The Above Average Cabbage: Part Two

One of my favorite vegetables is the cabbage. Not only is it jammed with phytonutrients, vitamin C and vitamin K, but it’s known to be a preventive food in warding off Alzheimer’s disease and various forms of cancer. I like to call it the vegetable that just keeps on giving: It literally takes a week or two of consistent use to go through an entire head of cabbage. And in an economy like this, that’s music to penny pinchers’ ears.

Cabbage keeps on giving in more ways than one, though. According to a recent study done by the Agricultural Research Service, cabbage has more anthocyanins – a potent cancer fighting compound – than previously believed.

If you’re a regular reader if my column, you know what anthocyanins are, but allow me to give you a refresher course in case you’ve forgotten.

If you’ve ever wondered what makes cabbage red or blueberries blue, anthocyanins is your answer; they’re the compound responsible for giving many fruits their own unique pigment. But if that’s all anthocyanins did, I wouldn’t be writing about it here (an interesting factoid though it may be). Study after study indicates that anthocyanins help prevent diseases of the heart and brain by shoring up the body’s cellular structure; other studies indicate how it virtually mimics the antioxidant effect vitamin C has on the body, only to a greater degree.

Researchers from the aforementioned Agricultural Research Service – a research arm of the U.S Department of Agriculture – uncovered the extent to which anthocyanins were found in cabbage after feeding three groups of volunteers varying doses of cabbage. The participants had cabbage as part of their controlled diet for two of their three meals during the three-day study period, one group eating 2/3rds of a cup, another 1 1/3rd of a cup and another 2 cups.

Blood tests revealed that the group eating the 2 cups worth of cooked cabbage absorbed the highest amount of anthocyanins compared to the other groups who ate less. What’s more, the cabbage provided more anthocyanins than once believed – 25 percent more (36 varieties of anthocyanins instead of 28).

Eating more of something to get more of something doesn’t sound like much of a finding, does it? “If one wants to absorb more of a nutrient, just eat more of it” logic suggests. But this isn’t the case with nutrition, at least not always. Some nutrients, no matter how much of it is eaten, the body absorbs only a certain amount and flushes out the rest. This doesn’t appear to be the case with anthocyanins (note: in a previous article written on anthocyanins, I wrote that anthocyanins weren’t absorbed by the body’s cells; this should have read that anthocyanins weren’t easily absorbed by the body’s cells).

As impressive as anthocyanins nutritional prowess is against some of the most frequent diseases and conditions around today, it’s also effective against metabolic syndrome, according to a Japanese study. Metabolic syndrome is a diagnosed disorder that’s typified by having or experiencing a variety of conditions all at once (high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, excess fat around the belly or some other centralized location where excessive adipose tissue has accumulated, etc.), potentially leading to a more serious life-threatening disease like heart disease or stroke.

Anthocyanins are found in brightly colored fruits and vegetables. But to get the most anthocyanin bang for your produce buck, red cabbage is your best bet.