On Fri, 9 Jun 1995 13:54:36 -0400 Pierre Gaumond said:

>I got this post on "misc.healt.alternative".

>| From: [log in to unmask] (Scott Schiller x2554)
>| Subject: Alfalfa sprouts carcinogenic?
>| Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 17:32:12 GMT

>| A friend of mine insists that alfalfa sprouts are carcinogenic, and that
>| he has heard this from a number of sources, including someone he knows
>| at the McArdle Lab for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin-
>| Madison.  Can anyone confirm or deny this?

>I don't know what interest this person had to post something like this.
>The more or less anonymous references suggests that the Lab knows that
>healthy foods prevent cancer instead of causing it. $$$ is probably the answer.

Actually, alfalfa sprouts, like nearly every other vegetable, do
contain quantities of natural pesticides. In the case of alfalfa,
there is a high concentration of saponines, which will make you
sick if you try to eat two pounds of alfalfa in one sitting.

That is not so abnormal because if, for example, one tries to eat
one pound of parsley in one sitting he or she will easily die.

Saponines *are* carcinogenic. This however does not mean that
alfalfa spr. are. The interaction of all of the various chemicals
in our digestive tract are complex. It is also a fact that we eat
(specially us, veg-eaters) more than 1g of pesticides
(plant-made) per day without ill effects. Gut lining is shed
daily, as it has for millions of years, and protects us from
nasty chemicals. Broccoli have very high amounts of nitrates, which
also have some association with cancer, and so much so that
babies (whose gut lining is not fully developed) should not
eat them. Yet they are one of the best foods one can find.

To have an idea of carcinogenic power, there was an article on
Science (peer-reviewed) estimating the potency of about
one hundred of them (they conveniently skipped dietary fat).
Amongst the foodstuffs, alcohol was way ahead of the rest.

But even innocent items like a carrot, a lettuce head, or an
apple contain 0.3-0.7g of caffeic acid, a natural pesticide
that when intaken alone is several orders of magnitude more
carcinogenic than the charred part of a burger. Yet, study after study
after study (of the epidemiological sort) show that cancer
is fought by plant foods, and induced by animal foods.
So, just forget about the alfalfa bad name. There are
medicinal plants (comfrey - sp? -) which do have weird,
powerful chemicals, but nothing that makes its way onto our table...

G.B.