Scientists transformed lettuce into a 'superfood'

Ask someone to name a “superfood,” a food item jam-packed with nutritional value, and a few items invariably come up. Blueberries. Quinoa. Almonds. Kale. Thanks to a team of Rutgers University scientists, you can add lettuce — yes, lettuce — to the list.

The Rutgers lettuce is not that watery, flavorless sandwich topper that constitutes much of the public’s lettuce diet. Instead, the research team used tissue culture technology to create a colorful and nutritionally powerful red leaf plant they call Rutgers Scarlet Lettuce.

The new lettuce has more antioxidants and polyphenols, which are associated with preventing cancer and cardiovascular disease, than blueberries. It’s packed with fiber and low in calories, the scientists say.

Most important, it tastes good — at least to Rutgers Distinguished Prof. Ilya Raskin, who led the project to develop the super-lettuce.

With support from the National Institutes of Health, Raskin and his team from the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences set out about three years ago to see how they could boost the health value of the vegetable through “nutritional breeding.”

They chose lettuce because it is an “ideal delivery vehicle” as one of the most commonly consumed vegetables in domestic diets, Raskin said. It’s also a quick-growing plant that can be grown in warm and cooler months in parts of the country, he said.

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