how do you eat your broccoli.. raw?

[Guest guest]

I love the crucifers! (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage,

cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, collards, kale, mustard, radish,

rutabaga, turnip)

I eat most of these raw, uncooked often doused in only vinegar.

Broccoli SPROUTS contain many times more good stuff than the broccoli

florets. I eat lots of home grown broccoli sprouts raw. Good thing I

do because HEAT/cooking may destroy much of the benefit from these.

Studies show how fruits and veggies reduce cancer

Fri Dec 7, 2007 3:09pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Just three servings a month of raw broccoli or

cabbage can reduce the risk of bladder cancer by as much as 40

percent, researchers reported this week.

Other studies show that dark-colored berries can reduce the risk of

cancer too -- adding more evidence to a growing body of research that

shows fruits and vegetables, especially richly colored varieties, can

reduce the risk of cancer.

Researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York,

surveyed 275 people who had bladder cancer and 825 people without

cancer. They asked especially about cruciferous vegetables such as

broccoli and cabbage.

These foods are rich in compounds called isothiocyanates, which are

known to lower cancer risk.

The effects were most striking in nonsmokers, the researchers told a

meeting being held this week of the American Association of Cancer

Research in Philadelphia.

Compared to smokers who ate fewer than three servings of raw

cruciferous vegetables, nonsmokers who ate at least three servings a

month were almost 73 percent less likely to be in the bladder cancer

group, they found.

Among both smokers and nonsmokers, those who ate this minimal amount

of raw veggies had a 40 percent lower risk. But the team did not find

the same effect for cooked vegetables.

" Cooking can reduce 60 to 90 percent of ITCs, (isothiocyanates), " Dr.

Li Tang, who led the study, said in a statement.

A second team of researchers from Roswell Park tested broccoli sprouts

in rats.

They used rats engineered to develop bladder cancer and fed some of

them a freeze-dried extract of broccoli sprouts. The more they ate,

the less likely they were to develop bladder cancer, said Dr. Yuesheng

Zhang, who led the research.

They found the compounds were processed and excreted within 12 hours

of feeding. That suggests the idea that compounds are protecting the

bladder from the inside, said Zhang.

" The bladder is like a storage bag, and cancers in the bladder occur

almost entirely along the inner surface, the epithelium, that faces

the urine, presumably because this tissue is assaulted all the time by

noxious materials in the urine, " Zhang said.

In a third study, a team at The Ohio State University fed black

raspberries to patients with Barrett's esophagus, a condition that can

lead to esophageal cancer.

Black raspberries, sometimes called blackberries or blackcaps, are

also rich in cancer-fighting compounds.

Ohio State's Kresty and colleagues fed 1.1 ounces (32 grams) of

freeze-dried black raspberries to women with Barrett's esophagus and

1.6 ounces (45 grams) to men every day for six months.

They measured urine levels of levels of two compounds -- 8-isoprostane

and GSTpi -- that indicate whether cancer-causing processes are going

on in the body.

Kresty said 58 percent of patients had marked declines of

8-isoprostane levels, suggesting less damage, and 37 percent had

higher levels of GSTpi, which can help interfere with cancer causing

damage and which is usually low in patients with Barrett's.