Re: Which Food Pyramid?

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On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 01:21:27 -0700, Chris J. <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

As a wild guess, I'd say that by eating wild vegetables they are
getting higher doses of certain phytochemicals, but are also getting
them in varying doses and varieties. Just a hunch.

G'day G'day Chris,

It's a pretty good hunch. Sulforaphane is one such phytochemical.
It is tasteless, odourless etc but it greatly reduces the risk of many
cancers. Google sulforaphane and cancer. There isn't I imagine a
person living with cancer who hasn't wished they had eaten more
cabbage, broccoli etc.

BTW there are about three spellings of sulforaphane. I hope today I'm
using the most common as determined by Google hits. I used to use the
sulphoraphane spelling. The point is sulforaphane was unintentionally
bred out of broccoli when bitter compounds were bred out. Some people
are five times more sensitive than others to this bitter taste. It is
a genetic thing. Whatever. When scientists got funding to breed
sulforaphane back in they went looking for the wild types found around
the Mediterranean shores. We are not talking twice as high
sulforaphane,

Here is something I wrote six years ago.

******************************************************************
G'day G'day Folks,


I look forward to Thursdays.


It is the day New Scientist appears in the local news agents.
Personally I am delighted at the contributions being made by plant
breeders to better nutrition. IMHO it is cause for optimism.


Take the following by way of example.


Page 18 of the 27 May 2000 issue of New Scientist contains a report of
a new broccoli that looks and tastes like ordinary broccoli but
contains 10 times the levels of sulphoraphane, a substance that helps
to neutralize cancer-causing substances in the gut.


Unlike some other chemicals present in crucifers sulphoraphane is
odourless.

***********************************************************************

The new broccoli with 10 times the sulforaphane was bred from the wild
variety that had something closer to 50 times the sulforaphane.


Best wishes,

--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
New Zealand, >#,#< [
/ \ /\
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Which veggies cooked?
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  • Re: Which veggies cooked?
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