DATE: Thursday, September 18, 1997          TAG: 9709180347

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 
SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   56 lines

APOLOGETIC SCOFFER BETS AMERICANS WILL SEE POSSIBILITIES IN ULTRA-HEALTHY BROCCOLI SPROUT

A s one who scoffs now and then at scientists' conflicting views on foods, ``I a-pah-lo-gize-e-e,'' as Billy Eckstein used to sing.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have found that there is up to 50 times more anti-cancer chemical in broccoli sprouts than in the mature vegetable - and the sprouts don't taste like broccoli, which will please George Bush.

In recent years I have been devouring fresh broccoli out of a mulish instinct, much as Boomer the Lab will take to nibbling grass every so often.

You figure that broccoli - or grass, if you're a dog - is one of those greeneries that taste so bad they have to be good for you.

The sprouts probably will be on the market in 1998, an article in The New York Times suggests.

That supposition shows how little is understood about this nation's farmers.

They may be conservative and slow-pokey on some aspects of life, but American farmers are the most innovative in the world when it comes to doing their business.

You can bet they were phoning the Virginia Tech agricultural extension center all day Tuesday and 'fore long they will be sowing broccoli seed all over the place.

In less than a month, people will be loading broccoli sprouts on trays at fast-food salad bars coast to coast.

It will outsell ice cream.

Three-day-old broccoli sprouts - which are tender shoots topped with two baby leaves - are packed with a concentrated form of sulforaphane, a powerful cancer fighter, the scientists say.

Dr. Paul Talalay, head of the Hopkins research team, said that diet studies show that eating 2 pounds of broccoli a week can provide enough sulforaphane to lower colon cancer risk by half.

One quails at the thought of eating 2 pounds of mature broccoli plant a week. It sounds like a bale.

The beauty of the discovery at Hopkins is that one may consume far lower quantities of the sprouts and get the same protection as you would in eating much more of the mature plant, said Talalay.

And the broccoli sprouts do not have the sharp tang of the mature plant. The sprouts can be used in salads or sandwiches.

The sprouts take just three days to grow from seeds, in contrast to the 55 to 70 days required to grow a mature broccoli plant.

The broccoli sprouts have ``a far more interesting taste'' than other kinds of sprouts, Talalay said.

Dr. Michael Bennett, an expert on diet at the University of Texas, Southwest Medical Center, said that diets rich in broccoli and other vegetables have proved to be a benefit to health but that ``the important thing is getting people to eat them.''

Bring on those sprouts, Doc!

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