This isn’t medical or economic advice, but if I were prepping for societal fallout, I’d stockpile garlic.
Nearly 1,000 studies have been published on the medicinal benefits of garlic and related plants, including blood detoxification, antibiotic and antifungal properties, according to Tom Monte’s “The Complete Guide To Natural Healing.”
That’s a 1997 book I bought at the used bookstore when I was a stay-at-home mom whose kids wouldn’t stop barfing up KFC.
Turns out you don’t need a book on natural healing for that, you just need to stop eating KFC. And I haven’t since then, but every time I leave town, the boys manage to sneak some home.
Fast forward to a few years later when I had a wicked urinary tract infection (I blame the lake), and nothing would cure it. No round of antibiotics. No cranberry pills. Nothing from my mom’s arsenal of tart cherry and sauerkraut.
“It’s time to quit eating sugaaaar!” chimed my mom, as if she didn’t give me the sugar addiction herself by making those bing-cherry brownies every time I did something awkward and begged to change schools.
I’m absolutely not quitting sugar, I thought to myself.
I was just two attempts away from the perfect apple pie and I wasn’t letting something insignificant like an organ in my body, desperate for rescue, get in the way of that.
So I Googled home remedies and hit “next page” a few times on the search engine until I got to like, page five. Where the real sketchy blogs exist.
“Eat garlic with every meal,” read a post from a grammarless warrior on a Reddit feed from nine years prior.
I talked with a doctor in Lander about it. I can’t remember why I went to Lander. Maybe the Riverton doctors gave up?
No, she said. Garlic won’t make it through your digestive system and all the way into your urinary tract. Take another antibiotic.
I bought the antibiotic, set it down on my kitchen counter and glared at it.
Once again, none of this is medical advice. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a nurse. I’m a mom of four boys kneading dough in a wood-heated house in the hills. I’m not responsible for what happens to you if you adopt any of my hillbillyisms.
But I didn’t want to take that antibiotic. I felt sick, I felt nauseous. Some of my hair had fallen out. I wanted to try something different.
I minced three cloves of garlic, shoved them into my mouth and slugged them down with a mug of water.
I’m surprised now that I made it through all three cloves. The first time feels like someone’s branding your brain.
Three hours later, I did it again. And I took yet another three cloves (putting me at nine) just before bedtime.
I slept through the night and woke without pain.
So, what the heck, I took three more cloves of garlic with breakfast.
“Uh, honey?” asked The Husband.
I grinned in response.
“Why does it smell like an Olive Garden dumpster getting nuked?” he asked.
“It’s garlic!” I chirped, showing him my mincing knife and the delicate little mash on the counter.
He recoiled. “But… what’s it for?”
“It’s MEDICINE!” I said, still beaming.
I had to sleep on the couch every night that week, until the garlic finally filtered out of my body and into our startled septic tank.
Since then, I have turned to the papery bulb for ailments from ear infections to Taylor Swift appreciation, with frequent success. I even got one of our sons – the big, sweet twin – to give it a shot when he had a sore throat.
And yes, he smelled exactly like an Olive Garden dumpster in a nuclear blast. But surely I never have.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
