Zesty, Healthy BroccoSprouts® Come to New Zealand

26 November 2001

Living Foods, always an innovator in the field of fresh cut salads, is launching a new product that – for the first time in New Zealand – has a guaranteed level of the natural indirect antioxidant sulforaphane GS (SGS).

Three and a half day old BroccoSprouts®, grown from special imported seeds using only light and water, are guaranteed to contain at least 20 times the levels of SGS as adult broccoli. This means eating a single 28 gram serving of BroccoSprouts® provides as much SGS as eating over half a kilo of mature, cooked broccoli.

Living Foods is one of less than two dozen growers worldwide chosen to grow BroccoSprouts® under licence to Brassica Protection Products LLC, a company founded by researchers at one of America’s leading research universities, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The university has maintained part ownership in Brassica.

Living Foods was chosen by Brassica last year following meetings with Dr Paul Talalay, MD, Brassica’s founder, who was speaking at a medical conference in Wellington. Dr Talalay is the John Jacob Abel Distinguished Service Professor of Pharmacology and Director of the Laboratory for Molecular Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

BroccoSprouts® were introduced in America two years ago to huge success. And with New Zealanders eating far more sprouts per capita than Americans, “we expect something big here as well,” said Vicky Thompson, who owns and operates Living Foods
with her partner Mark Goodwin.

“We’re innovators, and we’ve always believed in growing healthy foods because we know they are good for people. The Johns Hopkins research behind BroccoSprouts® convinced us that we should bring them to New Zealand,” said Vicky.

As opposed to direct antioxidants like vitamins C and E, which are quickly eliminated from the body, SGS is an indirect antioxidant. According to Brassica, SGS works as a catalyst to enhance the body’s own elaborate antioxidant system that exerts long-lasting antioxidant activities.

A percentage of the sales from BroccoSprouts® are contributed to the Brassica Foundation for Chemoprotection Research in the USA for further research.

Zesty tasting BroccoSprouts® can be used on salads, soups, sandwiches, wraps, virtually anything. They can be eaten fresh or cooked without lowering the high levels of SGS.

BroccoSprouts® are now available in many Foodstuffs stores. BroccoSprouts® have a suggested retail price of $4.95 for a 100-gram container, and $2.70 for a 50-gram container.

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