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Garlic tastes great. Garlic breath doesn’t. The sulfuric compounds that give garlic its punch get absorbed by your lungs and come right back out when you exhale. The more garlic you ate, the stronger the smell.
You can’t eliminate it completely, but you can knock it down to tolerable levels.
1. Chew on parsley or mint leaves
Parsley works. Chewing it after a garlicky meal neutralizes some of the odor. Mint leaves do the same thing. The chlorophyll in fresh greens binds to those sulfur compounds and masks the smell. Keep a sprig of either in your fridge if garlic’s a regular part of your meals.
2. Eat an apple
Apples contain their own sulfuric compounds that react with the ones from garlic and cancel them out. Bite into a raw apple after you finish eating. Crisp varieties work better because the crunch helps scrub your mouth at the same time.
3. Drink water
Water flushes out the compounds before they settle in. As you drink more, your saliva production goes up. More saliva means more enzymes breaking down food particles and washing them away before they turn into breath problems. Drink a full glass right after your meal and keep sipping.
4. Brush your teeth
Brush immediately after eating garlic. The toothbrush scrubs away food particles stuck between your teeth before they break down and release more odor. Don’t skip your tongue (that’s where a lot of bacteria hang out). If you can’t brush right away, at least rinse your mouth thoroughly.
5. Don’t smoke
Smoking makes garlic breath worse. It increases the sulfur compounds coming out of your body and decreases saliva production. If you’re a smoker and you just ate garlic, wait at least 20 minutes before lighting up. Better yet, skip it entirely until the garlic’s cleared your system.
The upside
Garlic’s been used for centuries to treat infections, wounds, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Its antibacterial properties are real. So yeah, your breath might smell for a few hours, but you’re getting actual health benefits out of it.
