What is the chemical composition of cabbage?

[pb23me]

cabbage chemical composition?

Does anyone know what the chemical composition of cabbage is? I've looked all over the internet and can't find ANY information on this.

 

[Borek]

Please elaborate. Cabbage is a mixture of many substances, cabbage doesn't have a well defined composition as a lot depends on the time of the year, time of a day, place where it is grown and so on. The same holds for every plant.

 

[pb23me]

ok well, my main concern is does it contain citric acid or any other citrate compound. I have allergies to citrate compounds.Also when i strarted to look into this i read many things saying that cabbage has healing properties on humans. This then got me even more interested into what chemical compounds make up cabbage? I am not talking about all the minerals and vitamins. Just the basic chemical composition of cabbage i guess. Is it just common compounds, or are there some unique compounds to cabbage that give it these healing properties?

 

[alxm]

ok well, my main concern is does it contain citric acid or any other citrate compound.

Yes it does. So does every other living thing, so does every single cell in your body. Citric acid is formed in your body as a completely vital part of your metabolism, namely the citric-acid cycle.

I have allergies to citrate compounds.

Then it's a miracle you're alive, since your immune system should have shut down your metabolism and killed you long ago. As it were, our immune systems are built not to produce antibodies against anything that normally occurs in our bodies, the rare cases when that malfunctions means death, or a serious and chronic autoimmune disorder such as lupus.

Food allergies are usually caused by reactions to specific proteins in the various foods, not simple organic compounds such as citric acid/citrate. Not only would an antibody that bound to citrate kill you (if it existed), but it would also bind to any number of other simple molecules that are similar to it.

A citrus allergy is something entirely different than an allergy to citric acid.

Also when i strarted to look into this i read many things saying that cabbage has healing properties on humans.

I don't think you're getting your information from reliable sources.

 

[DDTea]

Although they're not proteins/antibodies, fluoroacetates (e.g. methyl fluoroacetate) reacts with citric acid in the body to produce fluorocitric acid, which cannot participate in the citric acid cycle. They are exceedingly poisonous chemicals for this reason with very low LD₅₀'s.

 

[pb23me]

Yes i know that citric acid is involved in the citric acid cycle that takes place in the mitochondrion of a cell.That is quite different from having free floating citrate compounds floating around in your blood.This a genetic trait i have that was passed down from my granfather to me.My uncle has the same problem with ingesting citrate compounds.Not just citrus fruits but anything containing citrate compounds.citric acid and sodium citrate are two common compounds that are used in- i guess- preserving most processed foods.If i eat these foods containing these two compounds i get red welps on my face,neck,back,chest and for some odd reason in the area of my arm in front of the elbow.
Quote: "I don't think you're getting your information from reliable sources"
haha i guess you think that it is far fetched to believe that plants have medicinal properties?
Im no expert on this but i would imagine that most modern medicines were first derived from plants.

 

[DrDu]

I don't think Borek wanted to deny that plants may have healing properties but was referring to the fact that there are many persons alergic to the etheric oils from citric fruits which aren't structurally related to citric acid. However, I myself won't exclude that there are some rare cases where people show adverse reactions to citric acid.

The compounds contained in cabbage which are responsible for it's potentially beneficial effects on health are so called glucosinolates which are hydrolized to form isothiocyanates.
See, e.g., http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/isothio/

You may note that these compounds make up only for a very small fraction of the mass of cabbage. The main constituents of cabbage (water, cellulose etc.) don't differ from that of what most other plants are made up.

 

[chemisttree]

If you have access to a library, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf051445f" that reported that lettuce has 0.048% levels of citric acid. I would think that would be similar for cabbage. Not sure if the CA levels were for dried or fully hydrated samples.