Fresh tomato recipes

Fresh tomato recipes are not only delicious but the red-coloured lycopenes are full of antioxidants that promote wellness and help prevent disease; they are true functional foods.

As you may know the red colour in tomatoes is from the lycopenes that give powerful protection against malignant-disease.

In fact men who eat a tomato a day have 50-percent protection against prostate neoplasms, the meanest and most vile of male tumours^[1].

Tomatoes give protection, cooked or raw, against these diseases; and not just the prostate gland.

This page was last updated by Bernard Preston on the 9th April, 2023.

Five coloured fruit and veg per day

As you almost certainly also know, since it is very widely published, we must eat at least five coloured fruits and vegetables every day. We personally try to enjoy ten or more.

Yes I find protecting myself and my family against mean-diseases enjoyable; even if some dishes are not really to the liking of my palate. I believe we have been hoodwinked into believing that we need eat only food that we find supremely tasty.

Fresh tomato recipes make a great-start; one or more should be on the menu every day if there is a man in the house. Raw is good but cooked is better still.

Lycopenes

Logic suggests that if lycopenes are that powerful in the bodies of the men from Mars, then they surely must have benefits for the fairer-sex from Venus too; it just hasn't been proven yet.

What did you have for breakfast today?

Did you make a start on your five; say, at least two? On a Sunday, we make a pig of ourselves, trying very hard to get half a dozen coloured foods into breakfast alone.

It is not difficult, nor is it rocket science; if you want to watch the grandchildren grow up and lessen your chances of succumbing to a nasty disease, follow the two golden rules. Eat whole foods; and many that are coloured. They will also help you re-establish the intestinal microbes.

Smoothies are a great way to start the day; they provide supreme satiety and it's not difficult to accumulate your four or five coloured foods when the day has hardly begun.

We make so many different smoothies that it is difficult to choose a favourite; they are all nice. Some are sweet, but those that are sour and peppery are not bad either.

Perhaps start with one of these nutritious berry smoothies.

This kefir salsa with tomato and avocado makes a wonderful smoothie to start the day. Today I'm enjoying it with stone-ground grits.

Calories

Tomatoes have remarkably few calories, by the way. Only 18kcal /100g; compare that to bread which has 250 for the same mass.

And they have a very low Glycemic Index of 15. The GI gives us a measure of the insulin-response to various carbohydrates.

Insulin is sometimes called the fat-storage hormone. It causes the cells and the liver to absorbe glucose from the blood; firstly for energy and the balance is stored as adipose tissue.

Carbohydrate count chart and glycemic index make up very important topics.

Tomato relish

The beauty of fresh tomato recipes is how quickly you can prepare them; just take this relish for example. 

The most difficult and time-consuming chore is straining off the juices from your tomatoes and peeling the garlic. You can throw the whole lot together in under five-minutes and then let it simmer.

Chop one medium-sized onion; toss it into hot butter in a pot. Never use margarine or seed oils for frying; the polys are very unstable.

Add a slither of chili. Here's a tip; chop a dozen whole jalapenos or peppadews and keep them in the freezer.

Whilst the onion and chili are slowly sizzling in the butter, chop three or four tomatoes, and then squeeze out as much of the liquid as you can, setting aside the strained juices; you will add them back in later. Toss the pulp into the mix.

Add a tablespoon or two of water as it tends to burn. Then pop in a few cloves of garlic and some parsley about ten minutes later and simmer on low heat for a little longer.

The tomatoes lose their flavour as they cook, so add the saved juices back near the end to liven up the relish.

In half an hour everything is ready. What could be easier?

What about butter? Yes, you can eat saturated-fat, much better than the hydrogenised oils in margarine, provided you also have all the fibre recommended; that means whole unprocessed food. Chewing your meals thoroughly even stays off the onset of dementia. 

And an egg a day is now recommended by the heart association for the high quality protein, vitamin B12 and choline; and the lecithin too.

In fact I eat one proper egg daily; free-range and fertile.

A list of "hydrogenated foods" can be found by typing the phrase into Site Search in the main menu.

Actually since the American Heart Association has stopped frowning on and in fact recommending eggs, we enjoy them every morning on a variation of this tomato relish.

• Eggs Florentine.

That choline is an essential part of the methylation of a toxic breakdown product of protein metabolism that is very damaging to the heart.

