Friday, December 25, 2020

did i speak too soon on sulfur?

what about broccoli? garlic? doesn't sulfur play a special role, here?

i keep saying it - broccoli is overrated. and, it is. and, this is at the crux of it: while these sulfur compounds in broccoli are great in vitro, the fact is that you just can't uptake them. the bioavailability is so low as to make the whole thing pointless. so, i took glutathione out and suggested getting the proper amino acid profile, instead.

there is in fact an entire class of sulfur-containing compounds called glucosinolates that are one of the reasons broccoli used to be so highly regarded, and mostly can barely be absorbed at all. while your body does use some of these compounds, it has to reconstruct them inside your body from various building blocks, including sulfur-containing amino acids. you can't absorb them in tact.

garlic is somewhat more promising, but you have to eat a lot of it, and you have to eat it freshly chopped and raw - meaning you have to eat it by yourself.

i may add an entry for allicin in the end, but i haven't committed. for the most part, the guidelines seem to be pretty clear - just follow the requirements for the amino acids.