The Green Wonder "Drug"

Today’s Post reveals even greater powers of broccoli, that green vegetable that was so maligned by George H. W. Bush. Its potential to prevent skin cancer caught my eye.

I have long suffered the consequences of being a foolish teenager who slathered cocoa butter on my body and fried out in the strong Florida sun. I’m not sure why, because I never tanned well at all. But that was just what we did in the 1960's because we were too dumb to know better. So four melanomas and countless basal cells later, I am a good audience for skin cancer prevention.

The article claims that a green smear of broccoli sprout extract blocks the ultraviolet rays, thereby saving the skin from the potentially cancer-causing damage inflicted by the sun. I find it so interesting when natural cures arise after so much money has been dumped into chemicals.

The new product is still under development. One hurdle is how to remove the green pigment from the broccoli smear so that we don’t look like Martians when we go outdoors. But it may ultimately be possible to treat our skin and then just wash the green goop off, because the broccoli just acts to jump-start to turn on the body’s natural cancer-fighting machinery.

What is it about broccoli that gives it this curative potential? The secret ingredient in 3-day-old broccoli sprouts is sulforaphane, a compound that activates certain enzymes in the body.

So bring on the broccoli sprouts. I’ll throw them in my salad to prevent colon cancer and blend them in my food processor into a lovely green mask. Who knew that this most common of vegetables could be so powerful? And it doesn’t even have to be organic broccoli!