Garlic (
Allium sativum L.) bulb is believed to contain various bioactive substances that contribute to health, such as organosulfur compounds, phenolic compounds, and polysaccharides [
1], and is used worldwide as a spice and ingredient in other foods and pharmaceuticals. Garlic has been cultivated and used since ancient times; it was already being cultivated and eaten in ancient Egypt [
2]. Garlic is also known to produce a variety of bioactive components and exhibit different bioactivities depending on the method of preparation or processing. Black garlic is a processed food produced by aging fresh garlic for 10 to 40 days at 60 to 90 °C under a humidity-controlled environment of 70 to 90% [
3]. Black garlic is characterized by dark brown turned scales, which is due to the Maillard reaction [
4]. Black garlic has no pungent smell peculiar to garlic and has a sweet taste like dried fruit. Furthermore, black garlic has been reported to exhibit a number of bioactivities, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer effects [
5,
6,
7]. Sulfides, cysteine derivatives, allicin, and other sulfur-containing compounds have been proposed as key factors in garlic's antioxidant and other bioactivities [
8,
9,
10]. On the other hand, non-sulfur compounds commonly found in plants, such as polyphenols, are also known to have health-promoting effects [
11,
12]. The biological properties of garlic may be due to the synergistic effects of various phytochemicals in garlic and their proportions. However, few studies have conducted comprehensive comparative analyses of the differences in bioactivities and content composition among the varieties of garlic used to produce black garlic. Therefore, there are still many unclear points regarding changes in the chemical compositions during the production process of black garlic and the relationship between the various biological activities and active compounds. As indices for evaluating the bioactivity of foods, many
in vitro experimental systems, such as radical scavenging and chemiluminescence, are used in experiments to evaluate antioxidant effects, and many experimental systems using model experimental animals are used to evaluate anti-inflammatory effects. However, these systems do not accurately reflect
in vivo effects and have cost and ethical problems. Therefore, the Simultaneous Evaluation Cell Assay for Antioxidant, Anti-inflammatory, and Innate Immune Activation was developed by Kazumura
et al, which utilizes the biological defense response of innate immune cells to simultaneously measure not only the reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging capacity of foods, but also the effects of foods on innate immune function [
13].In this study, the bioactivities of fresh and black garlic was evaluated by four methods: (1) evaluation of antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and innate immune-activation effects using the Simultaneous Evaluation Cell Assay described above, (2) measurement of 1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity, (3) measurement of the viability of cancer cells, (4) evaluation of total phenol, flavonoid compounds, carbohydrate, and amino acids contents.