(RxWiki News) Vegetables are an important part of a daily meal and some vegetables are more common than others like broccoli. It’s been fifty years and broccoli still has the same nutritional value.
Broccoli has so many nutrients that can help improve overall health and researchers are studying just that.
"Your mother was right, eat broccoli."
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have found that all varieties of broccoli have relatively similar levels of nutrients since 1975. There was a difference in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus and zinc, but potassium, manganese, molybdenum and sulfur remained the same.
Research leader, Mark Farnham, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) geneticist, and other two colleagues analyzed the nutrient content of fourteen types of broccoli that have been released in the past 50 years.
The team measured the levels of calcium, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, sodium, phosphorus, sulfur and zinc in each plant.
There was no big difference in the mineral content of the different varieties of broccoli in the last 35 years, Farnham says. This study can help future breeders improve this crop and provide a realistic baseline, he adds.
The research is published in Crop Science.
