Breastfeeding Mothers Who Consume Garlic May Have A 'Garlicky' Breast Milk

Food chemists at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg (FAU) have discovered how powerful garlic is. These experts found that breastfeeding mothers who have eaten garlic can actually have garlicky flavored breast milk.

According to aninews.com, this is caused by allyl methyl sulfide (AMS) which is a metabolite which is formed in a strong concentration during breastfeeding. Whether an aroma would have an effect on the food preference children develop, or children would grow to love garlic can be determined by further studies.

Researcher Dr. Andrea Büttner said that "There are many myths about breast milk. However, we still know very little about the impact of food consumed by mothers on their infants' diets later in life. Some researchers suggest that children prefer those foods that their mothers consume during breastfeeding, because they suggest that the milk tastes the same or at least similar."

Peoplemagazines.net also reported Büttner's findings on the impact of mother's milk are much more conservative than others since some aromas are very inconsistent and can be metabolized in the body to derivatives that have little to do with original food.

For the study, food chemists analyzed a number of breastfeeding mothers who had eaten raw garlic 2.5 hours earlier. After that, the milk was examined using a sensory test by olfactory experts who found a garlic and cabbage-like odor in the samples.

Then, the milk aroma was divided into several components using gas chromatography, finding metabolites which were clearly from garlic: AMS, allyl methyl sulfoxide (AMSO) and allyl methyl sulfone (AMSO2). These metabolites were simultaneously sniffed by olfactory experts and were found that the AMS give off a garlic-like aroma, which other derivatives didn't, Indian Express reported.

This made other experts wonder if it will have an effect on the infants' eating habit. "We cannot answer this question at present," explained Büttner, adding "AMS is definitely not the same as the original garlic aroma. It is generally an interesting finding of our research that derivatives of aromas are also found in breast milk, which are different to their original form in the food consumed."

Another study had already shown that infants' tend to drink more milk when their mothers consume garlic. Meaning that there should not be any concerns that the garlicky flavor will have a negative effect on the infants' food preference.