Both raw and cooked garlic can be very healthy and beneficial in a number of ways. Raw garlic produces what is called allicin which could be extremely useful in fighting cancer as well as heart disease which is currently a leading cause of death in the United States.

It is important to keep in mind that cooking garlic can decrease its overall nutritional and medicinal value, so you may want to eat it raw if you want to get all of the nutritional benefit possible from it. All of the different cancer-fighting properties in raw onions are essentially deactivated when they are cooked, which is why they are typically healthier when eaten raw.