Garlic Gives Me Stinky Breath

It always makes me very mad

when someone says, “Your breath smells bad.”

But on my own, I just can’t tell

if my breath has a stinky smell.

And here’s what gets me even more.

It’s garlic from the night before

that somehow, slowly, makes its way

into my breath throughout the day!

If I eat mints, or chew some gum,

it’s not enough to keep kids from

saying, “Pee-yew, your breath, you reek!”

the minute that I start to speak.

So please do tell me, Dr. Jo,

how garlic breath can somehow grow

from stuff I’ve eaten yesterday.

And what would make it go away?

It turns out garlic—onions too—

have sulfur gases that pass through

your gut, and don’t get broken down.

Instead they simply move around.

They get into your blood and seep

out through the lungs, and then they keep

on flowing to your breath, which goes

directly into your friend’s nose.

These sulfur compounds are what stay

and make your breath smell bad all day.

So even if a mint is strong,

it won’t replace that smell for long.

But it turns out milk binds so well

to sulfurs that they lose their smell.

So garlic bread with milk to drink

will keep you safe; your breath won’t stink.

COOL FACTS ABOUT STINKY BREATH

• Hornworms use their stinky nicotine breath to repel hungry wolf spiders. The hornworms, which are the larval form of sphinx moths, feed on tobacco leaves that are packed with nicotine. It turns out that nicotine is poisonous for many insects, birds, and spiders, but not for hornworms. So hornworms can eat it, store it in their tissues, and become poisonous as well. Then, when they breathe the nicotine out, wolf spiders get the message that these hornworms are dangerous to eat. A few puffs of a hornworm’s nicotine-filled breath are enough to make the predator jump back and look for something else to dine on.
• In addition to milk, other foods that help keep away garlic breath are raw apples, spinach, and parsley. All of these foods contain compounds that turn stinky sulfur into other forms that don’t stink. They all work best when eaten with the garlicky meal.
• If you still have garlic breath even after eating the right food combinations, don’t worry, it will go away eventually. Unfortunately, though, it can take as long as one whole day after you eat the garlic for the stink to disappear!