Cool Green Bike
Posted in: New Color of Cool: Green | Comments (0)
Source: www.goblinmotors.com
The GoblinAero will fit a large variety of people. How you determine fit is by measuring the rider’s X-seam (to see how to easily do this, visit this link. After measuring the X-seam, compare it to the large frame size variation of this vehicle. It’s frame size is adjustable to fit X-seams that range from 37-46” That is a large segment of the population. The frame size is adjusted merely by sliding the seat forward or rearward.
Eco-Crusader @ December 6, 2009
10 Super “Hot” Technologies Using the Sun
Posted in: Clean Energizer | Comments (0)
Source: http://cleantechnica.com
Solar power technology is moving forward by leaps and bounds, with some new advancements being built out into usable installations virtually every day. Design concepts once thought to be ‘pie in the sky’ ideas are being implemented, and making a simple solar panel array look like old-school technology.
1. Water Cooled Solar Panels: The Pyron Solar Triad uses a specially designed, short focal-length, acrylic concentrating lens to reflect and refracts the light, effectively concentrating it to equal the power of 6,500 suns in a small pinpoint of light. A secondary optic captures this concentrated light and focuses it on a small PV cell. According to the company, the HE Optics System produces 800 times more electricity than a similarly-sized silicon solar cell.
2. Home Solar to Hydrogen Storage: An MIT professor, Daniel Nocera, formed a company this year to commercialize a new technology that can “split water” and store solar energy. The company’s key objective now is to achieve a solar energy breakthrough by to making solar energy cheap and widespread.
“The idea is to use solar panels to power the electrolyzer to produce hydrogen which would be stored in tanks. When people need electricity, the stored hydrogen would put through a fuel cell.”
3. Solar Roof Shingles, Printable and Paintable Solar Panels: If solar power was as easy to install as putting new shingles on your house, or painting your roof with a solar paint, it would lower the bar for home solar installation. The paintable solar technology is called silicon ink, and according to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, solar cells using the technology have “demonstrated a record 18 percent conversion of efficiency.” Solar shingles, by Dow Chemical, should be available in limited supply by mid 2010 and then readily available by 2011, says the company.
4. Large Thin Film Solar Panels: The SunFab™ system uses amorphous silicon based thin film technology to deliver the world’s largest and most powerful thin film panels and combines low-cost materials with one of the industry’s most advanced fabrication technologies.The company’s thin film solar panels have a frameless design, eliminating two predominant field reliability challenges for thin film panels: water penetration and weakened structure integrity over time.
5. Organic Solar Concentrators: Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a sophisticated and affordable method to turn ordinary glass into a high-tech solar concentrator, using dye-coated glass to collect and channel light which is usually lost from the surface of the panels. This technology could allow buildings to use tinted windows to collect energy. Another company, GreenSun, has developed bright-colored panels which capture different parts of sun’s spectrum, and don’t need direct sunlight to work.
6. Space Based Solar: Japan is developing a giant space based solar power generator to transmit solar energy to earth from 36,000km above the earth within the next 30 years. The Japanese government is backing the $21 billion project, which will include a solar power space station with four square kilometers of solar panels, cranking out an estimated 1 gigawatt of electricity - enough for almost 300,000 homes in Tokyo.
7. Solar Roads: The Solar Roadways concept, would pave roads with glass panels to collect and distribute solar energy to light the road at night and heat it in winter, with enough electricity leftover to power homes and businesses. The founder, Scott Brusaw, estimates that each mile of solar panels could power 500 homes, and estimates that the cost of producing a single 12′ X 12′ Solar Roadway panel could reach about $5,000.
8. Concentrated Solar: Stirling Energy System’s SunCatcher, consisting of a solar concentrator in a dish structure supporting an array of curved glass mirrors, may be deployed in Arizona soon, the first commercial-scale installation of the world’s most efficient solar technology. The SunCatcher employs a system of mirrors attached to a parabolic dish to concentrate the sun’s energy onto a high‐efficiency Stirling Engine, with each dish generating up to 25,000 watts of power.
