The limits of ‘superfood’ – debunking broccoli

Over in my day job, I recently wrote a piece about ‘superfoods’ and the myths that a particular kind of food can protect you from illnesses. The only food advice for which there is consistent evidence is that you should eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables; all this stuff about how you should eat pomegranate to make your liver healthy, or whatever, is complete nonsense.

One of the items that keeps cropping up was broccoli. It contains a chemical called sulforaphane, which supposedly helps with diabetes, lung disease and breast cancer. Naturally, the evidence for all this is lacking: the tests were all carried out with the chemical, extracted from broccoli, on cells in a petri dish, or on mice. These trials tell you nothing about what effect eating broccoli will have on humans.

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But the sulforaphane bandwagon rolls on.