Sofrito. It is the base ingredient for so many delicious and mouthwatering Latino dishes. It is the backbone of many recipes — known to some as ‘liquid gold.’ Not only is it delectable, but now it’s also very good for you.

Researchers from the University of Buffalo and the University of Puerto studied a group of local women who ate sofrito (along with the onions and garlic used to make it) to test its effects on reducing the risk of breast cancer. What did they find? Their results showed that eating onions and garlic about twice a day helped reduce women’s risk of breast cancer by 67 percent!

©Flickr / Crastino

Why does sofrito possess so much power? Turns out that onions and garlic, which are rich in flavonols and anti-carcinogenic, helps decrease the risk of the disease. And the women that were tested all enjoyed dishes — like stews, beans and rice-based dishes — which were rich in sofrito since it is a very common base ingredient used in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Latin Amerian cooking and kitchens.

What's more, the researchers found that there was a significant decrease (67 percent) in the risk of finding breast cancer of the women who ate this magic cooking elixir compared to women that did not consume it regularly or at all. "We found that among Puerto Rican women, the combined intake of onion and garlic, as well as sofrito, was associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer," lead study author Gauri Desai said of the results, which were published in the journal Nutrition and Cancer.

"Puerto Rico was a perfect place to study because women there consume larger amounts of onions and garlic than in Europe and the U.S. due largely to the popularity of sofrito,” continued Gauri. Previous research studies have suggested that eating onions and garlic may have a protective effect against cancer. Guess it’s time to eat more sofrito!