It’s been going on for a while now – health food advocates have been sneaking extra ingredients that are meant to be good for us into our coffee cups.
First there was the turmeric latte. Then earlier this year, a Melbourne-based coffee shop assisted the CSIRO in experimenting with broccoli latte brews, made with broccoli milled into a powder.
Now, a Brisbane-based café has upped the healthy green latte game with a ‘younger’ version of the broccoli latte: a broccoli sprout latte.
Broccoli sprouts are essentially baby broccoli plants, aged around three-to-five days old, that have just sprouted. The youthful vegetable looks like an alfalfa sprout and research suggests it contains a lot more nutrients than mature broccoli.
The café has a broccoli sprout latte made with broccoli sprout powder, coconut milk and cinnamon for sweetness.
Loading Dock Coffee – located in the riverside Brisbane suburb of Newstead – is currently selling the lattes made with pure broccoli sprout powder from Super Sprout, on request at $6 per large cup.
Melinda Richards, founder and CEO of Super Sprout tells SBS that because broccoli sprout powder has a strong broccoli taste, the café mixes it with cinnamon. The latte can be made with or without coffee.
“The café has a broccoli sprout latte made with broccoli sprout powder, coconut milk and cinnamon for sweetness,” Melinda Richards, founder and CEO of Super Sprout tells SBS.
“I believe their broccoli sprout latte is about as thick in its consistency as a turmeric latte. It’s a really lovely health drink.”
Loading Dock Coffee owner, Tom Sharpe, serves a freshly brewed broccoli sprout latte. (Image: supplied) Source: Supplied
Why mess with a good thing and add a green vegetable to your coffee?
According to research conducted by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the USA, broccoli sprout powder may be effective in removing toxic pollutants from your body.
The study, published in 2014, examined the impact that a drink made of broccoli sprout powder has on the lungs of people who regularly breathe in polluted air.
They tested almost 300 Chinese men and women living in the rural He-He Township, Qidong, located in the Yangtze River delta region of China. At the time of the study, this area was characterised by high exposures to strong levels of airborne pollutants associated to lung cancer and cardiopulmonary diseases.
Some of the participants drank the mix of broccoli sprout powder, pineapple and lime juice, while those in the control group didn't drink the cocktail. The researchers then compared 12 weeks worth of urine and blood sample results from the two groups.
Participants who consumed the sprout cocktail had increased pollutant excretion rates than those who didn’t: 61 per cent compared to 23 per cent.
“Intervention with broccoli sprouts enhances the detoxification of some airborne pollutants and may provide a frugal means to attenuate their associated long-term health risks,” the study concluded.
It’s thought that broccoli sprouts are so powerful because they contain the sulforaphane compound, an antioxidant, which helps stimulate the natural detoxifying enzymes within the body.
An earlier animal study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and published in 1994, also shows that broccoli sprouts have anti-cancer benefits.
It suggests that three-day-old broccoli and cauliflower sprouts contain 10-100 times higher the levels of sulforaphane glucoraphanin than mature broccoli plants.
“Hence, small quantities of crucifer sprouts may protect against the risk of cancer as effectively as much larger quantities of mature vegetables of the same variety,” the study reads.
Richards explains that the broccoli sprout powder her company makes is organic and features nothing but concentrated broccoli sprouts. This means that the new Brisbane-based broccoli sprout lattes may potentially carry a powerful health punch.
“We grow the food – the broccoli sprouts – and then we harvest those sprouts, gently freeze-dry them, mill them and then we pack the broccoli sprout powder, 100 per cent pure,” she says.
“There are no fillers added and nothing else is included in the powder to enhance the flavour. The powder is plant-based food.
“But because the broccoli sprout powder is so highly concentrated, it’s really easy to get a great health benefit just with one teaspoon in your drink. It’s quick and easy.”
Broccoli sprout powder is just food. So if you love it, eat or drink as much of it as you want.
Although the broccoli sprout powder is being used in a café-made latte, Richards says you can add the powder – sold online and at some retail outlets – to water or any coffee brew you make at home.
“You can put broccoli sprout powder in anything. I know people who have a cappuccino and they throw in a teaspoon of the powder in there. How you use the powder is limited to your imagination.
“Broccoli sprout powder is just food. So if you love it, eat or drink as much of it as you want.”
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