Mustard Greems

Health Benefits
(Source: World's Healthiest Foods, George Mateljan)

Unlike many of their fellow cruciferous vegetables, mustard greens have not been the sole focus of many health-oriented research studies. However, mustard greens have sometimes been included in a longer list of cruciferous vegetables that have been studied as a group in relationship to their health benefits.

Antioxidant Benefits from Mustard Greens

Although you might not typically expect a very low-fat food like mustard greens—which contain only 2/3 gram of fat in one cooked cup—to be an excellent source of fat-soluble antioxidant vitamins, mustard greens are our 5th best source of vitamin A (in the form of carotenoids) and our 7th best source of vitamin E among all 100 of our WHFoods! (This reflects that a food is simply not required to contain a large amount of fat in order to provide ample amounts of fat-soluble vitamins.) And as our 16th best source of the antioxidant mineral manganese, as well as our 18th best source of the water-soluble antioxidant vitamin C, mustard greens are a truly excellent source of conventional antioxidant support.

This cruciferous vegetable also provides unusual amounts of numerous phenolic antioxidants. Caffeic acid and ferulic acid are two phenolic antioxidants provided in significant amounts by mustard greens as are numerous polyphenolic antioxidants. Included in this polyphenol category are the flavonoids isorhamnetin, quercetin, and kaempferol. In one study on consumption of antioxidant phenols by African-American adults living in the southeastern United States, mustard greens were singled out—along with collard greens, kale, and purslane—as the top sources of total dietary phenols.

Glucosinolate Benefits from Mustard Greens

Cruciferous vegetables are perhaps most famous as a group for their unusual sulfur content, and especially their sulfur-containing glucosinolates. Glucosinolates are unique substances that provide health benefits in and of themselves, although they are better studied as substances that can converted into closely-related molecules called isothiocyanates (ITCs). The potential for glucosinolates to get converted into ITCs is often referred to as "ITC yield," and glucosinolate-containing foods with a high ITC yield are generally regarded as being especially helpful in terms of their health benefits.

The potential health benefits from intake of ITCs are known to be wide ranging, and they include decreased risk of certain cardiovascular diseases; decreased risk of certain cancer types; and support of the digestive tract including the stomach and intestinal linings. Of special interest in research on ITCs and health is the ability of these substances to support detoxification activity in our cells. Detoxification of potentially hazardous substances is not only a key to our general health, but it is also important for lowering our risk of certain cancer types. By improving our detox capacity, we reduce our risk of problems when we are exposed to hazardous substances, including substances in our general environment as well as contaminant residues in our food. In general, strong yield of ITCs from glucosinolates in cruciferous vegetables is associated with improvement in detoxification.

It is this context that makes a recent study on cruciferous vegetables especially interesting. Included in this study were eight out of the nine cruciferous vegetables that we profile on our website: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, mustard greens, and turnip greens. (The only missing WHF cruciferous vegetable in this study was bok choy.) The ITC yield from these eight vegetables was found to range widely, but in terms of total possible ITC yield and average ITC yield, mustard greens easily came out on top! This first place finish of mustard greens was impressive, since all of the eight cruciferous vegetables in the study were already known to be important sources of ITCs.

It's also worth noting that the best-studied glucosinolates in mustard greens to date are sinigrin, gluconasturtiian, and glucotropaeolin. The corresponding ITCs that are produced from these three glucosinolates are allyl-isothiocyanate (AITC), phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC), and benzyl-isothiocyanate (BITC), respectively.

Other Health Benefits from Mustard Greens

When a food achieves 20 total rankings of "excellent," "very good," or "good" in our WHF rating system, it is not surprising to see research on health benefits branching out into many different body systems. We would like to highlight several of those body systems in this section, beginning with the cardiovascular system. Chronic unwanted low-level inflammation and chronic unwanted oxidative stress are well-established as risk factors for several cardiovascular diseases, including atherosclerosis, in which the inflammation and oxidative stress leave the blood vessel walls too susceptible to damage. The strong antioxidant support provided by mustard greens is a natural candidate for helping lower risk of atherosclerosis, and studies on overall intake of cruciferous vegetables—including mustard greens—support this finding. The glucosinolates in mustard greens have also been shown to provide help in the regulation of blood lipid levels, including levels of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and HDL cholesterol. Some of this regulation has been linked to the bile acid binding ability of fiber-related nutrients in mustard greens. Also worth noting in this context is the possibility that steamed mustard greens may provide more bile acid binding ability than raw mustard greens as observed in one recent study.

Digestive tract support also needs to be listed in this "other benefits" section on mustard greens. ITCs formed from the glucosinolates in mustard greens have been shown to support the health of cells that line both the stomach and the intestinal tract. In addition, the presence of glucosinolates from mustard greens and other cruciferous vegetables in the lower intestinal tract has been show to potentially shift the balance of bacterial populations in the lower digestive tract that may be helpful to overall gut health.

One final area of potential health benefits from mustard greens involves an area of study called "AGEs." "AGEs" is an acronym for Advanced Glycation End-Products. In the last five years along, several thousand new studies on AGEs have been published in research journals, and the potential role of AGEs in increasing the risk of chronic health problems now extends to virtually all body systems. Scientists now know that AGEs have their own unique communication/messaging system, which involves specialized cell receptors called RAGEs (Receptors for AGEs). Research has yet to uncover all of the connections between food, AGE formation, and health. But intake of cruciferous vegetables is high up on the list of dietary factors that might make excessive AGE formation less likely to occur. Recent studies on sinigrin—one of the glucosinolates provided by mustard greens—has shown the ability to interfere with AGE formation process, even though the exact mechanisms here are not yet clear. In this context, it is also interesting to note that mustard seeds have been receiving even more attention in this sinigrin-related research than the "greens" (i.e., leaves) of this cruciferous vegetable.

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