How often have you heard of the wonderful properties of berries. Everyone talks about acai berry and blue berry and strawberry as wonderful foods. Also I am sure you have heard of the saying 'Knowledge is knowing Tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not to put it in a fruit salad'. Two and two together tells you that Tomato is a berry and belongs to the fruit family, but because of its savory taste, it is grouped with the vegetables. But that does not mean it does not have the wonderful properties of the the berries.People think super foods have to be exotic stuff, but the fact that the humble tomato has been classified as a super food is a testimony to the fact that superfoods are not some marketing ploy. Everytime someone tells you that Mediterranean cooking is healthy because of olive oil, as them if they have heard of pasta and pizza that have loads of tomato in them. It is believed that tomatoes play a huge role in wellness.
Cut a tomato and see if it resembles your heart! Not the Cupid heart that we all thought was the shape of the heart when we were naive, but the real heart. There is more than just a simple resemblance. The cut tomato will look like the chambers of the heart and when scientists discovered that tomatoes have a very high level of lycopene, a powerful anti oxidant that works specially on the heart and blood vessels, all the natural food enthusiasts went 'I thought as much' And oh yeah, a good tomato will have a super smooth skin, nice and shiny and firm, so when scientists found that the lycopene is very good for skin and keeps it youthful, guess what the natural food enthusiasts said? You got it!
Some of the facts that have not been proved are the role of tomato consumption in preventing and treating breast cancers and prostate cancers, maybe it does have a role and science does not know (yet), but that should not stop you from eating tomatoes. The beauty of the whole thing is that tomato purée is not devoid of any nutrients and purée has been found to lower urinary tract symptoms of enlarged prostates, but sun dried tomatoes have also found to be nutritionally adequate, but accurate studies are lacking.
So, go on and have a good dose of tomatoes, do not fry them, but learn to appreciate the taste of grilled tomatoes with cheese or simple fillings and you will have a not so expensive gourmet vegetable that is a not so expensive superfood. Can't beat that value!
drwasim@yourwellnessdoc.com
www.yourwellnessdoc.com
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