Yes, those clever crop scientists have been hard at work and produced a treatment for broccoli that first of all increases the amount of glucosinolates while the vegetable is ripening and then a second treatment that slows down the ripening process and hence increases the shelf life.
So what are glucosinolates and why should we care? Well, if you cast your minds back to our previous blogs about broccoli (or click this link), glucosinolates are compounds that are broken down by an enyzme called myrosinase present in the cells of plants from the brassica family.
The main breakdown product produced is sulforaphane (but also phenethyl isothiocyanate and allyl isothiocyanate) that can, according to the paper in the journal PLOS “enhance detoxification and elimination of carcinogens from the human body” also known as an anticancer compound.
The paper was published in the open access journal PLOS.