9. Nanotechnology Solar: Researchers at McMaster University in Ontario have grown light-absorbing nanowires made of high-performance photovoltaic materials on thin but highly durable carbon-nanotube fabric. They’ve also embedded the tiny particles in flexible polyester film which could lead to solar cells that are both flexible and cheaper than today’s photovoltaics. In other nano-news, a team from the University of Southanpton’s School of Physics and Astronomy has developed a new range of photovoltaic devices using a process found in vegetative methods of light harvesting (photosynthesis), to deliver unprecedented amounts of electrical current from light.
10. Integrated Grid Ready Solar: Andalay AC solar panels, built with Akeena Solar’s proprietary technology, integrates the racking, wiring and electrical grounding components into the panels themselves. According to the company, this safeguards against breakdowns and boosts system reliability, delivering thousands of dollars in savings throughout its 30 year lifetime. The Andalay AC solar panels produce safe household AC power, and will enable a safer and easier installation process for solar installers and do-it-yourselfers by reducing the number of parts by 80% and eliminating complicated and potentially dangerous DC wiring. The Andalay AC solar panels were named as a Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Product for 2009.
As a bonus solar technology to watch out for, CoolEarth’s solar balloons are made with metallic plastic films, with half of the balloon being transparent, which lets the sunlight in to be concentrated on a small high-efficiency solar panel. The balloons are 8 feet across and suspended with a patented support system, based on the architectural principles of tensegrity. (stabilized by continuous tension or “tensional integrity” rather than by compression.) The resulting suspension system of posts and steel cables uses a minimum amount of material, has a small footprint, and causes the least disruption to the natural environment of any solar power plant.
Green Minds @ December 4, 2009
Hand-powered Portable Washer
Posted in: New Color of Cool: Green | Comments (0)
Source: www.ecoshop.com.au
You never need to do hand-washing again with the MagicWash - a fantastic hand-powered, eco-friendly, portable clothes washer. Holding 2.2kg (or about six shirts), it’s perfect for single people, students, holiday homes, camping, dorms, parents of toddlers or anyone who needs to wash small loads. MagicWash is easy to use - just turn the handle for 30 seconds and the vacuum effect does the work. No electricity, and economical on detergent and water.
Put clothes in cylinder with 6 litres of water and 4tblsns mild detergent, then turn handle for 30secs. Good for delicate hand washables such as silk, wool, lingerie, nappies, special fabric blends. Holds 2.2kg (about 6 shirts).
Environmentor @ December 1, 2009
Sony: Green Management 2010
Posted in: ECOrporations (Earth Friendly Programs) | Comments (0)
Source: www.sony.net
Sony established its Green Management 2010 mid-range group environmental targets, which will run through fiscal year 2010, in fiscal year 2006. These targets guide the Sony Group in its efforts to help prevent global warming, recycle resources, ensure appropriate management of chemical substances and address a broad range of other complex environmental issues.
Since the 1990s, Sony has focused on a variety of activities, such as developing environmentally conscious products, reducing the environmental impact of its sites and promoting product recycling. In 1998, Sony formulated its first set of mid-range environmental targets (Green Management 2002), which has undergone subsequent annual revisions. In 2006, Sony launched Green Management 2010, new mid-range targets outlining the challenges facing the Sony Group between then and fiscal year 2010.
When setting targets for Green Management 2010, Sony gave full consideration to the conclusions drawn from its review of Green Management 2005, as well as to legislative trends that could affect the Sony Group in the medium to long term. Consideration was also given to the concerns of investors, environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders regarding Sony and the direction of its business over the next five years. As a part of these activities, Sony exchanged opinions with several environmental NGOs, according to specific themes such as prevention of global warming and natural environmental conservation.
Sony also had three basic goals in mind when setting the targets, which were to aim high as a cutting-edge, global corporation, set targets for reductions of absolute greenhouse gas emissions and other sources of environmental impact, and create global challenges for the entire Sony Group.
