Published on Jun 9, 2014 
 
 Garlic is good for your body, great for your taste buds, but terrible for your breath. This episode looks at the plant beloved by chefs and feared by vampires. Once again we teamed up with the Compound Interest blog to break down the chemistry of garlic, and how to beat the bad breath it causes. 
 
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 There are four main volatile organic compounds that contribute to garlic breath. None of them are actually present until garlic is crushed or chopped. These compounds also contain sulfur, which can penetrate bacteria cell membranes, making garlic an antibacterial assassin. 
 
 
 
 Special thanks to Compound Interest: http://www.compoundchem.com 
 
 Original Compound Interest graphic/post here: http://www.compoundchem.com/2014/05/0... 
 
 Scientific review: George Preti, Ph.D., member of the Monnell Chemical Senses Center 
 
 
 
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 TIME Health For more, visit TIME Health 
 
 Garlic tastes good to eat, and it’s good for you — so how does it turn in to such a date-night killer after you’ve consumed it? 
 
 The folks at the American Chemical Society and chemistry blog Compound Interest have done the research and narrowed it down to four volatile organic compounds. 
 
 Strangely enough, none of these compounds are present in garlic until it is broken down or chopped, but when garlic’s structure is damaged, enzymes convert the compound Allin to Allicin, which is responsible for the smell. Allin then breaks down in to the four compounds and one of those – Allyl Methyl Sulfide – breaks down much more slowly and as the compound gets in to your bloodstream, the only ways it can excrete are through urine, sweat, or breath. 
 
 There is a fix however – if you want to mask your garlic breath, your best options are milk, or parsley. 

 Garlic adds a wonderfully pungent aroma and flavor to foods — and it’s got health benefits as well, having been used to help treat everything from high blood pressure to skin infections. So why is it that something so good for your body is so bad for your breath? 
 
 The American Chemical Society, collaborating with the Compound Interest blog, has produced a video to illustrate the answer to that question. 
 
 Garlic contains four major organic compounds responsible for the reek in your breath: diallyl disulfide, allyl methyl sulfide, allyl mercaptan and allyl methyl disulfide. Interestingly, none of these compounds is present in garlic when it's in the ground. It’s only when the cloves are chopped or crushed that they’re formed and released. 
 
 The biggest culprit is allyl methyl sulfide, which is slow to break down in your body after you eat garlic. Even if you brush your teeth or rinse your mouth, the bad breath still remains and can last for hours. 
 
 How to cover up that stinky garlic breath? Try chewing on some parsley or drinking a glass of milk, the American Chemical Society suggests. You can also check out these 10 tips for combating occasional bad breath. 
 
 — James Eng, NBC News
– We know it as garlic breath, but a scientist might think of it as allyl methyl sulfide breath. That organic compound is the main culprit in the stench that often results after a garlic-infused meal, explains a new video by the American Chemical Society and the Compound Interest chemistry blog. Three other compounds also play a role, but allyl methyl sulfide takes longer to break down in the body and thus takes most of the blame. None of the compounds are present in whole garlic but are instead created when the garlic is chopped or crushed, notes a summary of the video by NBC News. And it's not as if the odor arises because you've got some garlic stuck in your teeth—it's way more pernicious than that, explains Time. The offending compound enters the bloodstream and leaves the body through urine, sweat, and, yes, breath. What to do? The video suggests eating parsley or drinking milk. (Which might be necessary, because garlic is considered an aphrodisiac by some.)