(Larry Crowe/AP Photo)

Garlic: A timeline

3200 BC: Garlic, one of the oldest cultivated plants in existence, is grown in Egypt. Egyptians were said to have been obsessed with the herb, which is native to central Asia, because they believed it strengthened the body and prevented disease. Legend says slaves building the pyramids were fed garlic to ward off infection, and remnants of the herb were discovered in King Tut's tomb.

2600 BC: The Sumerians, credited with inventing cuneiform - one of the first forms of writing - name garlic on a list of dietary staples. Noted on a clay tablet, it's believed to be the first time the herb is mentioned in writing.

1550 BC: The Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest identified medical texts, names hundreds of herbal remedies, and 22 of these preparations call for garlic. A grocer's purchase of 395,000 bunches of garlic is also recorded on Persian tablets.

300 BC: Theophrastus, a Hellenic botanist, scholar and pupil of Aristotle, claims that garlic was placed by ancient Greeks on piles of stones at crossroads as a supper for Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft and magic. Masks of the Hecate's three heads were also placed at the intersections.

500: The Talmud, one of the core texts of Judaism, names garlic as an aphrodisiac, claiming it warms the body, makes the face shine, and increases seminal fluid. Ezra, a Jewish scribe from the era, also recommends garlic be eaten on Friday nights - a time to engage in marital intimacy, according to ancient Jewish tradition.

1652: The Complete Herbal, written by British physician Nicholas Culpeper, credits garlic with several powers, such as healing bites of mad dogs and venomous creatures, ridding children of worms, and curing ulcers. The book also says it clears up skin imperfections, such as spots, blemishes, and abscesses.

1858: French chemist Louis Pasteur, regarded as one of the founding fathers of microbiology, is the first to describe garlic's antibacterial properties after observing bacteria he exposed to the herb die.

1897: English writer Bram Stoker's famous novel Dracula refers to the long-standing European superstition that garlic protects against vampires and werewolves. Some suggest that Count Dracula himself was the mastermind behind the belief - since the herb has been shown to thin the blood, it would decrease clotting action, making it easier for vampires to feast on people who consumed it.

1914: British doctors use garlic as an antiseptic against infections, such as gangrene, during the First World War. The herb's juice was combined with peat moss to serve as bandages for wounded soldiers. Russian physicians later do the same during the Second World War; they also supplement soldiers' diets with garlic and onions to prevent disease. Garlic is consequently nicknamed "Russian penicillin."

1944: Italian chemist C.J. Cavallito and his partner, J.H. Bailey, are the first to identify allicin, the major biologically active component of garlic. The allyl sulphur has been identified as the key ingredient responsible for the herb's anti-bacterial properties. Subsequent research has also credited it with lowering fat, guarding against blood clots and high blood pressure, and preventing cancer.

1956: Christopher Ranch, now the largest privately owned garlic cultivation site in the U.S., starts as a 10-acre operation. Don Christopher, the founder, was 22 at the time, and decided to grow the herb because he was sick of cultivating prunes with the rest of his family. The facility now covers about 5,000 acres and produces more that 60 million pounds of garlic a year.

1979: About 15,000 people attend the first annual Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. The three-day summertime festival, featuring live music, arts and crafts and food (such as garlic wine, garlic ice cream, and garlic sushi) awards the herb by the pound to competition winners. The event grows to more than 125,000 attendees, and Gilroy is dubbed the "Garlic Capital of The World."

1980: A rash of clinical research examining the role of garlic in reducing blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke begins. Some studies find the herb can reduce blood pressure, decrease cholesterol, fend off common colds, enhance the immune system, and prevent cancer. Garlic is not, however, recommended for preventing or curing bad breath.

It kills slugs, disinfects open wounds, helps keep gangrene at bay and may help prevent some cancers.

Wrap an olive-oil drenched head of it in tin foil and pop it in a 175 C oven for half an hour, and you've got a spread that'll do wonders for any hunk of bread.

