Economic Research: Broccoli Salad

Monday 17 December 2012

Broccoli Salad

Broccoli is a cruciferous vegetable with numerous health benefits. If a new study holds true, you may be better off eating raw broccoli rather than cooked. Here’s why. Unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you’ve probably heard about the wonderful health benefits of broccoli. Not only is this cruciferous vegetable high in vitamin C and fiber, it’s also a rich source of compounds known as glucosinolates which are broken down in the body to form sulforaphane. Sulforaphane has been demonstrated in numerous studies to have potent anti-cancer properties. No wonder broccoli is touted as one of the best vegetables for cancer prevention. Unfortunately, if you’re enjoying cooked broccoli as opposed to raw, you may be missing out on these important anti-cancer benefits if the results of a recent study holds true. This study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, looked at sulforaphane levels in the blood and urine of a group of people who had eaten raw broccoli versus a group who had eaten cooked broccoli. When the researchers determined the bioavailability of sulforaphane in the two groups, they found that the group who ate the raw broccoli had sulforaphane bioavailability of 34 percent versus the cooked broccoli group where the bio availability was only 3.4 percent. This means that very little of the sulforaphane in the cooked broccoli was made available for the body to use.