Today I want to take you on a journey so far back in time that even the ancient pyramids have yet to be built. We will travel 300 hundreds miles south from Cairo down the Nile passing vicious crocodiles sunning themselves on the sand in the desert heat.

Melons will be our chief source of fluids as the temperature grows hotter and hotter. Finally we will arrive on beach so we can travel by foot to the mouth of the canyon at Abydos, which the Egyptians believed to be the entrance to the underworld. The feeling here is weird almost mystical but we won't enter because it is eight traveling miles more and over 4000 years back in time where we will find the first evidence of the treasure of The Stinky Rose. Clay sculptures and paintings on clay tablets of The Stinky Rose were found here in the cemetery at El-Mahasna. Here also in the tomb that is presumed to have been the burial-place of a medicine man or magician was found the first historical evidence of the oldest known chess set.

Ancient Egyptians treasured The Stinky Rose so much that with 15 lbs of it you could buy a slave and the first known strike in history took place because of the absence of the Stinky Rose.The slaves that worked on the Great Pyramids refused to work because The Stinky Rose showed up late. It is said to have cost the Pharaohs 2 million dollars in today's money value to provide this to his slaves during the building of just one pyramid. The Egyptians had carved an inscription into the great pyramid of King Khufu (Cheops) detailing the amount of The Stinky Rose, onions, and radishes eaten by the slaves during the twenty-year building period. It's estimated that they ate about one and one half million pounds. The slaves ate The Stinky Rose to increase their stamina and to maintain their over-all health. Today we know The Stinky Rose as the incredible, mysterious, pungent, and miracle known as garlic.

All throughout history, garlic has been used to heal. The Summarians (2600 BC) used garlic for its healing powers, and they introduced it China where it later spread to Japan and Korea. The Egyptians documented on a papyrus around 1500 BC, prescribed garlic for 22 diseases. The ancient Greeks and Romans used the herb for repelling scorpions and curing bladder infections. The chief medical officer in the Roman army around 50 A.D. treated infected Roman soldiers who had intestinal worms with garlic. Ancient Greek athletes believed that chewing garlic, would help them outperform other athletes in races. In 1772, four French grave-robbers raiding plague victims' corpses in Marseilles were amazingly immune to the plague. Their secret was garlic in vinegar, which became known as the Vinegar of the Four Thieves. They ate it, anointed their clothes with it and breathed through it on rags, and even took baths in it. Yes the stinky rose has a wonderful intriguing history. But more important is the history it is making today.

Garlic's sulfur content is highest of all vegetables and three times higher than those vegetables known for their sulfur (broccoli and onions). It is beneficial as a source of selenium, an important trace mineral for antioxidant activity that helps to slow down the aging process. Some biologists think that Russia's and Bulgaria's impressive number of people over the age of 100 are do to the large quantities of garlic they consume.

Three medium cloves of fresh raw garlic contain 13 calories, 1 gram of protein, 3 grams of carbohydrate and 2 grams of sodium. Garlic does not contain fiber or fat.

Garlic is a mini-storehouse of minerals. Manganese, copper, iron, zinc, sulfur, calcium, aluminum, chlorine, and selenium are all part of the minerals contained in garlic in one of the great ironies of nature, raw garlic has very little biological activity. But when you "damage" garlic cloves - by slicing, cooking, or chewing - the enzyme alliinase immediately converts alliin into allicin, which gives garlic its characteristic odor.

Allicin was once thought to be garlic's principal active ingredient. However, researchers now know that allicin is rapidly oxidized. More than 100 biologically active sulfur-containing compounds, proteins, and saponins are created as a result of this oxidation. While allicin may still serve as a general marker of garlic's potency, research increasingly points to S-allylcysteine and other compounds as the most therapeutically active ingredients in garlic.

There are over a thousand studies being done on garlic today because of its importance in the fight for good health. Garlic is shown to help combat Candida infections. In one study, they injected an aged garlic extract into mice with Candida infections. After a day, the Candida colonies numbered 400, compared with 3,500 among the mice given only a salt-water solution. After two days, the garlic-treated mice were free of Candida.

Scientific research has also confirmed garlic's role as a natural antibiotic. Back in 1983, Lau noted in Medical Hypotheses that "garlic extract has broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against many genera of bacteria and fungi. One way garlic works is by promoting phagocytosis, the ability of white blood cells to fight infections. Another is by stimulating other immune cells, such as macrophages and T-cells to fight bacterial and viral infections and to scavenge for cancer cells

Garlic also protects against cancer. Benjamin Lau, M.D., Ph.D., noted in Molecular Biotherapy that garlic "is one of the most ancient of plants reputed to have an anticancer effect. As recorded around 1550 B.C., in the Ebers Papyrus, garlic was used externally for the treatment of tumors by ancient Egyptians and internally by Hippocrates and Indian physicians." Why does garlic lower blood pressure? Blood pressure increases in response to the body's production of angiotensen I-converting enzyme (ACE). Some prescription blood pressure drugs work as "ACE inhibitors," blocking formation of the chemical. Garlic contains gamma-glutamylcysteine, a natural ACE inhibitor, according to an article in Planta Medica.

Medical studies have shown that garlic - the aromatic seasoning people either love or hate - can lower cholesterol, prevent dangerous blood clots, reduce blood pressure, prevent cancer, and protect against bacterial and fungal infections.

So find pick up that stinky rose, truly a treasure, and begin on your journey to better health, stamina and let us not forget incredible taste.