Plus, the Genius Ratatouille Recipe from Alice Waters
Are you looking for ways to use the last of your summer tomatoes? Try making ratatouille tonight!
For me, tomatoes bring back the essence of summer… bright red and bursting with tangy juice.
As a little girl, my sister and I would sit in our grandmother’s garden with a saltshaker, popping sun-bathed cherry tomatoes into our mouths, reveling in the explosion of sweet, sour, and salty. Thus began my love affair with food from the earth!
Tomatoes are loaded with super health benefits and there are so many ways to enjoy them: fresh off the vine, in salads, sauces, soups and ratatouille. At the end of this article is a featured recipe, using tomatoes and other garden-fresh veggies that I know you’re going to love!
TOMATOES ARE PACKED WITH KEY PHYTONUTRIENTS THAT DELIVER REAL HEALTH BENEFITS:
Lycopene is the carotenoid in tomatoes that’s responsible for the reduction in the risk of several cancers, like prostate, breast, and colon cancer. Research has shown that just two servings of tomato sauce each week significantly reduced the development of prostate cancer. The breast and prostate are made-up of similar, fatty tissues, so what’s good for one is often good for the other.
Tomatoes are also loaded with antioxidants, vitamin C, and vitamin A. Together with lycopene they work to protect against heart attacks and cardiovascular disease by lowering total and LDL cholesterol and reducing clot formation.
Anthocyanins are the red/blue pigments found in darker red tomatoes. Anthocyanins help protect the retina of the eye, reducing the drift toward macular degeneration and blindness.
MORE SUPER BENEFITS OF TOMATOES:
Consuming a tomato daily can help prevent diarrhea and constipation. Tomatoes are high in water, low in carbs but provide up to 1.5-2 grams of fiber per average-sized fruit. Most of the fibers (87%) in tomatoes are insoluble, delivered in the form of hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin.
Vitamin C helps protect our skin from harmful UV rays and sun damage. The great news is that one cup of tomato juice has around 45 mg of vitamin C, or about 74% of your recommended daily intake. Our grandmothers knew that an application of tomato juice to the skin could provide relief from sunburns.
Tomatoes also boost the production of pro-collagen, a molecule that gives the skin its structure and keeps it firm and youthful.
The Journal of the American Society of Nephrology posted a study of 5,000 men who consumed more than 4,000 mg of potassium per day, were half as likely to develop kidney stones. One large tomato contains 431 milligrams of potassium, which is over 10 percent of your daily requirement. Tomatoes are rich in antioxidants that maintain healthy kidneys.
Tomatoes contain a considerable amount of calcium and vitamin K. Both of these nutrients are essential in strengthening and performing minor repairs on the bones as well as bone tissue.
TOMATO TIP:
While the value of many nutrients is higher when fruit is eaten raw, it turns out that cooking tomatoes concentrates the lycopene and makes it more bioavailable to fight cancer and heart disease. And because lycopene is fat-soluble, cooking tomatoes with olive oil increases its absorption and utilization.
WHAT ABOUT LECTINS?
You may have heard that tomatoes are toxic and therefore should be avoided. While tomatoes contain a set of lectins that can contribute to joint pain in a small percentage of individuals, those lectins are located in the skin and seeds. Every Italian grandmother knows to drop the tomatoes in boiling water for 60 seconds to slip the skin off, remove the seeds and use the flesh. Experiment to see whether you have a negative reaction to tomatoes after using this tip, and if you do, then avoid them.
Now, that you know the super benefits of tomatoes, you’ll want to make this tomato-based recipe from the “mother of farm to table cooking”, Alice Waters. The recipe from Food 52 is called “Alice Water’s Genius Ratatouille” and it is pure genius!
And if you haven’t seen Disney’s 2007 film entitled Ratatouille, then I encourage you to: it would be the perfect movie to enjoy along with your ratatouille tonight!
Bon Apetit!
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