Sulforaphane, Epithiospecifier Proteins (ESP) or just Sulforadex for Autism
One reader of the last post on Sulforaphane raised the issue of whether she should cook her broccoli sprouts, to optimize her autism therapy. This seemed a bit strange, since even the researchers at Johns Hopkins are eating their sprouts raw. She does have a valid point. It seems that while sprouts have large amounts of glucoraphanin and the required enzyme myrosinase, they also have something called Epithiospecifier Protein (ESP). If there is much ESP present, instead of Sulforaphane you get a very similar compound called Sulforaphane Nitrile. You can see that the “S” has been replaced by an “N”. All is not lost, for those of you with sprouts growing in the kitchen. Further research showed that the concentration of ESP in the sprouts peaks on the second day and that by day 5 has dropped dramatically. It was also showed that raising the temperature of the sprouts to 60 degrees Celsius deactivated the ESP. Heating Broccoli florets much...