Broccoli Sprouts

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Broccoli sprouts are likely safer and more nutritious than alfalfa sprouts.

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Last year’s scientific data gave us reason to stop eating raw alfalfa sprouts, because of the related outbreaks of food poisoning. But what about broccoli sprouts? Check out this study.

They burned someone’s arm with a UV laser, here and here. Same burn, but on the left side they had first essentially just rubbed some broccoli sprouts on the skin, and you can visibly see the cellular protection. And this is not like sunblock. The researchers repeated the experiment in a different place, but this time they rubbed on the sprout extract, washed it off, and then waited three days before burning the person again. The left side had some broccoli sprouts rubbed on, essentially, and washed off three days prior, and you can still see how protected the cells are.

But what about the risk of food poisoning? Five million packages of broccoli sprouts were tested for pathogens. Overall, did they find that raw broccoli sprouts are harmful, harmless, or helpful? Less than one in 1,000 containers were contaminated. So, go for it!

Though raw alfalfa sprouts are indeed too risky to eat, eggs are linked every year to literally a thousand times more food poisoning than sprouts. Salmonella-infected eggs cause a foodborne epidemic every year in the United States, sickening more than 100,000 Americans annually.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Dianne Moore and Karen Belfi.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

To help out on the site please email volunteer@nutritionfacts.org

Last year’s scientific data gave us reason to stop eating raw alfalfa sprouts, because of the related outbreaks of food poisoning. But what about broccoli sprouts? Check out this study.

They burned someone’s arm with a UV laser, here and here. Same burn, but on the left side they had first essentially just rubbed some broccoli sprouts on the skin, and you can visibly see the cellular protection. And this is not like sunblock. The researchers repeated the experiment in a different place, but this time they rubbed on the sprout extract, washed it off, and then waited three days before burning the person again. The left side had some broccoli sprouts rubbed on, essentially, and washed off three days prior, and you can still see how protected the cells are.

But what about the risk of food poisoning? Five million packages of broccoli sprouts were tested for pathogens. Overall, did they find that raw broccoli sprouts are harmful, harmless, or helpful? Less than one in 1,000 containers were contaminated. So, go for it!

Though raw alfalfa sprouts are indeed too risky to eat, eggs are linked every year to literally a thousand times more food poisoning than sprouts. Salmonella-infected eggs cause a foodborne epidemic every year in the United States, sickening more than 100,000 Americans annually.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Dianne Moore and Karen Belfi.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

To help out on the site please email volunteer@nutritionfacts.org

Doctor's Note

More on broccoli sprouts:

And food poisoning:

For more context, check out my associated blog post, Breast Cancer Stem Cells vs. Broccoli.

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