Growing, cooking and eating fresh vegetables is a hobby of mine. I took an aging test at realage.com and they keep sending me these great newsletters. I'm finding that my favorite things to eat are also "superfoods". Here they are: Garlic, ginger, sesame seeds, blueberries, grape juice, dark chocolate, fava beans, apples. Turns out that growing giant pumpkins has a lot in common with living forever. The interconnections are amazing- let me explain. In 1950, a study found that cherries relieved gout symptoms. They weren't sure what the secret ingredient was. Well I'm here to tell you that it was cyanadin. I thought maybe it was Quercetin, but then apples, bee pollen and capers would do the trick as well. Turns out that cherries are off the charts for cyanadin (111). Red raspberries have a lot too (42). Note (numbers) indicate milligrams/100 gm.
From the USDA's list of flavonoid concentration in foods... The foods highest in Quercetin: capers (180), lovage (170) holy smokes I've tons of this, hot peppers (15-50 wow!), bee pollen(30), buckwheat (23),cocoa(20), onions (19), cranberries (15) apples(5), crowberries. Turns out that lovage grows great in Alaska, is one of the first greens to come out as it is a perennial, reproduces by root division. I have about 30 plants that split off of one my mom got from someone about 10 years ago. Tastes ok in a salad, which we ate almost every day of the summer, but now I will be eating a lot more of it. Did you know that ultrasound increases topical uptake of quercetin 1000 times? Did you also know that recent research shows that 90% of skin and prostate cancer cells were wiped out within 48 hours when exposed to quercetin and 20khz ultrasound? Amazing, check it out on wikipedia. Now, I know some of you are saying that wikipedia is suspect, but if this is actually true and references are cited, it could have major life-saving consequences. Once again, "it ain't what it's not, but a what it is, only what you give" (Tesla, "What you give") and what could be if we squashed such pervasive negativity. Now who wants some lovage? I'm sharing with a limited number of people in Anchorage.
More on quercetin
So what does this have to do with giant pumpkins? Well, quercetin is also a polar auxin transport inhibitor. Pardon me, but could you repeat that? Anyway, an auxin is a growth hormone found in of all things kelp. Auxins, along with gibberelins (there's a whole family) and cytokinins, help plants to grow huge. What quercetin does is regulate the auxin transport based upon GRAVITY VECTORS, which in simple terms, makes roots grow down- into the soil. We don't fully understand how antioxidants, flavonoids and other vegetable enzymes react in the body, but it appears as if they have an extreme bias to inhibit cells that grow erratically- ie. cancer cells.