Chemistry in a Salad Bowl

Watch online on demand on The Reaction!

Thursday 15 July 2010, 18:00 for 18:30-20.30
The Library, The Chemistry Centre, Burlington House

Eric Block discussed the alliums, bad breath and garlic oil.

In 1844, German chemist Theodor Wertheim thus described volatile sulfur compounds from garlic oil: "Since sulfur bonding has been little investigated so far, a study of this material promises to supply useful results for science."

While enormous progress has since been made in understanding what happens when garlic and other genus Allium plants are crushed, there are still important gaps in our knowledge.

This talk reviewed the colorful history of edible and ornamental genus Allium species, illustrating how alliums have been portrayed in literature and the arts. It looked at how onions make us cry, how garlic gives us bad breath, and whether garlic has health benefits and utility as a natural pesticide.

Also it described powerful new analytical methods to directly observe fleeting Allium-derived sulfur-containing intermediates, to instantly identify unstable sulfur compounds formed when alliums are cut, and to examine the unusual compounds found in the type of garlic oil studied by Wertheim.

Watch this lecture on demand on The Reaction.