If Your Garlic Turns Blue, Don’t Panic, It’s Still Safe
Story time! Last night I was cooking dinner and doubled the amount of garlic (like I usually do because garlic is delicious) and added it to the pan I was cooking in. All of a sudden it looked like mold had started growing in the pot. But all of the ingredients I had used were perfectly good! Here's my picture from last night. You can see that it looks like it's moldy or something.
I looked at it and thought 'there's no way this is mold because all of the ingredients were fine when I put them in'. Eventually, I realized that the blue chunks were actually all of my pieces of garlic. So then I thought 'ok, I know I've had this garlic for a long time but it was good when I put it in the pot!' I took to Google and just took a shot in the dark and searched 'Why is my Garlic Blue' and shockingly something popped up.
It turns out that garlic turning blue, like a mold-looking color, is a normal reaction that garlic can have. It has something to do with the chemicals in garlic and under the right circumstances, it'll turn the garlic a funny color. A website called Delishably says some reasons why garlic can turn blue is because of age, adding acid to the garlic, the temperature ("Garlic that is pre-heated may or may not react with acid to change color."), and the color of the garlic bulbs before cooking.
Here's another example of garlic turning blue.
Last night I was actually cooking with lemon juice and so because I added acid to the mix the garlic changed color. Thankfully we were still able to enjoy our food because it's totally safe to eat, it just looks a little funny.
Has this ever happened to you? Tell me your story by shooting me a message on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! (@carlyrossonair)
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