What Chopping Your Vegetables Has To Do With Fighting Cancer

Among the most common and preventative forms of cancer worldwide are digestive cancers (i.e. cancers of the stomach, pancreas, colon, and esophagus) as well as breast and prostate cancers.

However, not dissimilar to the other leading causes of death, only a small percentage of cancers can be attributed to purely genetic factors. In fact, research suggests that an individual’s greatest exposure to carcinogens — any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis, the formation of cancer — may be through diet (1).

“Truly winning the war on cancer requires individual responsibility for our food choices; as long as we wait for the next pharmaceutical breakthrough or genetic engineering miracle to save us, we won’t use the considerable power we already possess to end this scourge.”

— T. Colin Campbell

Although a lot of nutritive research is focused on which foods to avoid — think dairy, and red and processed meats — there is an equal but opposite need for us to consider the important foods we should be eating more of,and why.

This article highlights the important role of a compound known as sulforaphane in its ability to fight and prevent cancer, but fair warning: the nutrition science behind these vegetables might just blow your mind.

Cruciferous Chemical Reactions

You may or may not have heard the term ‘cruciferous’ being used before when talking about specific types of vegetables. Plants belonging to the mustard plant family, and the group, Cruciferae — as it is referred to scientifically — include, but are not limited to, foods such as cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, collard greens, arugula, bok choy, and horseradish.

What makes this particular category of foods so special, is the presence of an enzyme known as myrosinase which has the unique ability to transform the glucosinolates present in all cruciferous vegetables into the powerful disease-fighting compound, sulforaphane.

A simple query in the PubMed.gov database for the terms, ‘sulforaphane’ and ‘cancer’ returns over 700 different articles of the peer-reviewed research that implicate the compound in question as a recognized antagonist of cancer (2). These cancer-fighting effects are thought to occur as the result of numerous processes, such as the suppression of inflammatory response, support of apoptosis (programmed cell death), and modulation of histones, that make the nutritional value of these veggies about as close to a superfood as one can get (3).

As well as treating and preventing the growth of various cancers, this active ingredient in all cruciferous vegetables is also responsible for protecting our brain, preserving our eyesight, and protecting us against free radicals and the other hazardous products of our everyday environment (4).

Now, although this information does well to address the importance of including cruciferous vegetables on our plate each day, it hardly scratches the surface of the really fascinating stuff. Above all, what on earth does chopping vegetables have to do with fighting cancer?

Let’s get into science.

A Chopping Conundrum

When any cruciferous vegetables is chopped, crushed, shredded, or chewed, it releases both myrosinase, as well as glucosinolate compounds, that then combine to make sulforaphane. This chemical reaction is exactly what produces the mild burning sensation that we associate with some foods of the mustard family. It’s what gives raw broccoli its bite, and what makes spicy mustard, well…spicy (4).

However, in order for the myrosinase enzyme to work its magic, it first has to be given the chance. All in all, myrosinase can take up to 45 minutes once first released (by way of cutting or chopping your vegetables, remember?) to successfully convert itself into disease-fighting sulforaphane.

The other issue here is that myrosinase is highly heat sensitive. One of the fastest ways to prevent any and all sulforaphane formation from occurring is to immediately transfer your chopped cruciferous vegetables into a hot oven or a pot of boiling water — a practice I think it’s fair to assume is pretty routine for most of us.

Interestingly, a solution to the issue lies with the fact that sulforaphane is not heat sensitive. What this means, is that as long as you’re happy to plan ahead, and cut your cruciferous vegetables 45 minutes before you cook them, they will have more than enough time to work their enzymatic magic, thereby retaining the same efficacy in fighting cancer as when consumed raw.

In this sense, you can either exclusively stick to eating raw cruciferous vegetables — and rest assured that myrosinase will continue to produce sulforaphane even after you’ve chewed and swallowed your veg — or, you can chop your cauliflower, cabbage, and kale 45 minutes in advance.

All in all, it seems pretty straightforward. The benefits of regularly eating sulforaphane-rich foods drastically outweigh the inconvenience of leaving your chopped veggies on the countertop for the better part of an hour.

But what if there was another way altogether?

The Magic of Mustard

Being a member of the same plant family, mustard and mustard seeds offer a clever hack for the problem of sulforaphane formation.

When mustard seeds are crushed they release myrosinase, just like their tasty cruciferous counterparts. A crucial step in the mustard-making process is ensuring that the seeds are not heated too much by the friction of milling them, as this would kill all myrosinase activity and subsequently destroy the spicy flavour of mustard we know and love.

Thus, because the mustard seeds, themselves, haven’t been exposed to any heat, they can be ground up and sprinkled onto other foods in order to kickstart the sulforaphane formation process right where it left off.

You see, by adding just half a teaspoon of mustard powder to a plate of cruciferous veggies, you automatically by-pass the need to wait 45 minutes after chopping your vegetables — and you’ll receive all the same benefits of eating them raw.

Similarly, because the type of authentic spicy mustard we often use as a condiment gets it flavour from precisely the same high levels of in-tact myrosinase, it becomes a completely viable option for chemically reacting with already cooked cruciferous vegetables.

Research found that using this simple trick can — at most — quadruple the bioavailability of sulforaphane in certain cruciferous vegetables, with no added patience or prep-time required (5).

If you ever needed another reason to eat your vegetables, let the ridiculously cool and complex science of sulforaphane be it. Who knew that chopping your vegetables and (almost) forgetting about them could help you fight cancer, after all?

Alexandra Walker-Jones — December 2020

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