Brussels sprouts – everything you ever wanted to know

Brussels sprouts fact checker

• Brussels sprouts growing in the UK cover an area equivalent to 3,240 football pitches.
• If you were to line them all up individually, they’d stretch from London to Sydney.
• Perhaps unsurprisingly, 25% of total sprout sales occur in a two-week window in December.
• Disappointingly, only half of the 750m sprouts produced each year are eaten.
• Sprouts can be traced back to Brussels from the 13th Century, though the name “brussels sprouts” was coined in the 1700s by the French.
• Alongside cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower and kale, brussels sprouts are part of the Cruciferae family – from the Latin word meaning “cross-bearing” – owing to the four coloured petals of these vegetable flowers appearing like a cross.
• Unlike its relatives, the sprout is the only vegetable to grow as a bud from a stem.
• Sprouts are rich in vitamins and minerals, and even contain anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties.
• They also contain a sugar called raffinose, which the human body can’t digest, instead producing lots of gases.
• Sulphur is responsible for the bitter sprout taste, but as we age, we lose taste buds, which can make them more palatable – which is why adults who hated sprouts as children now embrace them in seasonal dishes.
• Frosty weather converts bitter starches into sugars, leading to sweeter tasting sprouts, hence the logic behind grandparents remarking they “won’t eat sprouts until the first frost”.
• Sprouts contain a chemical, similar to phenylthiocarbamide, which only tastes bitter to people who have a variation of a certain gene. About 50% of the world’s population have that mutation. 
• Modern breeding methods, including those used at the University of Warwick, can help to make brussels sprouts more palatable.