The health promoting effects of vegetables, in particular cruciferous is unquestionable. However, some harmful compounds can also exist in species used in human consumption, which renders the knowledge about their chemistry very important.
In this chapter, we focus two varieties of a highly consumed Brassicacea, Brassica oleracea: B. oleracea var. costata (tronchuda cabbage) and B. oleracea var. acephala (kale).
An in-depth phytochemical characterization is presented, mainly phenolics and organics acids, which are partly responsible for the health promoting effects of these species’ seeds, namely antioxidant activity and acetylcholinesterase inhibition.