Broccoli

Someone got way more than the recommended daily serving of vegetables when a refrigerated trailer loaded with $50,000 worth of broccoli was stolen from Villa Park. Detective Ed Zorich said the thief was probably after the trailer, not the vegetables. The theft was entered into the stolen-vehicle database, but police had no immediate leads. "We have homicides happening in town," Zorich said. "We're not really looking for a truck of broccoli right now."

Mature broccoli is packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber and several phytochemicals that are proving to be powerful anti-cancer agents in the lab. Young broccoli sprouts, however, have a much higher concentration of two types of these cancer-fighting chemicals known as glucosinolates and isothiocyanates. Similar compounds are also found in other cruciferous vegetables, including Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale and mustard greens.

"Asking a farmer where he gets his seeds," says Bill Coleman, of Coleman Family Farms in Carpinteria, "is like ... I don't know what to compare it to. You just don't do it." The particular seeds in question are those for broccoli spigarello, a leafy green member of the brassica family, whose origin seems a mystery.

The patch of land in front of the old barn is primed, its soil plowed. Soon, an unusual breed of broccoli will sprout here, and is expected to flourish in temperatures above 100 degrees. Being planted in the early summer and maturing in high heat is a new thing for broccoli, a cool-season vegetable grown almost exclusively along California's foggy coast. Exposure to heat can devastate a crop, causing irregular heads, brown spots and other damage.

Dana Broccoli, the widow of movie producer Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and the president of the company that owns the film rights to Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, has died. She was 82. Broccoli, a novelist and theatrical producer, died of cancer Sunday at her home in Beverly Hills.

Australia's oldest human remains are 40,000 years old, not 62,000, as had previously been believed, researchers from the University of Melbourne reported in Thursday's issue of Nature. The revised age for the remains, found in southeast Australia, fits much better with the theory that early humans evolved in Africa and subsequently migrated to the rest of the world. The now-discredited older date had supported the idea that different groups of humans evolved independently.

Stanford University Medical Center researchers have discovered a single gene that helps explain why some love broccoli while others can't bear it. In tests, some people recoil upon chewing on paper soaked in a bitter, man-made compound called phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, while others can chomp without gagging. The researchers report in Friday's issue of Science that they have identified the gene responsible for the ability to taste PTC.

Here's another reason to hate broccoli. About 43,000 pounds of the vegetable spilled from an overturned big rig early Tuesday and snarled rush-hour traffic at an interchange between the southbound Golden State and eastbound San Bernardino freeways. Broccoli heads blanketed the curving two-lane interchange just south of Mission Avenue near Lincoln Heights, where the trailer toppled on its side and ripped open at 4:30 a.m.

Grape grower Jim Pandol has been praying hard that his Thompson seedless table grapes will last longer than the lockout at West Coast ports. Like many California food producers, he counts on exporting a portion of his crop at higher prices to help make farming profitable. But with 200 tons stuck in port, unable to get to customers in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines, and an additional 600 tons backing up in his warehouses in the San Joaquin Valley, the operator of Pandol Bros.

Bad news for those who can't stomach broccoli: New research suggests that it is especially good for the stomach. A compound found in broccoli and broccoli sprouts appears to be more effective than modern antibiotics against the bacteria that cause peptic ulcers. Moreover, tests in mice suggest the compound offers formidable protection against stomach cancer--the second most common form of cancer worldwide.