Broccoli Sprouts = Cancer Fighting Superfood

Superfood is a buzz word in the health world these days.  Eight years ago as a single guy if you would have asked me what my definition of superfood was I probably would have told you anything that is super cheap or super easy to prepare.  So frozen pizza and hamburger helper would have fallen into that category.  

Oh how the times have changed.  Now I look for every effort to search out real superfoods and add them to my diet.  I recently heard about broccoli sprouts and the amazing health benefits that they have.  So I had to do a little research and find out all about them.  

Basically a majority of the health benefits that would classify broccoli sprouts as a superfood stem back to one compound in it, sulforaphane.  Sulforaphane is an antioxidant that has been shown to eliminate cancer causing free radicals, reduce inflammation, help your heart health and reduce your chance of diabetes. [1]  Not a bad resume for a plant that is only a few days old!

Here's the "super" thing about sprouts versus the broccoli that you buy in the grocery store.  With sprouts you are eating the whole plant including the the roots, not just the trimmed up pretty part that you see on grocery store shelves.  The average pack of sprouts that you would buy in a grocery store has around 4,000 sprouts, that is 4,000 future heads of broccoli!!!  Also with the sprout the you get anywhere from 10-100 times the amount of antioxidants that are in the adult plant if eaten within the first 7 days. [2]  Sulforaphane tends to peak in the broccoli plant around the 3 day mark and begins to decline after that point.  So eat them early and eat them often.  

Sprouts can easily be added to salads as I did with my salad pictured above.  You can also juice them and still get a lot of the benefits from the sulforaphane.  We also recommend adding them to your smoothie or shake.  

Don't take this post as a reason to avoid regular broccoli because there are still tons of health benefits from the adult plant too.  Vitamins like vitamin A and C and minerals like magnesium, calcium, iron, and magnesium increase as the plant ages so we still encourage you to eat mature broccoli also.  We would still consider regular broccoli pretty darn super too!

Let us know how you use your sprouts or if you are planning on trying broccoli sprouts.  

References

1. http://sproutpeople.org/sprouts/nutrition/science/#broccolibrain
   
2. http://livingmaxwell.com/sulforaphane