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Restoring cancer-fightingpower to frozen broccoliYoung adults need milk, tooACES@Illinois aces.illinois.edu16If you rely on frozen veggies in the winter, you may bealarmed to learn that frozen broccoli lacks the ability to formsulforaphane, the cancer-fighting phytochemical in fresh broccoli.Don’t worry: U of I researchers have demonstrated how the foodindustry can restore the frozen vegetable’s health benefits.“The problem begins when soon-to-be-frozen broccoli isblanched, or heated to high temperatures, to inactivate enzymesthat can cause off-colors, tastes, and aromas during the product’sshelf life,” said Elizabeth Jeffery, a professor of nutrition.The extreme heat destroys the enzyme myrosinase, which isnecessary to form sulforaphane, the powerful cancer-preventivecompound in broccoli, she said.“In the three commercially frozen broccoli samples we testedbefore and after cooking, there was very little cancer-fightingcapability before the frozen broccoli was cooked, and noneafterward,” said Ed Dosz, a graduate student in Jeffery’s lab.To kickstart the chemical reaction they needed, the researchersdecided to expose frozen broccoli to myrosinase from a relatedcruciferous vegetable.When they sprinkled 0.25 percent of freeze-dried daikonradish—an amount invisible to the human eye and undetectableto our taste buds—on the frozen broccoli, the two compoundsworked together to form sulforaphane, Dosz said.One question remained: Would sulforaphane survive the heatof microwave cooking? “Yes!” Jeffrey noted. “The radish enzymewas heat-stable enough to preserve broccoli’s health benefits evenwhen it was cooked for 10 minutes at 120 ºF.”Consumers can also team cooked frozen broccoli with rawradishes, cabbage, arugula, watercress, horseradish, spicy mustard,or wasabi to give the vegetable’s bioactive compounds a boost, shesaid.College-age people who don’tconsume at least three servings ofdairy daily are at increased riskto develop metabolicsyndrome, found a newUniversity of Illinois study.“Only one in four youngpersons in the study was gettingthe recommended amount ofdairy,” said Margarita Teran-Garcia,a U of I professor of food science andhuman nutrition.Metabolic syndrome occurs when a person has three or more of thefollowing factors: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high bloodsugar, and unhealthy lipid levels. Having the disorder greatly increases aperson’s chances of developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes.Although scientists believe that dairy products guard against obesityand related health problems, they aren’t sure how. “It may be thecalcium, it may be the proteins. Whatever the mechanism, evidencesuggests that dairy products are effective in attaining and maintaining ahealthy weight,” she said.In the study, 339 Mexican college-age applicants filled out a foodfrequency questionnaire and were evaluated for metabolic syndromerisk factors. The research is important to Hispanics in the United States,Teran-Garcia said, because many have low HDL (good) cholesterol, afactor influencing metabolic syndrome.Teran-Garcia stressed the importance of developing healthy foodhabits early in life, and she sees her efforts as nutrition educationinterventions that could change students’ thinking.Adopting the USDA dairy recommendation as a young person is alow-cost approach to maintain health and decrease future disease risk,she said. “In a few years, when they become parents, they’ll be able tomodel good nutrition for their children.”New FSHN department headSharon “Shelly” Nickols-Richardson, newhead of the Department of Food Scienceand Human Nutrition (FSHN), received aPh.D. from the University of Georgia.Her areas of interest: obesity preventionand treatment across the life span, includingobesity’s relationship to chronic diseasessuch as osteoporosis and metabolicsyndrome.Something no one knows about her:“If I were not a professor of human nutrition, I would be a back-upsinger for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.”