Unlock Broccoli's Superpower Chop, Wait, and Cook!

7 May 2025 · 1 min

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Paul Savage MD explains how to unlock broccoli's sulforaphane, a compound with potential health benefits. Chop it, wait 30 to 45 minutes on the cutting board, then cook. Cooking right away destroys the enzyme that creates sulforaphane, but raw broccoli works too.

Questions this video answers

Myrosinase.

About 30–45 minutes.

Chapters

If you take broccoli, chop it, and throw it right in the boiling water, you destroy an enzyme called myrosinase. And myrosinase converts a kind of a pre chemical into the final chemical called sulforaphane. But you destroy it. So it's called chop and hold. You take your broccoli, you chop it up on the cutting board, you let it sit for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, then go ahead and put it in the water. It turns out just the process of chopping breaks some cells and releases that enzyme, and it starts a chemical reaction. You can't see it, but you actually create. You know, you can eat broccoli raw, then it's no problem. But if you like it cooked, let it sit for 30, 45 minutes on the chopping board, then cook.