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I have recently heard from a friend who is a chef, that removing the germ in a garlic clove helps with reducing the garlic breath and also avoids digestive problems some people have when eating garlic. This was also mentioned here (e.g. https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/30853)

He could not remember where he read it, but he said it has something to do with an enzyme that is only contained in the germ, hence you should remove it.

Is this true and does anybody have some evidence or further reading on this matter?

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    As a note, it's called the "Germ"... and that answer is unsourced, so I don't know that you can actually say that it's true... which I'm pretty sure it's not.
    – Catija ♦
    Dec 29, 2015 at 22:38
  • Sounds like an old wives tale to me... The last clove smelled pretty garlicky even w/o the germ.
    – Stephie ♦
    Dec 30, 2015 at 4:42

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According to this blog it makes a difference when the garlic isn't cooked (but less so if it is cooked) http://www.davidlebovitz.com/should-you-remove-the-green-germ-from-garlic/

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