this is just a "new age"-type of book, promoting an alternative medicine viewpoint. It is a lot more than that. Certainly at its price it is an affordable "single issue" book that provides a lot more information about a very versatile ingredient. For that alone, we like it.

Treat it more as an information source than a recipe source and you won't feel cheated. You will be a lot more informed and it may have a positive effect on your culinary use of garlic. You might also notice some health benefits too.

I'm not sure what I expected going into this book, but it was way more than I thought it would be. If you want a book that pretty much covers anything you might ever want to know about garlic, this would be it. I will admit, portions of it were hard to read, being very dry, technical facts. There are some recipes, but not many. Honestly, most of the recipes did not appeal to me or were just basic recipes that you don't even need a recipe for. (Pasta with garlic and oil? Eggs with green garlic shoots? Who needs a recipe for those?!) However, there is everything you want or need to know about growing, preserving and using your garlic here, including a detailed breakdown of all the different medical uses. I'm looking forward to hopefully being able to put in a garden this year for the first time in a long time, and I was wanting to grow garlic, so this will be very helpful for that, and I love the home remedy section. The book is worth it by far for those two portions.

I received a digital copy of this book from Watkins Publishing Ltd to read and review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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