Biggest Nutrition Bang for Your Buck

A few years ago, in an analysis of antioxidants per unit cost, I concluded that red cabbage—purple cabbage—was the most nutrition you could get for your money. Yes, there are healthier foods out there, but not healthier foods for the same amount of money. I encouraged everyone to always make sure they have a purple cabbage in their crisper, to slice off shreds to put in whatever they could. It lasts for weeks, is cheap, convenient, and one of the healthiest things on the planet. All still absolutely true. My new calculations, though, suggest they just got one-upped by DIY broccoli sprouts; do it yourself.

Broccoli sprout seeds start out like this. You can buy them online, or at your local health food store in bulk, for about 20 bucks a pound. But that makes about 75 cups of sprouts, so it comes out to be about 25 cents per cup. And as we saw before, in terms of sulforaphane content, that’s equivalent to eating about 27 cups of broccoli. So, that’s like going to the store and buying broccoli for a penny a cup. Even purple cabbage has got to give it up for broccoli sprouts.

Start out with a mason jar with some kind of screen top. Tablespoon of seeds, soak them overnight, drain in the morning, and then rinse twice daily. So day two, day three, day four, and then you can enjoy the bounty. One tablespoon of seeds makes about two cups of sprouts. Since it takes four or five days, though, sometimes I’ll have five jars in constant rotation. Can be in the middle of winter, and I’m growing my own salad. Every day, you get cups of fresh produce, for pennies, without ever having to go to the store.

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 veganmontreal.

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• Vermeulen M, Klöpping-Ketelaars IW, van den Berg R, Vaes WH. Bioavailability and kinetics of sulforaphane in humans after consumption of cooked versus raw broccoli. J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Nov 26;56(22):10505-9.

Images thanks to Buy Whole Foods Online UK and Organic Spark; and Ctd 2005, Julie Gibbons, and I Believe I Can Fry via flickr

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