Green Management 2010 encompasses general indicators, as well as individual targets. The general indicators, comprised of greenhouse gas and resource indices, are set to determine the environmental impact of the total life cycle of the Sony Group’s business activities, products and services, to the maximum possible extent. The indicators are also used to monitor Sony’s performance of the individual targets set to reduce environmental impact throughout the business cycle. The various elements of each of these indices were chosen based on such criteria as seriousness of environmental impact and controllability. Sony will continue to monitor eco-efficiency and evaluate the progress of environmental efforts and use the results to revise its various initiatives and targets.
Green Management 2010’s individual targets cover Sony’s entire business cycle, from the procurement of parts to the manufacturing, use, disposal and recycling of products. For example, to contribute to the prevention of global warming, targets have been set for absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at Sony Group sites throughout the world. At the same time, by including targets for controlling operating power consumption, as well as for ascertaining and reducing energy consumption during transport, Sony aims to gradually reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing, transporting and using Sony products. Green Management 2010 also outlines a broad range of other targets pertaining to, among others, communicating effectively with Sony’s diverse stakeholders about environmental issues, promoting partnerships with other companies and encouraging education on the subject of conservation.
EarthFriendlyCorporate @ November 30, 2009
Shell: Sustainable Development
Posted in: ECOrporations (Earth Friendly Programs) | Comments (0)
Source: www.shell.com
Contributing to sustainable development for us means helping meet the world’s growing energy needs in economically, environmentally and socially responsible ways. It is the right thing to do, and it is good for our business.
In practice, our contribution to sustainable development is about helping deliver benefits and reduce impacts. This approach covers both what we produce and how we produce it.
It is about our products:
We help deliver benefits by providing the modern energy that people need to prosper, and help reduce energy’s impacts by producing more cleaner-burning natural gas, for example, or working to build a transport biofuels business.
It is about our operations:
We work to build projects and run our facilities in ways that create lasting social benefits, for example by:
- employing local people;
- using local contractors and suppliers, and
- setting a good example through our business practices and ethics.
We work to reduce environmental and social impacts at our operations by:
- safeguarding the health and safety of our employees and neighbours;
- reducing disruptions to the community;
- lowering our emissions, including greenhouse gases;
- reducing our impact on biodiversity, and
- using less energy, water and other resources to produce the energy the world needs for development.
It is also about our people:
Using their expertise, creativity and skill to compete successfully and help meet the energy challenge. This requires a mindset – or a different way of thinking about our day-to-day business – that includes balancing our short and long-term interests, and integrating social and environmental concerns into our decision-making. It’s how we do business and, since 1997, has been embedded in our Business Principles.
EarthFriendlyCorporate @ November 29, 2009
LG “Pop”: Utilizing Power of the Sun
Posted in: New Color of Cool: Green | Comments (0)
Source: www.lge.com
LG Electronics (LG), a global leader and technology innovator in mobile communications, announced today the launch of its new compact full touchscreen phone, the LG GD510, or more simply, “Pop”. The LG GD510 can be recharged utilizing the power of the sun. The new mobile handset reflects the company’s aggressive green initiatives and represents its commitment to creating a healthier environment for everyone.
“We at LG have successfully reduced 2.1-million tons of greenhouse gas emissions in the first half of 2009 through greater energy efficiency and improved manufacturing processes,” said Dr. Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “We develop our products based on the company’s goal of eco-friendly sustainability. Our green policy is included in the handset’s entire lifecycle process, from raw materials through production, logistics, usage and disposal.”
LG’s environmental aspirations are demonstrated in the LG GD510’s solar-battery cover that uses the power of the sun to charge the phone. In addition to saving energy during the day, this also benefits users who are running low on power and are away from a charger at the time. Ten minutes under the sun provides up to 2 minutes 15 seconds of talk time or up to 180 minutes of standby time. Features like Eco-tree and Eco-calculator under the phone’s CO2 menu allow people to track how much they have reduced CO2 emissions by using the solar cell battery.
The LG GD510 is environmentally friendly in other ways, including its construction. LG strictly adheres to the European Union’s RoHS requirements, and went even further with the LG GD510, ensuring that it does not contain any polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and is made free of BFR (brominated flame retardants) and CFR (chlorinated flame retardants) almost up to 99.9 percent.
