Broccoli Sprouts & Sulforaphane
Growing broccoli sprouts to harvest sulforaphane.
Originally posted on my personal website on 08/02/2020.
In my search for natural compounds that might have high leverage impacts on health, sulforaphane is one of the most interesting I’ve come across. There are studies with decent evidence for treating autism, excreting airborne pollutants, improving diabetic outcomes, neuroprotection, improving mood, possibly slowing prostate cancer, and probably a number of other things if it does so much (citation needed). It appears to activate the same pathways that fasting does, triggering a hormetic effect forcing the body to become more efficient.
What is it?
Sulforaphane is found in cruciferous vegetables like kale or broccoli, and only active when eaten raw. Heating it destroys it though, so you don’t get this much when eating cooked kale or broccoli. It’s how these vegetables defend themselves when caterpillars and worms chew on them. This means there aren’t too many easy ways to get it: you have to chew large quantities of the vegetable raw or find a powderized version that packs the two compounds that need to mix together. These two compounds are glucoraphanin and the enzyme myrosinase which mix into sulforaphane, a perishable plant defense compound. Because of this perishability, there are only a few inexpensive ways to get it in the US right now.
Where do I get it?
There’s Avmacol which is used in a number of Johns Hopkins studies, but the best (as measured by sulforaphane per $) is out in France called Broccomax. It’s a wet product that requires refrigeration, which is why I assume it isn’t sold here in the US. Growing it appears to be the best option though: broccoli sprouts contain the most sulforaphane, and they’re very very cheap. For $10 you can get multiple-years-worth if you’re willing to spend time and space on growing it yourself.
Why sprouts?
I started sprouting broccoli seeds because Avmacol doesn’t have much sulforaphane in it. Avmacol is about $30 for a month’s supply, but a single ounce of broccoli sprouts contains about 6-13X more sulforaphane than a single serving of Avmacol. This means to match the sulforaphane you’d get from 1oz of sprouts, you’d have to take take a third of the entire bottle per day to get the equivalent amount!
Broccoli sprouts are cheap and incredibly rich in sulforaphane, far more than eating whole mature broccoli or kale. 3-day broccoli sprouts have 10-100X more sulforaphane than mature broccoli, so it’s not clear if eating raw broccoli is even useful. However: it’s also not clear if long-term sulforaphane megadosing is absolutely good since it’s a plant defense compound, but getting many multiples more per dollar seems better, and a lot of the research points towards health benefits overall.
Some things to consider:
There are sprouting kits that make it really easy. Just change the water out and you’ll have more than you can finish in a week or two.
Sprouts are prone to molding and don’t last long, you need to be pretty careful to make sure all your equipment is clean.
They don’t taste good as-is, they’re best mixed in with food rather than consumed directly.
If you don’t care about the taste, freezing it and defrosting with warm water increases the amount of sulforaphane produced by 3.5X through cell wall damage from ice crystals. It creates a bitter, sulfurous slurry. Alternatively, you could just munch on raw kale and broccoli once in a while, but it does seem like “vegetables are good for you” might be much more true than people realize.
So: sulforaphane is a low-cost, high leverage way to (maybe) improve cognition, improve mood, and promote overall health with minimal risk. You can get a tiny amount of it from raw kale, broccoli, and supplements, but if you’re serious about it you can get a lot more of it by growing the sprouts. I’ve taken it on and off for a few years now and am regularly surprised by how broad the range of positive effects might be.
Additional Resources
One of the most outspoken sulforaphane fans is Dr. Rhonda Patrick who has done a number of podcasts on the compound, including one with Dr. Jed Fahey from Johns Hopkins. She has a lot of great resources on it.