Superfood Broccoli

Broccoli offers greater potential to ward off disease than the other vegetables. Other cruciferous veggies in the same family are Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower plus more, and all may reduce your risk for many common diseases including:

• Arthritis

• Cancer

• High blood pressure and heart disease

• Kidney disease

• Diabetes

There might be hundreds of super-nutrients that support optimal, body-wide health in broccoli. This includes:

• Fiber

• Sulforaphane

• Glucoraphanin

• Phenolic Compounds

• Dilndolylmethane
  

The risk of fatty liver and liver cancer is reduced with broccoli, and there are superior benefits of broccoli sprouts. This is an excellent alternative if you don’t like the taste or smell of broccoli. Plus, you really don’t need to eat as much to reap the benefits from key therapeutic compounds like sulforaphane. Even the small amounts of broccoli sprout extract, has the power to markedly reduce the size of rat mammary tumors induced by chemical carcinogens. The researchers at Johns Hopkins University report this finding.

The new studies show you should lightly steam your broccoli to boost the sulforaphane content of the raw mature vegetable as you get only about 12% of the total sulforaphane content available from the raw broccoli. You can further optimize the sulforaphane content by adding mustard seed that includes the important enzyme myrosinase. Some foods containing this enzyme are:

• Mustard seed

• Daikon radishes

• Wasabi

• Arugula

• Cole slaw

Mustard seed is said to contain a particularly resilient form of myrosinase, as is reported in a 2013 study. Frozen broccoli has a reduced amount of myrosinase as it’s already been balanced as part of the processing. Boiling or microwaving it further will easily lead to it being more or less devoid of sulforaphane.

By eating broccoli each day, it just might keep that doctor away! Some of these remarkable benefits of broccoli are supporting detoxifications, reducing inflammation, fighting allergies, improving digestion, supporting eye health, benefiting your skin, providing important vitamins and minerals, helping to reduce blood sugar levels and supporting heart health of prevention of thickening of your arteries.

With all the great things proven through research that are wonderful benefits of broccoli, why wouldn’t we all put this powerful vegetable in our daily diet? If you aren’t crazy about the taste, put some melted cheese on top. Sorry about the smell of this veggie, but the benefits far outweigh the temporary odor of broccoli.

-Dr Fredda Branyon