Moreover, a highly efficient battery charger cuts power consumption and subsequently reduces carbon emissions. When the phone is fully charged, it beeps and displays a message on screen, reminding users to unplug the charger and save energy. Packaging made from recycled paper with soy ink printing is another way the LG GD510 is environmentally-conscious.
“By 2012, LG plans to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by our products to a level 15 percent lower than 2007 by enhancing the energy efficiency of our main products,” added Dr. Ahn. “We will continue our role as a socially responsible leader in the mobile industry.”
In addition to its green attributes, the LG GD510 is efficient in other ways, too. It has a slim outer design and includes all the essential features without compromising usability or quality. As the smallest 3-inch full touchscreen phone on the market, the LG GD510 features a WQVGA wide screen surrounded by a narrow 4.8mm bezel and smooth metal body with a single button on the front that communicates the phone’s sense of simplicity. The LG GD510 also offers full multimedia features such as a 3MP camera suitable for taking photos to share online, as well as an MP3 player and web browser.
The LG GD510 was developed based on LG’s eco-friendly strategy and consumer insight, and will be available in Europe beginning in mid-October, followed by other markets. The solar panel battery cover is available as an optional accessory, which makes an already eco-friendly phone an even more sustainable choice. Prices for the phone and battery cover will vary market-to-market.
Environmentor @ November 28, 2009
Energy Monitoring Service by Google
Posted in: Green Business | Comments (0)
Source: www.guardian.co.uk/environment
Google may be best known for helping you find things on the web, but the online search company’s latest move is a bid to make futuristic low-energy eco-homes a reality.
Launching for the first time in the UK today, Google Powermeter is an online tool that allows householders to monitor their home’s energy use and greenhouse gas emissions via the web, and so reduce their consumption and save money.
Already being trialled in the US, the free energy-monitoring service uses new smart meters, or an add-on clip for conventional meters, to send electricity consumption to a personalised iGoogle web page. Users will be able to check their energy use anywhere in the world via a computer or mobile phone.
The idea is that householders will be persuaded to stop overfilling kettles, switch appliances off standby and turn off unused lights after being confronted with their daily energy use. Studies by organisations including the government’s Energy Saving Trust have suggested such energy monitoring leads people to cut their bills by 3-15%, potentially saving the average UK household £75 a year.
Google Powermeter is itself free, but will initially be available to British homeowners either by buying a gadget called AlertMe Energy or switching to first:utility, a small energy supplier. AlertMe’s device works using a broadband hub and a clip for your electricity meter. It can be bought from today for £69 with a £3 monthly subscription fee. First:utility customers will have to wait until next month to try the service.
Powermeter works by showing graphs of a user’s energy consumption over time – by day, week or month – and comparing it to their previous usage and regional averages. Ben Coppin, an employee at AlertMe who has trialled it for the last six months, said using the software had led him to switch off an unnecessary immersion heater that was costing £300-400 annually, and to halve his tumble dryer’s energy use by switching from its highest setting to its lowest.
Jens Redmer, director for business development at Google, said Powermeter’s value came from “immediate feedback”. He told of testers in California discovering pool pumps they hadn’t used for years but that were draining energy, and one woman who saved her apartment from burning down by detecting a burning toaster while at work and alerting a neighbour.
Redmer added that a social element could be a next step for the service, which keeps users’ energy usage private. “In the future, one new feature could be friendly competition – why can’t I challenge my friends to say I’ll save 10% over a year, and then trigger alerts when they’re falling behind, so I could ping them to encourage them?”
Pilgrim Beart, the founder and CEO of AlertMe, said: “Many consumers feel they can’t protect themselves from rising energy costs or do anything to stop climate change. However, more than a quarter of all energy use happens in our homes and this gives consumers the power to monitor, control, and reduce the energy they use.” Heating and power for UK homes account for 27% of the UK’s carbon footprint.
