Why broccoli is brilliant, and other plant-based diet benefits science has long been telling us
- Courtland Milloy hates broccoli but, three months into eating a plant-based, wholefood diet, he has started to appreciate its importance
- In 1992, researcher Paul Talalay found in broccoli a compound that could prevent cancer. But Milloy’s mum didn’t need science to know its power
A debt of gratitude to Paul Talalay, a resident of Baltimore in the US state of Maryland, who died this month at age 95. His life’s work led to a discovery that gave credence to what my mother had tried so hard to teach me.
“Broccoli is good for you,” she’d say. My taste buds begged to differ. I wouldn’t be allowed to go outside and play unless I ate my broccoli. So I’d sit at the dinner table gagging and making faces, seriously doubting that anything so nasty could be good for you.
Enter Talalay, who oversaw research that found in broccoli a chemical compound, sulforaphane, that could prevent cancer. Sulforaphane has since been shown to aid in the treatment of autism and diabetes.
Today, three months into eating a plant-based, wholefood diet, I can fully appreciate what mom was trying to do some 60-plus years ago.
Talalay, long associated with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, was an enzymologist and pharmacologist, a graduate of the Yale School of Medicine who received a bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.