Most people love the taste of garlic, but they hate the way its scent lingers on their breath. But eating a bit of apple or lettuce afterwards can banish this problem, a new study shows.

Researchers from the Ohio State University developed an experiment to learn which foods might help relieve the scent of garlic, which they say can linger on some people’s breath for nearly a day.

They gave participants three grams of softneck garlic cloves to chew for 25 seconds, and then had them immediately consume raw, juiced or heated apple, raw or heated lettuce, raw or juiced mint leaves, or green. Water was used as a control.

The substances responsible for garlic breath include diallyl disulfide, allyl mercaptan, allyl methyl disulfide, and allyl methyl sulfide. The levels of volatiles on the breath after consumption were analyzed by selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry.

Foods deodorize garlic breath through two mechanisms. First, enzymes in the raw foods help to destroy the odors, and then, phenolic compounds in both the raw and cooked foods destroy the odor-causing substances. Raw foods are generally more effective because they contain both the enzymes and the phenolic compounds, the researchers say.

Raw apple and raw lettuce were found to be the most effective, decreasing the concentration of the odor-causing substances in the breath by more than 50 percent in the first 30 minutes, compared with water, the researchers say of their study, which appears in the Journal of Food Science.