Powermeter’s move into the UK puts it a step ahead of Microsoft’s rival project, Hohm, which is in a US-only beta trial and works by creating an online dashboard of energy data from partnered utility companies. Unlike Google’s software, it covers both electricity and gas use, and you can enter your usage manually.
Enthusiasts have previously developed kits using open-source code that allow homes to post their energy usage to Twitter, and several companies sell energy monitors – such as the OWL and Wattson – which show real-time electricity consumption on wireless handheld displays. One such gadget available in the US, the TED 5000, already works with Powermeter.
The UK government is consulting on the specification for smart meters – whether they should feature wireless displays, for example – which will be fitted in every home by 2020
Environmentor @ November 27, 2009
Modern Male: Worst Man in History
Posted in: EcOTHER-Miscellany | Comments (0)
Source: www.reuters.com
Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 meters record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions.
Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.
Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.
These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled “Manthropology” and provocatively sub-titled “The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male.”
McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.
“If you’re reading this then you — or the male you have bought it for — are the worst man in history.
“No ifs, no buts — the worst man, period…As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet.”
Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping.
His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20,000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilized claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey.
FLEET-FOOTED ABORIGINALS
An analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge. Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 meters record of 9.69 seconds at last year’s Beijing Olympics.
In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberized tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.
“We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal,” he said.
“But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does.
“We can tell that T8 is accelerating toward the end of his tracks.”
McAllister said it was probable that any number of T8’s contemporaries could have run as fast.
“We have to remember too how incredibly rare these fossilizations are,” he said. “What are the odds that you would get the fastest runner in Australia at that particular time in that particular place in such a way that was going to be preserved?”
Turning to the high jump, McAllister said photographs taken by a German anthropologist showed young men jumping heights of up to 2.52 meters in the early years of last century.
STARK DECLINE
“It was an initiation ritual, everybody had to do it. They had to be able to jump their own height to progress to manhood,” he said.
“It was something they did all the time and they lived very active lives from a very early age. They developed very phenomenal abilities in jumping. They were jumping from boyhood onwards to prove themselves.”
McAllister said a Neanderthal woman had 10 percent more muscle bulk than modern European man. Trained to capacity she would have reached 90 percent of Schwarzenegger’s bulk at his peak in the 1970s.
“But because of the quirk of her physiology, with a much shorter lower arm, she would slam him to the table without a problem,” he said.
Manthropology abounds with other examples:
* Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.
* Athens employed 30,000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.
* Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 meters or more (the current world javelin record is 98.48).
McAllister said it was difficult to equate the ancient spear with the modern javelin but added: “Given other evidence of Aboriginal man’s superb athleticism you’d have to wonder whether they couldn’t have taken out every modern javelin event they entered.”
Why the decline?
“We are so inactive these days and have been since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear,” McAllister replied. “These people were much more robust than we were.
“We don’t see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago. There’s been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it’s a different story.
“At the start of the industrial revolution there are statistics about how much harder people worked then.
“The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress. We have lost 40 percent of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days.
“We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven’t developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn’t come close to replicating that.
“We wouldn’t want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from.”
Eco-Crusader @ November 26, 2009
Cellphones: All You Can Talk Under the Sun!
Posted in: Clean Energizer, New Color of Cool: Green | Comments (0)
Source: http://online.wsj.com
SEOUL—Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Co. separately started selling solar-powered phones Wednesday, a big step in a budding trend of cellphone makers seeking to tap growing consumer interest in eco-friendly products.
Samsung rolled out a touch-screen model, dubbed Blue Earth, with a shell made from recycled plastic water bottles and a solar panel on the back. LG’s model, called the GD510 Pop, also has a touch screen but its solar panel is an optional add-on.
Consumer demand for solar-based phones is hard to gauge, but makers are planning to market them as good for the environment as well as a way to hedge against running out of battery power.
Both the Samsung and LG phones have features that promote walking, such as software that measures distance traveled, and allow customers to calculate how much they can reduce carbon dioxide emissions with physical activities that replace driving.
