The Brassica family: in daily language the cabbage family : miraculous food.

To start with a trivial application but not trivial if you are breast feeding……..

Cabbagel leaves in treating breast engorgement:

Green cabbage leaves can remarkable remarkably reduce the discomfort of breast engorgement in breast feeding mothers.

A 2 hours treatment or so may be enough whenever necessary

In this article I will describe to you some less trivial characteristics of this family.

If 20 or maybe 30 years ago one would have claimed that food could prevent or heal many-even difficult to treat- diseases there was a chance that a doctor in "medical aggressive western counties” like the USA could have lost his license.

Ma hishtana!? [what changed!?] Everything!

In my estimation in another 10 years virtually all (now a days) currently used toxic oncology treatments [with a few rare exceptions] will end up in the "g'niza" [archives]

Let's give a simple but possible life saving advise.

The combination of eating one of the cabbage family with other foods may have a tremendous "chemotherapeutic" effect.

After a short example of how to combine things I will describe to you some more astonishing facts about the brassica / cabbage family itself

Foods rich in the mineral selenium [extremely important for the prevention of many cancers] include nuts [especially Brazil nuts], poultry, fish, eggs, sunflower seeds and mushrooms etc [yes,..... even the simple cheap mushrooms,but don’t eat them raw]

When we combine such foods [rich in selenium] with one of the Brassica family such as broccoli, sprouts, cabbage, watercress and salad rocket we get a tremendous increase in the anticancerous effect of this combination , compared to each group in itself. One of the compounds in this cabbage family which makes it so effective is :Sulforaphane

The combination of selenium rich food with sulforaphane seems to work like a “chemotherapeutic bomb” without any side effects of course.

Simple , is it not? Chicken with broccoli,salmon with watercress and so on.

How come that not all patients under treatment in an oncological department get such simple advice

I suppose: a total disinterest in nutrition in the medical world and an absolute over estimation of the power of toxic drugs.

Broccoli has no patent on its name............!!

In a older pamphlet/alon I already wrote about:

Red Cabbage (Brassica oleracea) and its proven effects on diabetic nephropathy [kidney disease as a result of diabetes] in rats.

Recently it has also shown that broccoli sprouts can protect against bladder cancer and the more so if combined with selenium [see combination as described above]

More and more it becomes clear that the word "protects" is an underestimate.

In many cases the same foods that protect have shown also to stop/block the progression of various cancers.

Now about broccoli itself [and the whole brassica-family]

How to prepare? By far the best is steaming.

Cut broccoli into small pieces and let sit for several minutes before cooking .

[The same is true for onions and garlic]

If you put it immediately into the cooking/steaming pot you lose a lot.

Steam for some 5 minutes.

Overcooked broccoli becomes too soft and loses both nutrients and flavor

Storage of broccoli:.

Place broccoli in a plastic bag, removing as much of the air from the bag as possible. Place In the refrigerator where it will keep for 10 days. Do not wash broccoli before storing because water enhances spoilage.

Now I will summarize some quite important data about this cabbage family and for the sake of convenience I will mention Broccoli ,but really all or most of what is written concerns the whole cabbage/brassica group.

[Some of the most common brassicas include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, swedes, and turnips. Less familiar brassicas include broccoli raab, collards, cress, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, and bok choi.]

[I will shorten Broccoli to Br.]

The fiber in Br. binds with with bile acids in the digestive tract -especially if the Br. is steamed- and in that way it has a positive effect on lowering cholesterol in a natural way.

We need in every minute to neutralize quite a bit of toxic substances in our body and this detoxification -where the liver is highly involved- goes in 2 special steps.

Br.is an ideal product for detoxification as it contains 3 major substances which can deal with these steps of neutralization and removal of many contaminants .

Exposure to toxic substances in our food and water, or in the air we inhale, bad diets use of all kind of medications, and bad lifestyle can cause chronic inflammatory reactions ["chronic inflammation"] where our body systems have to do overwork all the time in order to deal with these phenomena . Whereas acute inflammations may be a good response to help us healing from many "attackers" [even from a simple wound] a chronically overburdened inflammatory state is not a positive thing.

Chronic Inflammation,inadequate detoxification,oxidative stress [too much "oxidation in the body] are all fertile ground for development of various cancers.

Br. can help reduce all these evils

Broccoli is also rich in flavonoids called kaempferol and quercitin.

They have an important task in reducing allergic and and inflammatory reactions.
No wonder that Br. sprouts can be of great benefit is asthma [allergic-inflammatory components]

As we all know by now Vitamin D deficiency has reached epidemic levels. Often large doses of vitamin D are necessary to treat these deficiencies. By adding BR. to the diet we are adding ample supplies of vitamin K and vitamin A which help keep our vitamin D metabolism in balance.

As a minimum eat cabbage vegetables 2-3 times per week, each time at least 1 cup.

More frequent and a larger amount is even better.

Br. does not cause a suppression of the thyroid function as so often thought.

Indeed in large amounts-eaten raw -it may have some negative effects on the thyroid in a very few sensitive people.

Cooking totally neutralizes this rare "side -effect" and is totally safe even for real thyroid patients

Br can be very useful in the treatment of Helicobacter pylori . Broccoli sprouts especially appear to have a strong neutralizing effect on Helicobacter- a safe ,cheap and healthy treatment. Eat them raw.

Br. is -from the whole cabbage family-one of the most concentrated sources of vitamin C. Vitamin C is a well known "anti-oxidant" which can prevent over- oxidation in the body and the flavonoids kaempferol and quercitin which are amply present in Br. help the vitamin C to be "recycled" in the body so that this can have an longer lasting ongoing effect.

Br. can have significant positive effects on the cardiovascular system and may also help reduce high homocysteine levels [which work toxic on the bloodvessles]

Two carotenoids in which Br. is rich -lutein and zeaxanthin-play an especially important role in the health of the eye.[macular degenaration]

The sulforaphane in Br.-mentioned earlier- are important in helping to prevent damage from overexposure to the sun.

Consume the cabbage family preferably steamed or even cooked and in small amounts even raw [good for digestion]

Broccoli sprouts can be eaten raw and are now widely available in probably every supermarket.

Small wonder that the Romans seemed to have used cabbage for their lavish drinking parties to get sober again!! Detoxification and preventing over -oxidation.