This is almost my #1 fatloss tip. Pick your favourite cuisine. Thai, Chinese, Italian, French, Spanish, Mexican, French; they all include garlic. Most everyday recipes have at least 1 clove of garlic. Garlic also packs a whole lot of health claims these days. From Timothy Ferris’ 4-Hour Body, espousing garlic in his PAGG stack to lowering blood pressure and apparently fending off the plague.
For me however, it’s none of these reasons which make it excellent for weightloss. It’s the bang for your buck in the flavour department. It’s potent flavour helps your food taste amazing and contains relatively low amounts of calories. This means the kilo or more of vegetables you might be eating, to help keep your metabolism cranking, is now going to taste amazing.
The downside to wanting to garlic everything is having to chop it. That’s why I offer this simple tip. Chop enough garlic for a week (or more).
Garlic can be stored in the fridge covered in a thin layer of oil for at least a week. This is how it’s stored in restaurants all across the world. With the aid of a microwave and a mini-chopper or food processor this whole process can take less than 5 minutes.
- Chop the top off a garlic bulb, leaving the root intact holding the bulb together
- place on a plate in the microwave and cook on high for 45 seconds
- once cool enough to touch the cloves of garlic should slip out of the skins, straight into a food processor
- process until finely chopped
- scrape the garlic into a jar or container with a firm sealing lid and cover with just enough vegetable or peanut oil to protect the garlic from contact with air.
I use a fork to remove the garlic from the jar, leaving most of the oil behind or use a silicone pastry brush to brush the garlic and the oil onto my chicken or fish before grilling so that I don’t have to use nasty spray oil on my pans.
The other good news is that, that other bastion of fatloss and flavour, chili peppers can be prepared in the same manner.
Photo: Troy10
