Home-cooked garlic remains a healthy food

• The OSCs quantified by HPLC in cooked garlic are reported for the first time.
• Stir-fried, chopped garlic reported the highest levels of OSCs.
• Pre-cooking treatments significantly influenced the OSCs levels.
• It was possible to detect beneficial compounds after all assayed treatments.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that garlic has many biological properties due to its phytochemicals. These components include organosulphur compounds (OSCs) such as allicin, which is a chemically unstable metabolite. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether garlic could still be considered a healthy food after home cooking procedures. For that purpose, an experimental design with two factors and three levels was used. Pre-cooking and cooking procedures were the selected factors. Allicin, ajoenes, 2-vinyl-4H-1,3-dithiin (2-VD), diallyl sulphide (DAS), diallyl disulphide (DADS) and diallyl trisulphide (DATS) were the target analytes. Samples were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography coupled to ultraviolet detector (HPLC-UV). The results showed that it was possible to find OSCs with important biological activities after all pre-cooking and cooking treatments. This is the first study to our knowledge to investigate cooked garlic using an analytical methodology, which avoid artifacts formation.