Also referred to as romanesco and broccoflower, how does the nutritional value of this cooked green cauliflower compare versus raw green cauliflower? We were shocked to see that in the USDA ORAC report from 2010, they list the raw version as having approximately a 90% lower ORAC. How could this be possible? The only thing we can hypothesis is that their cooked version boiled it down to be significantly smaller in mass and volume. In other words, vast amounts of water were evaporated from the vegetable. That would explain why the cooked version tests so much higher, since it would be more nutritionally dense than the raw version which is mostly water (because remember, the ORAC measures based on the antioxidants within 100 grams of the item).
ORAC Source
USDA Database for the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) of Selected Foods, Release 2 - Prepared by Nutrient Data Laboratory, Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center (BHNRC), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) - May 2010