brown. The pheophytin turns cooked brussels sprouts olive or, since they also contain yel-
low carotenes, bronze.
To keep cooked brussels sprouts green, you have to reduce the interaction between
chlorophyll and acids. One way to do this is to cook the sprouts in a lot of water, so the acids
will be diluted, but this increases the loss of vitamin C.* Another alternative is to leave the
lid off the pot so that the hydrogen atoms can float off into the air, but this allows the smelly
sulfur compounds to escape, too. The best solution is to steam the sprouts quickly in very
little water, so they retain their vitamin C and cook before there is time for reaction between
chlorophyll and hydrogen atoms to occur.
How Other Kinds of Processing Affect This Food
Freezing. Frozen brussels sprouts contain virtually the same amounts of vitamins as fresh
boiled sprouts.
Medical Uses and/or Benefits
Protection against cancer. Naturally occurring chemicals (indoles, isothiocyanates, gluco-
sinolates, dithiolethiones, and phenols) in brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower
and other cruciferous vegetables appear to reduce the risk of some cancers, perhaps by pre-
venting the formation of carcinogens in your body or by blocking cancer-causing substances
from reaching or reacting with sensitive body tissues or by inhibiting the transformation of
healthy cells to malignant ones.
All cruciferous vegetables contain sulforaphane, a member of a family of chemicals
known as isothiocyanates. In experiments with laboratory rats, sulforaphane appears to
increase the body’s production of phase-2 enzymes, naturally occurring substances that inac-
tivate and help eliminate carcinogens. At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland,
69 percent of the rats injected with a chemical known to cause mammary cancer developed
tumors vs. only 26 percent of the rats given the carcinogenic chemical plus sulforaphane.
In 1997, the Johns Hopkins researchers discovered that broccoli seeds and three-
day-old broccoli sprouts contain a compound converted to sulforaphane when the seed
and sprout cells are crushed. Five grams of three-day-old broccoli sprouts contain as much
sulforaphane as 150 grams of mature broccoli. The sulforaphane levels in other cruciferous
vegetables have not yet been calculated.
Lower risk of some birth defects. Up to two or every 1,000 babies born in the United States
each year may have cleft palate or a neural tube (spinal cord) defect due to their mothers’
not having gotten adequate amounts of folate during pregnancy. NOTE: The current RDA
for folate is 180 mcg for a woman and 200 mcg for a man, but the FDA now recommends
- Brussels sprouts will lose as much as 25 percent of their vitamin C if you cook them in water that is cold
when you start. As it boils, water releases oxygen that would otherwise destroy vitamin C. You can cut
the vitamin loss dramatically simply by letting the water boil for 60 seconds before adding the sprouts.
Brussels Sprouts