Clickbait ruined: Chop up the florets into little bits and let them sit for 30-90 minutes before cooking.
Damaged bits release the good chemicals over time, cooking removes them. Letting them sit allows more of it to survive the heat.
To kick myrosinase activity into gear, you need to do damage to the broccoli
Sounds similar to garlic producing optimal allicin about 10 minutes after being minced/crushed. Not only does allicin make garlic more flavorful and aromatic for cooking, but properly prepared garlic was used as an antibacterial before antibiotics were a thing. It’s not nearly as effective as modern medicine, but I once successfully used it to self treat an infected broken glass wound when I didn’t have health insurance. (USA obv.) Now I take it regularly and I “feel” like I get sick less often, maybe…
In garlic’s case, allicin is a self defense mechanism to protect itself from some bugs, and it’s partly responsible for why garlic is so famously easy to grow.
I wonder what other veggies have similar secrets.
- Broccoli contains a beneficial compound called sulforaphane, which has potential health benefits like blood sugar control and anti-cancer properties.
- Eating the whole broccoli vegetable provides more sulforaphane than taking a supplement.
- Common cooking methods like boiling and microwaving can significantly reduce the amount of glucosinolates (the precursor to sulforaphane) in broccoli.
- The enzyme myrosinase is responsible for converting glucosinolates into sulforaphane, but it is sensitive to heat.
- The researchers found that the best way to maximize sulforaphane content is to first chop the broccoli into small pieces (2mm) to activate the myrosinase, then let it sit for 90 minutes before stir-frying for 4 minutes.
- Stir-frying broccoli right after chopping resulted in 2.8 times less sulforaphane compared to letting it sit for 90 minutes first.
- The researchers suggest that 30 minutes of sitting time before cooking may also be helpful, though they did not test this.
- Eating raw broccoli provides the highest sulforaphane levels, but the researchers are looking into ways to reduce the prep time needed.
- Broccoli supplements may not be as effective as eating the whole vegetable when it comes to obtaining sulforaphane.
- The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Via Kagi’s summarizer.
TL;DR: raw broccoli salad FTW?
Or dipping in hummus
Study doesn’t look at roasting broccoli, which is tragic, because 1) it’s the best way to prepare broccoli, and 2) it’s a much slower cooking process than any of the 3 mentioned (boil, microwave, or stir fry), and the whole article is about the time required to develop nutrients.
Also, boiling and microwaving broccoli, and most other veggies, should be a criminal offense. No wonder kids learn to hate their vegetables.
it cracks me up how people will go through so much effort to prepare meat specific ways to get the right texture and flavor and then turn to something like broccoli and just boil it and go “vegetables suck”
Medium rare steak guy but for broccoli.
Roasting is awesome for so many vegetables. I used to absolutely despise Brussels sprouts until I tried a roasted one with some Parmesan. Now it’s one of my favorites.
I steam my broccoli.
Yes, I was wondering about other cooking methods too. Does slow cooking provide good results?
