# Cloves: Antioxidants, Dental Uses and History

- Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2115806416871244118
- Source account: [@HealthOrganica\_](https://x.com/HealthOrganica_)
- Source language: English
- Duration: 1:15
- Published: 2026-10-31
- Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/IxG8ufq7qmkB/en/cloves-antioxidants-dental-uses-and-history

## Transcript

[0:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/IxG8ufq7qmkB/en/cloves-antioxidants-dental-uses-and-history) Cloves. Number one of the hundred richest polyphenol foods ever ranked. Fifteen thousand milligrams in every hundred grams. Gram for gram, that's nine times dark chocolate, twenty-seven times blueberries, and a hundred and fifty times red wine. And once, they were priced like it.

[0:19](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/IxG8ufq7qmkB/en/cloves-antioxidants-dental-uses-and-history?t=19) Nearly two thousand years ago, records say Han dynasty officials held a clove in their mouths before speaking to the emperor, the original breath mint.

[0:29](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/IxG8ufq7qmkB/en/cloves-antioxidants-dental-uses-and-history?t=29) In 1438, a pound of cloves in Oxford cost a master carpenter eight days' wages. That buzz on your tongue when you bite one, that's eugenol, a compound that numbs.

[0:41](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/IxG8ufq7qmkB/en/cloves-antioxidants-dental-uses-and-history?t=41) It's why dentists reached for clove oil for toothache, and it's still in some dental cements today. And the numbers keep stacking up.

[0:49](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/IxG8ufq7qmkB/en/cloves-antioxidants-dental-uses-and-history?t=49) A study of over three thousand foods found cloves had the highest antioxidant content of the lot. In one dental trial, a homemade clove gel numbed gums noticeably better than a placebo.

[1:01](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/IxG8ufq7qmkB/en/cloves-antioxidants-dental-uses-and-history?t=61) In the lab, clove stops common food bacteria from growing.

[1:05](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/IxG8ufq7qmkB/en/cloves-antioxidants-dental-uses-and-history?t=65) And early lab research suggests eugenol may help calm inflammation. So maybe it's time to add cloves back to your spice rack.