Do you feed family garlic based dishes without considering the after smell the next day?

[Wutipg]

Is this something other people consider at all? Say you have tweens or teens who are at an age where peers may notice things like garlic breath. Do you consider this at all and say not feed garlic bread night before school or if they are going to a party or something. Or do most people not give it a second thought? Just curious as it’s something I tend to avoid garlic if working next day but maybe I over worry

Gosh we eat garlic pretty much every day. Maybe we just smell.

I can never smell garlic on anybody the next day

I am not fond of garlic, maybe just a piece of garlic bread sometimes. People who eat a lot of it, do have smelly breath for ages , and you can smell it on their clothes if they cook with it at home.

I live in a little old terrace cottage, and the man next door does most of the cooking for him and his wife, and three or four days a week, he makes garlicky meals, and the smell permeates through all the walls, and lingers for ages here. even into the bedrooms upstairs.

Not quite as nice as a lovely roast dinner cooking.!

Not bizzare at all! My children reek of garlic after they've spent the weekend with their Dad. They brush their teeth and use mouth wash before bed but when I wake my son the next morning for school his room stinks! It's like smelly socks..awful

I think some people smell of garlic more strongly than others. It's not something I ever consider, and I've never noticed my family (growing up, or family now) or mates smelling of garlic unless they maybe had it at lunchtime and in the afternoon it's on their breath a bit.

But once, as a kid, I remember a couple visiting and they said sorry I'd they smelt of garlic - they'd had something really strong the night before. She didn't smell of it at all - but he absolutely stank! It was awful, it made me feel ill. It wasn't his breath, it must have been on his skin. I've never met anyone else like it apart from a bloke on the next table in a restaurant once. Again, not fresh garlic, but a sort of stale sweaty garlic smell.

So if you think your family has the tendency to smell strongly after garlic then, yeah, I might try not to eat too much of it! But if not, I'd eat it whenever.

My ex MIL was very anti garlic. Had never tried it and never would. She described it as 'nasty, foreign muck' (yes, she was racist and xenophobic.)

I took great pleasure in serving up seconds of the food I had liberally laced with garlic. Every single time I cooked for her. She never realised.

We have garlic in almost every meal, but I think you have to eat it raw or in vast quantities to really reek of it - I’ve only really smelt it at that level once in my whole life, and that was a French guy at a party 35 years ago!

Coffee breath, however, now that’s something I really notice … 🤮

OP I’m exactly the same as you, including the school peers saying about it sweating out of pores etc. Though it seems from the answers here that this is unusual! I do like garlic though, just never cook with it, and think twice about what I am doing the next day if I am choosing from a menu.

Me ! I avoid garlic if I have something important next day or know I'll be close to other people. Next day garlic breath doesn't smell of garlic, it just smells bad. I can definitely smell my husband's garlic breath especially if he's had garlic and I haven't, often other people too. I don't mind it as long as I don't need to be too close for too long but I do notice.

Very interesting to read that most people don't think about this at all !

I should add that I also worry about bad breath generally (including coffee breath) and a colleague once admitted she had thought I was an alcoholic, until she realised it was the alcohol from mouth wash she could smell!

@TheSpottedZebra

My theory is that people who are mimsy about garlic smell normally reek of fabric softener, so it all evens out.

Exactly this. Mimsy. What a great underused word.

I don't add garlic to meals the night before work so I'm with you @Wutipg. I have quite a sensitive sense of smell so notice it on others.

Lets all pray for the people eating food with zero flavour.

I don't like cooked garlic so have grated garlic on the side of my plate. I am sure I smell of garlic to people who don't eat it, but no-one has ever said anything.

Maybe it depends on your body? If I eat garlic I do v stinky farts for hours. Maybe its just me but I wouldn’t give it to my teen before a party just in case 👀

@Wutipg

I also remember peers at school worrying about it. One girl used to always tell everyone that even if you brush your teeth, it literally comes out your pores 🤪

It does indeed. As does alcohol.

I eat garlic every day in dishes so impossible to think about the next day

I think you can only smell it on others if you haven't had it yourself .

Only occasionally smelt it on others.
Sometimes if I over do it with the garlic when cooking I can smell it on myself all the day after and it makes me gag! Hasn't stopped me using it though just makes me think about how much I'm adding for awhile (until it happens again!)

😁 @Simonjt Thankfully you can add flavour to meals without using garlic.

@Chewbecca

This was definitely a thing when I was at school but isn’t anymore.

I don’t know why that might be, could be that the stink has been bred out of today’s garlic, could be that we eat so much of it now compared to in the 70s/80s that we have become immune to smelling it. Or something else?!

I think often when people smell of garlic or spices, it is on their clothes and hair (from cooking steam) or their skin from preparing it, rather than their breath/sweat.

I suspect in the 70s/80s, it was because people washed their clothes/hair less often (particularly school uniform), kitchen extractor fans were less common/effective, utility rooms were less common, not eveyone had central heating so the kitchen window may have been left closed to conserve warmth. It was also not considered polite to dry laundry in the living areas, laundry was dried in the kitchen or bathroom, absorbing cooking smells in the kitchen.

@TheSpottedZebra is 100% right! And I'd take garlic over fabric softener any day!!

We are S Asian. Nearly everyday I cook Asian food with garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, tamarind, garam masala, curry leaves, mango powder, asafoetida.....

We probably smell of all this but no one's brought it up and I can't say I greatly care. I am not going to eat like the Queen or give up spices.

@JanisMoplin

Tell me more about mango powder please. What sort of flavour does it add? I use tamarind a lot and love the flavour. Is mango powder similar?

Oh I have a teen. He seems to be popular enough despite eating garlic daily. Most of his school are POC garlic eating types so maybe they all just smell together:)