I'm aware of the erucic acid content, but there are a few reasons why I'm not concerned. From "ERUCIC ACID IN FOOD: A Toxicological Review and Risk Assessment TECHNICAL REPORT SERIES NO. 21 FOOD STANDARDS AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND June 2003".
Increased myocardial lipidosis is associated with doses of erucic acid at 1500 mg/kg bw/day in rats, although in nursling pigs this occurs at 900 mg/kg bw/day. Nursling pigs appear to tolerate less erucic acid than adult pigs before myocardial lipidosis is evident, suggesting that the immature myocardium and/or liver may be less able to oxidise long–chain fatty acids. In pigs and monkeys, there appears to be no other adverse findings that can be associated with erucic acid consumption, other than myocardial lipidosis. In rats, however, the animals typically also develop myocardial necrosis followed by fibrosis, at erucic acid doses of 6600 mg/kg bw/day.
Even with slight myocardial lipidosis, there is no evidence of pathology or cell necrosis in pigs or monkeys.
After long–term feeding of HEAR oil to rats, the amount of erucic acid in the myocardial lipids decreased gradually and at 12 months was reduced to 4.2%. Much less erucic acid (about 2%) was found in the hepatic lipids, suggesting that erucic acid may be more readily metabolised in liver cells...Eventually, the lipidosis disappears even with continued exposure to erucic acid.
Lipisodis decreases over time in rats as they adapt to metabolizing erucic acid, reducing concern of long-term toxicity.
Kramer et al. (1988) have shown that...Myocardial lesions have been observed in the hearts of rats fed rat chow, control oils such as corn, peanut, olive, soybean or various marine oils. Therefore, myocardial necrosis is considered to be a spontaneous idiopathic lesion in the male rat.
Rats fed other oils without erucic acid also develop myocardial lipidosis, so it might primarily be a factor of the extreme amount of lipids in test diets (20-30% of calories).
Udipiet al. (2006) estimated the fatty acid intakes of healthy adult males (n = 25/region) from three regions in India using dietary records, food frequency questionnaires and chemical analysis of the diet. The mean erucic acid intake was reported only for the region West Bengal and was 17.3 8.3% of the total fat intake. The authors reported that this high erucic acid intake was due to the high mustard oil consumption. By using the total fat intake of 70.9 21.3 g/day reported for this region, the CONTAM Panel calculated an erucic acid exposure of 12.3 g/day or 180 mg/kg bw per day for a 70 kg adult.
Indians eat a ton of erucic acid and I haven't seen any reports of problems with myocardial lipidosis. 180 mg/kg per day is still under the minimum level required to see in it nursing piglets.
If you consume 5 grams broccoli seed pr day, that's around 500 mg extra erucic acid (the average person eats 124 mg,so on the same order of magnitude), you would have to eat 500 grams of seeds daily to reach the minimum levels where myocardial lipisodis were found in nursing piglets. Taking a standardized supplement would be nicer, but is expensive! Easily an extra $30/month.
Edited by Technoviking, 07 January 2019 - 11:25 AM.