Green garlic offers the same nutritional benefits as bulb garlic, with a milder garlic flavor.
The Plant that Keeps On Giving
Garlic is the plant that keeps on giving. It stays in the ground for nine months and offers us delectable treats along the way. The first of those treats is green garlic, which comes in the spring, and some farmers grow garlic just to harvest this delicacy. It looks like green onions, but is actually the garlic before it has developed the head with individual cloves. Green garlic can be used like chives or green onions, but it has a delightful mild garlic flavor without all the work of peeling the skin off each clove.
The next offering from the garlic plant are the garlic scapes. These come along a few weeks before the garlic bulb is ready to harvest. Scapes are the flowering portion of the garlic plant, and taste like a mild, garlic-flavored green bean. They are easy to spot because they make the coolest curlicues as they grow. Growers cut the scapes so the garlic plant will focus its energy on the developing bulbs.
Finally, we harvest the garlic bulbs sometime in summer. These are dried, cured and used to robustly flavor our dishes for the fall and winter months until we start the beautiful culinary garlic cycle all over again.
Nutritional Benefits of Green Garlic
Green garlic offers all of the nutritional benefits of garlic, just in a different package and with milder flavors. Garlic is a well-known antibacterial and antifungal remedy. It has a sulfurous compound called allicin, which helps lower oxidative stress and inflammation in our body, which benefits our cardiovascular health. Garlic is extremely efficient in extracting selenium from soil, even if that mineral is depleted. Selenium is a required nutrient for a number of our bodies’ detoxification systems. It is also important for the health of our thyroid gland, an important regulator of many metabolic processes within our bodies.
Garlic should be chopped first when cooking any dish. It takes about 10 minutes for enzymes to be mobilized when exposed to air before being heated. Basically, it needs some time to rest before offering us all of its many health benefits.