Fresh tomato recipes

For these fresh tomato recipes with Mozzarella even the most experienced chef needs supervision.

Place alternating slices of tomato with leaves of sweet basil, topped with slices of mozzarella cheese on our low GI bread. Add a good dash of lemon juice and dribble with olive oil; it's divine.

Have you ever thought of growing lemon trees?

Just one in the garden makes such a beautiful small decorative sapling with the sweet scents of heaven; the fruit is just a bonus.

A Mayer lemon is a small magnificent decorative tree with the golden yellow fruit, and it bears almost all year round. Except in Chicago where you had better grow them in pots and bring it in for the winter.

We love the lime too, and it bears at a slightly different time giving a longer period for making your fresh tomato recipes; and all salads, of course, need lemon juice. The piquant flavour will turn any dull greens into something interesting; just add hummus and low GI bread and you have a delicious meal.

This is what is today being called urban agriculture; it reduces waste and you know your food has not been sprayed with an ecocide that will certainly contribute to killing the planet and perhaps you too. Whether it's truly organic and been grown using compost rather than fertilizer is critical to every greenie.

Fruit salad

• WALNUTS BLOOD PRESSURE ...
  

Whilst your tomato relish is simmering, pick a dozen blueberries and scoop the granadilla for your fruit salad.

One of the blessings of Africa is that there is so much fruit to be had. In Holland I would certainly have added a walnut or two.

Heart failure

It is well known that omega-3 fatty acids give protection against heart disease. Most of the research has been done using fish such as salmon or anchovies as the source. In fact scientists found that high levels add five years to our lives; that's equivalent to giving up smoking.

Interesting new work from the del Mar Medical Research Institute found that plant sources from walnuts and freshly-ground flax seed are also very important; heart failure patients with low levels of Alpha Linolenic Acid, one of the three omega-3 compounds, have a 39% greater chance of dying or being hospitalised^[3]. That's massive.

We should all be enjoying foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids regularly; they are also extremely important in brain function. These super smoothies are a delicious way of getting these compounds and many others for our wellness.

Eggs Hilton always has fresh tomatoes and whatever else is in season.

After a starchy breakfast it is always important to take some exercise so those sugars are turned into glycogen rather than raising your blood glucose; a short walk or dip in the pool.

There is so much research showing that an exercise class benefits arthritis, by the way; it does not need to be in a gym but that may be necessary if you need the motivation.

Happily I have none of that. Eat and exercise like this and you too need not have your life ruled and ruined by joint pain.

Making a compost pile

If you want to grow nutritious fruit and vegetables for your fresh tomato recipes, for example, then you need to start making a compost pile.

Then you can have this old-fashioned tomato soup every week, with a stick of celery and a couple sweet basil leaves, of course.

So can you count five colours? And that was only breakfast. We will certainly enjoy another half dozen during the day. A fresh spinach salad for lunch, olives and hummus on a sandwich; that makes ten or more.

If you are not managing at least five every day, then alas start to make preparations for arthritis, vascular disease or some other nasty. They are lurking on the horizon; like black and white television it it definitely time to step up to colour with our food.

What are phytosterols?

What are phytosterols is a question to which everyone should be able to give some sort of vague answer.

They are plant compounds that have a structure very similar to animal cholesterol; they compete at absorption sites in the gut, enabling us to enjoy butter and eggs, for example, without guilt.

Tomato for  prevention of malignant tumours of the prostate is, of course a profoundly important subject; and the phytosterols in avocado for example help the glands should they become engorged and inflamed. It is all in the coloured fruits and vegetables.

Type "what are phytosterols" into Site Search in the main menu for more information.

This is the first season I have tried my luck with how to grow chilli; how easy, I have enough of them in the freezer for the rest of the year.

A variation of this fresh tomato recipe is creating a divine green salad, with added reds and yellows.

Bernard Preston

Bernard Preston just loves tasty, nutritious food; particularly those dishes like fresh tomato recipes that you can rustle up in a flash.

Some of course like these bobotie recipes, traditional Cape Malay fare, take a little longer; but nutrition and taste remain pre-eminent so never use the usual white bread. Always there is some fresh tomato. 

• FRESH SPINACH SALAD RECIPES ...
• CHOICE FOODS

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