The Above-Average Cabbage

Do you remember the film “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”? Not the new one with Johnny Depp, but the classic one with Gene Wilder? There’s a part in the film where Charlie comes home with a loaf of bread after getting paid by Mr. Joepeck, telling Grandpa Joe that he brought it home because he was “fed up” with cabbage water. While cabbage water certainly doesn’t make for a satisfying meal, nutritionally speaking, the Bucket family could have done a lot worse.

I speak of cabbage; not the water that comes from it, but the cabbage itself. Not only is cabbage inexpensive (usually 50 cents a head), but it makes a great addition to salads, bringing both a tasty crunch and some colorful pizzazz. And in the wake of the recent death of former White House press secretary and conservative commentator Tony Snow from cancer, cabbage is a particularly powerful vegetable in warding off cancer.

Cabbage is renowned for its anti-cancer properties, including lung and colorectal cancers – the first and third leading cancers affecting men and women today, respectively – but the cancer that cabbage is particularly effective in thwarting is bladder cancer.

Bladder cancer is yet another leading cancer diagnosis today, accounting for approximately 14,100 death per year and over 68,100 new diagnoses per year (2008 estimate). As the name suggests, it affects the organ of the body that holds the urine, infecting the bladder’s inner cell walls.

Researchers from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, corroborated previous studies done on cabbage and its effectiveness in thwarting bladder cancer when they studied the dietary habits of 1,100 people, more than a quarter of whom were already diagnosed with bladder cancer. What they found was that among those who ate just three servings of cabbage per month – per month! – were 40 percent less likely to develop bladder cancer. Even more impressive, when those who ate three servings per month were compared to those who smoked and ate less than three servings of cruciferous vegetables per month, the cabbage consuming folk were 73 percent less likely to develop bladder cancer!

The good news doesn’t stop there when it comes to cabbage and its nutritional benefits:

• A study published in the journal Cancer Research shows that women who frequently ate vegetables from the Brassica family – of which cabbage is a member – reduced their risk of breast cancer.
  
  
• Due to its high glutamine content, cabbage juice (or as Charlie would say, cabbage water) is often used as a treatment for people with peptic ulcers. It’s believed that the glutamine helps coat the lining of the stomach wall, resulting in faster healing
  
  
• According to the journal Food Science and Technology, red cabbage is a particularly lethal weapon in combating Alzheimer’s disease (perhaps that’s why Grandpa Joe was so sharp!)
  
  
• Researchers from the University of Hawaii suggest that cabbage has numerous cardiovascular benefits, including the ability to help “shut down” the transport of LDL cholesterol (the bad kind)to the body’s tissues

And that’s just the beginning. Cabbage is a true wonder when it comes to protecting our long-term health. For the must nutritional bang for your buck, go with raw over cooked cabbage. The Roswell Cancer Institute found that cabbage’s ability to ward off cancer only applied in instances where the participants ate cabbage raw, backing up what health professionals have long been saying about how cooking vegetables drains them of their vitamin and mineral muster.

While Charlie Bucket couldn’t stand its sight, cabbage can be your “golden ticket” to a long and healthful life.