Brassica Foods as a Dietary Source of Vitamin C: A Review

Brassica genus includes known horticultural vegetables with major economical importance worldwide, and involves vegetables of economical importance being part of the diet and source of oils for industry in many countries. Brassicales own a broad array of health-promoting compounds, emphasized as healthy rich sources of vitamin C. The adequate management of pre- and postharvest factors including crop varieties, growth conditions, harvesting, handling, storage, and final consumer operations would lead to increase or preserve of the vitamin C content or reduced losses by interfering in the catalysis mechanisms that remains largely unknown, and should be reviewed. Likewise, the importance of the food matrix on the absorption and metabolism of vitamin C is closely related to the range of the health benefits attributed to its intake. However, less beneficial effects were derived when purified compounds were administered in comparison to the ingestion of horticultural products such as Brassicas, which entail a closely relation between this food matrix and the bioavailability of its content in vitamin C. This fact should be here also discussed. These vegetables of immature flowers or leaves are used as food stuffs all over the world and represent a considerable part of both western and non-Western diets, being inexpensive crops widely spread and reachable to all social levels, constituting an important source of dietary vitamin C, which may work synergistically with the wealth of bioactive compounds present in these foods.