“It is premature to say whether they will be successful, but overall it’s the right direction because people are increasingly interested in saving energy,” says Park Sung-min, a telecom industry analyst at Kyobo Securities in Seoul.
Samsung is aiming the Blue Earth model at premium customers, with pricing around $300. The phone, which can also be charged with a traditional plug-in cord, is initially available in Sweden; Samsung said it will quickly roll it out elsewhere in Europe and Asia.
![[SUNPHONE]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-ER045_SUNPHO_DV_20091014140228.jpg)
LG said the Pop phone will also initially be sold in Europe and be priced around $300 with the optional solar panel about $50. The companies said decisions are pending about U.S. sales.
Samsung said the Blue Earth phone can accept enough charge under an hour of normal sunlight to allow for 10 minutes of talk. LG said the Pop model permits about 13 minutes of talk after being charged for an hour under normal sunlight. The companies said the phones will also charge under artificial light, but more slowly.
Nokia Corp., the world’s largest cellphone maker by units and revenue, introduced a solar-based cellphone in 1997 but it didn’t continue in the company’s regular lineup. The company earlier this year demonstrated a concept phone that runs entirely on solar power.
Samsung, the second-largest maker, in June introduced its first solar-based phone, a bar-shaped model with a normal keypad and solar cells on the back. That phone, called Solar Guru in some markets and Crest Solar in others, was aimed chiefly at developing countries and sells for as little as $60. But Samsung also offers it in some wealthy European countries like France.
Eco-Crusader @ November 25, 2009
Garlic: Smelly but Healthy
Posted in: Earthly (Good&Bad) Foods | Comments (0)
Source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com
Garlic has long been touted as a health booster, but it’s never been clear why the herb might be good for you. Now new research is beginning to unlock the secrets of the odoriferous bulb.
In a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers show that eating garlic appears to boost our natural supply of hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide is actually poisonous at high concentrations — it’s the same noxious byproduct of oil refining that smells like rotten eggs. But the body makes its own supply of the stuff, which acts as an antioxidant and transmits cellular signals that relax blood vessels and increase blood flow.
In the latest study, performed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, researchers extracted juice from supermarket garlic and added small amounts to human red blood cells. The cells immediately began emitting hydrogen sulfide, the scientists found.
The power to boost hydrogen sulfide production may help explain why a garlic-rich diet appears to protect against various cancers, including breast, prostate and colon cancer, say the study authors. Higher hydrogen sulfide might also protect the heart, according to other experts. Although garlic has not consistently been shown to lower cholesterol levels, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine earlier this year found that injecting hydrogen sulfide into mice almost completely prevented the damage to heart muscle caused by a heart attack.
“People have known garlic was important and has health benefits for centuries,” said Dr. David W. Kraus, associate professor of environmental science and biology at the University of Alabama. “Even the Greeks would feed garlic to their athletes before they competed in the Olympic games.”
Now, the downside. The concentration of garlic extract used in the latest study was equivalent to an adult eating about two medium-sized cloves per day. In such countries as Italy, Korea and China, where a garlic-rich diet seems to be protective against disease, per capita consumption is as high as eight to 12 cloves per day.
While that may sound like a lot of garlic, Dr. Kraus noted that increasing your consumption to five or more cloves a day isn’t hard if you use it every time you cook. Dr. Kraus also makes a habit of snacking on garlicky dishes like hummus with vegetables.
Many home chefs mistakenly cook garlic immediately after crushing or chopping it, added Dr. Kraus. To maximize the health benefits, you should crush the garlic at room temperature and allow it to sit for about 15 minutes. That triggers an enzyme reaction that boosts the healthy compounds in garlic.
Garlic can cause indigestion, but for many, the bigger concern is that it can make your breath and sweat smell like…garlic. While individual reactions to garlic vary, eating fennel seeds like those served at Indian restaurants helps to neutralize the smell. Garlic-powder pills claim to solve the problem, but the data on these supplements has been mixed. It’s still not clear if the beneficial compounds found in garlic remain potent once it’s been processed into a pill.
Eco-Crusader @ November 24, 2009