May 3 - Lisa's Musings (on broccoli) and Every Day Life

I bet your mother told you to eat your broccoli.

Yeah, mine did, too.

But when I was a kid, I also learned that the cat would eat it.

So, I’d feed as much as possible to him at the dinner table before getting caught.

Which always happened at some point, but I can promise you, the cat loved me for it.

His name was Little Black Sambo, named after the book that I loved growing up.

And, yes, it would be a totally non-politically correct name today; but this was 40-plus years ago, so give my parent’s a break.

My dogs think its wonderful stuff, too.

Let's face it, broccoli smells horrible when you cook it, so how on earth could it taste good?

But, my dogs will eat it raw, which is much less smelly, so they get as part of their diet.

Me, I’m STILL not so fond of the stuff, but I might learn to choke it down more often (everything tastes better with cheese) thanks to research at U-M.

Researchers at the U-M’s Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center say a study they did tested sulforaphane, a component of broccoli and broccoli sprouts, in both mice and cell cultures.

What they found was that sulforaphane targeted and killed cancer stem cells and prevented new tumors from growing.

So what they are saying is not only does this broccoli extract stuff work to prevent cancer but also some potion of bits and pieces can stop breast cancer stem cells from growing, too.

Since current chemotherapies do not work on cancer stem cells, which is why cancer recurs and spreads, researchers believe that eliminating the cancer stem cells is key to controlling cancer.

So this broccoli extract stuff they’re trying, this sulforaphane stuff, comes in higher concentrations than in the actual growing plant broccoli stuff (that I should eat more of) but scientists are developing a method to extract and preserve this magical stuff.

Maybe they'll put it in a pill form. Then, I'd happily eat it.

Soon there will be a clinical trial to test it as a prevention and treatment for breast cancer.

Since 194,280 Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and 40,610 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society, so let’s hope it works.

All this talk about broccoli got me thinking about other green veggies – like asparagus.

So I think I'll go down to the garden and pick a few spears.

It's green, it'll have to do.