Garlic's played a key role in human history for the past 6,000 years. But North Americans have only taken a shine to the stinking rose in the last half-century or so. In the early 20th century in North America, garlic was confined to working-class ethnic neighbourhoods, and was referred to by some as Bronx vanilla.

Garlic's Latin name is Allium sativum, placing it in the family of perennial bulbous plants that includes onions, leeks and shallots.

Garlic is native to Central Asia. It has long been a key ingredient in Mediterranean cooking and has been used in most of Europe, Asia and Africa. It was grown in ancient Egypt more than 5,000 years ago. Archaeologists found clay models of garlic bulbs in the tomb of Tutankhamen.

Ancient Greek athletes competing in the earliest Olympic games turned not to steroids to enhance their performance, but to garlic. Early Greek soldiers were fed garlic before going into battle to give them courage and increase the odds of victory.

In what's believed to be the first written mention of garlic, a Sumerian clay tablet dating back more than 4,500 years names the herb in a list of dietary staples. A thousand years later, the Ebers Papyrus — one of the world's oldest medical texts — lists hundreds of herbal remedies. Twenty-two of them include garlic as an ingredient.

While garlic's medicinal qualities have been touted for thousands of years, it was only in the middle of the 19th century that scientists began to understand what made garlic effective.

In 1858, the French chemist Louis Pasteur placed cloves of garlic in a petri dish full of bacteria. A few days later, he noticed that a bacteria-free area surrounded each clove.

During the Second World War, the British and Russian armies faced a shortage of penicillin. Instead, they used diluted garlic solutions to disinfect open wounds.

Modern research has attributed garlic's healing powers to hundreds of volatile sulfur compounds including allicin, alliin, cycroalliin, and diallyldisulphide. Allicin is what gives garlic its distinct odour.

Since Pasteur's early work on garlic's bacteria-killing power, the herb has been credited with killing 23 types of bacteria, including salmonella and staphylococcus.

There has been a raft of studies in recent years looking at garlic's medicinal qualities. Depending on who you believe, garlic:

• Prevents certain types of cancers, including prostate, skin, esophagus, and stomach cancer.
• Helps regulate blood sugar metabolism, stimulate and detoxify the liver, and stimulate the nervous system and blood circulation.
• Thins the blood as effectively as aspirin.
• Lowers cholesterol.
• Prevents hardening of the arteries by relaxing them and helps prevent calcium from binding with other substances that lodge themselves in plaque that can block blood vessels.

A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in February 2007 found that garlic does not lower levels of bad cholesterol. The authors of the study said the results were disappointing.

"If garlic was going to have a chance to work, it would have worked in this study," researcher Christopher Gardner said.

The study involved 192 adults with an average age of 50. All had moderately elevated levels of LDL cholesterol, the "bad" cholesterol that contributes to heart disease. Participants were randomly assigned to eat the equivalent of an average-sized clove of garlic in either raw form or garlic pills, or dummy pills, six days a week for six months.

At the end of it, half the raw garlic eaters reported breath and body odour. Others reported flatulence. There was virtually no effect on cholesterol levels in any of the groups.

Gardner said it's possible garlic could lower levels when taken at higher doses or in people with higher cholesterol levels.

Another study, five years earlier, found that Chinese men who ate a lot of vegetables from the allium food group were 50 per cent less likely than other Chinese men to develop prostate cancer. Chinese men have the lowest rate of prostate cancer in the world.

Health benefits aside, garlic can still pose some risks. There have been cases of botulism where people have stuck cloves of garlic in oil to flavour the oil. Refrigeration may help slow down the growth of spores that cause botulism, according to Health Canada, but it may not be enough to stop the oil from spoiling. This type of oil should be consumed within a week of making it. After that, it should be thrown away.

Health officials also recommend that you not consume garlic for seven to 10 days before you are scheduled for surgery, because garlic's blood-thinning capabilities can prolong bleeding.

You should also avoid eating too much raw garlic — a clove or two a day is considered safe in adults. But more of it, especially on an empty stomach, can upset your gastrointestinal system — and maybe leave you on your own at a party.

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