Broccoli Sprouts as Medicine: Sulforaphane

I've been having issues with my left knee for a year now. When I twist it or run on it, it feels sore. Before my MRI results came back, someone suggested it may be due to arthritis. Well, turns out I had a torn meniscus. This did not stop me from researching cures for arthritis.

Why Sulforaphane?

There are myriad benefits to eating sulforaphane. Some of my favourite benefits are the prevention or delay of:

1. arthritis;
2. Alzheimer's;
3. cancer; and
4. diabetes.

Broccoli Sprouts vs Mature Broccoli

I started researching the role of broccoli to reduce arthritic symptoms and came across broccoli sprouts as a much more potent source of sulforaphane, which is the salient component of broccoli. Three day old broccoli sprouts contain 10 to 100 times the amount of sulforaphane of mature broccoli.

One ounce (28 g) of broccoli sprouts has 10 times the amount of glucosinolates as half a cup of mature broccoli. So your jar of broccoli sprouts is equivalent to eating 50 cups of mature broccoli!

How much broccoli sprouts should you eat daily?

According to Dr. Rhonda Patrick:

1 g of broccoli sprouts has 0.425 mg of sulforaphane.

Studies have shown beneficial effects of sprouts on inflammation, cancer biomarkers, or a reduction of triglycerides with a dose of 40 to 60 mg/day of sulforaphane, or 100-140 g of broccoli sprouts.

Each 1L jar of broccoli sprouts, grown from two tablespoons of broccoli seeds, produces 280 g of broccoli sprouts or around 90-120 mg of sulforaphane. I did not get as high a yield as Dr. Patrick. I was only able to produce 160 g of broccoli sprouts per jar.

Of course, the longer you grow the sprouts, the heavier they become. I weighed them at the four day mark.

In other words, each jar contains sufficient sprouts for two people per day, or about one tablespoon of broccoli seeds per person.

One tablespoon of broccoli seeds produces about one cup of broccoli sprouts.

Increasing bioavailability of sulforaphane

Dr. Rhonda Patrick suggests soaking the sprouts for 10 minutes at 70C to increase the bioavailability of sulforaphane. You must be careful not to overheat the sprouts as this will destroy the myrosinase which is used to create sulforaphane.

How much is too much?

Four cups of sprouts is the limit for toxicity.