Broccoli for Weight Loss & Management Also Helps Protect Against Asthma or Allergies

Did you know that when you eat cruciferous vegetables for weight management because they're packed with phytonutrients that broccoli also helps protect you against asthma and various types of bronchial allergies? Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles looked at people who ate only seven ounces of broccoli sprouts every day had a three fold increase in antioxidant enzymes--not only in their gut--but in their respiratory tracts. For more information on this study, check out the article, The Motley Crucifers - Natural Solutions Vibrant Health, (Healing Foods) Natural Solutions magazine, by Bill Gotlieb, October, 2009, page 50.

According to the UCLA study, the enzymes were helping to protect the broccoli sprouts eaters against asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, allergies, and similar respiratory problems. The study also looked at men eating only 12 ounces of broccoli each week. That's less than two ounces of broccoli daily. These men had cancer-blocking switches turned on in their genes that helped to protect them from DNA changes in their prostate glands.

What else can broccoli do while you're eating a vegan raw food plant-based diet (with some fish, if you wish) to lose or manage weight? Let's see what's in the broccoli or broccoli sprouts. It's sulforaphane. Eat broccoli or broccoli sprouts raw. Sulforaphane is a naturally occurring sulfur-containing isothiocyanate derivative that helps mobilize the human body's natural cancer-fighting resources and reduces the risk of developing cancer.

If you don't like chewing the raw broccoli, eat the washed sprouts. Make sure they're not full of bacteria, first, though. An easy way to eat raw broccoli is to put it in a blender or food processor and grind it down to little nubs. Then pour it raw over a steaming bowl of vegetable stock or any other soup. Or sprinkle it over cold or hot tomato juice or your own recipe for tomato soup, for example heated low sodium vegetable juice to which tomato paste is added.

You can make raw broccoli salads by tossing with grated cheese of your choice or mix with grated carrots. There's other cruciferous vegetables that have similar sulforaphane enzymes such as raw cabbage (red or green), cauliflower, brussels sprouts, kale, or radishes.

Try a Japanese-style daikon radish grated with carrot over julienned cabbage. Season with some lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, about a tablespoon of juice. Instead of lemon juice you can also use any type of fruit juice mixed with a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil, such as pomegranate juice or orange juice if you prefer the taste over lime or lemon juice on your salad.

Vegetables eaten raw are referred to by many nutritionists as crudités. The word refers to traditional French appetizers that include sliced or whole raw vegetables which are dipped in a vinaigrette or another dipping sauce. When you want to lose or manage your weight, or normalize weight if you're too thin from a former eating disorder, consider the role that chlorophyll plays in raw vegan diets.

Deep green, leafy vegetables such as kale contain carotenoids. You can read studies done at the Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research, Tufts University on how vegetables containing carotenoids and zeaxanthin helps to lower your risk for certain age-related vision problems such as macular degeneration. Some older people don't have the digestive juices to eat raw kale. If that's you, steam it slightly, and cut it into little pieces so you can digest the kale.

The Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research at Tufts also found that eating too many carbohydrates by "total carbohydrate intake or dietary glycemic index" is related to "increased risk for lens opacities (cataracts) and age-related macular degeneration, according to the laboratory's Nutrition and Vision Project subset of the Nurses Health Study. It's in the Age Related Eye Diseases Study (done in Australia).

The data allow a prediction that "decreasing dietary glycemic index about 10 percent would decrease risk for macular degeneration" (age-related, also known as AMD, by 20 percent and "save 100,000 people from AMD-related blindness over eight years." So if you're trying to manage your weight, healing foods include the cruciferous vegetables in moderation. Eat them, but don't over eat too many cruciferous vegetables because they'll stimulate your thyroid if that's all you eat daily.

Balance and moderation are key words. What you're looking for when you manage weight, loss, gain, or stay as you are, are plant compounds that help prevent diseases. You want to fight oxidation (internal rust) but at the same time, you want to shore up your defenses and immunity without your body turning on itself. For example, just losing one inch around your waist boosts immunity as well as lowers your risk of heart disease. So balance your plant foods. Fat intake is related to risk for cataracts. See the study, Chiu, CJ, Taylor, A. (2007) Review: Nutritional Antioxidants and Age-Related Cataract and Maculopathy. Exp. Eye Res. 84, 229-245.