Category — Tomatoes

As if I haven’t given you enough reasons to get out to your local farmer’s market and take advantage of all the fruits and vegetables that are in season right now, here’s another one.  It’s been scientifically proven that they help prevent and fight cancer.
These are the health-promoting compounds that occur naturally in foods:

• Anthocyanidins - Antioxidants with anti-inflammatory properties.  Think purple: beets, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, red grapes and purple cabbage.

• Carotenoids - protect vital fatty acids and enhance immune response.  Good sources: apricots, carrots, dark leafy greens, yams, squash, and tomatoes.

• Lutein - an antioxidant that helps protect cells and maintains health of eyes, heart, skin, and breasts and cervix in women.  Go green: spinach, collard greens, kale, leeks, peas and romaine lettuce

• Lycopene - reduces risk of prostate cancer in men.  Overall, it’s also a potent antioxidant and prevents damage to DNA.  Tomatoes have the highest percentage of lycopene; other food sources include watermelon, pink grapefruit and guava juice.

• Sulfer compounds - may help remove cancer -causing agents from your body as well as improve estrogen balance.  Mr. Mustard Family: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, mustard greens, radishes, and turnips

The easiest way to make sure you’re selecting a good mix of cancer-fighting fruits and vegetables is by observing the colors: purple, orange, dark green and pink/red.  A mix like this is not only pleasing to your body but also to your eye.

Rotisserie chicken and salad is one of the easiest and most satisfying meals you can make, or not make, since you can buy the chickens at almost any grocery store these days.  This meal will still satisfy and take advantage of all the fresh bounty summer has to offer.

Consider the recipe from Real Simple for chicken with grape and blue cheese salad.  Just looking at the picture is all the inspiration you’ll need to jump off you tail and whip that one up.  Or try roast chicken with The Rosenthal salad.  This gets the “tried and true” stamp from our household.  You could serve the chicken with fresh corn on the cob and sliced heirloom tomatoes.  It dosn’t get easier than that nor is there a better time of year to get the delicious produce!

Here’s one of my favorite recipes with tomatoes. Hopefully, this will inspire you to rekindle your relationship with tomatoes. You will need:

• couple of ripe, juicy tomatoes
• your favorite sliced bread
• cheddar cheese, grated or sliced
• fresh basil
• Dijon mustard
• shallots - if you like, it takes the sammy to new heights
• butter, if your waste line can take it. You can substitute olive oil or skip it all together.

Wash and slice the tomatoes. Butter the bread on one side of each slice. On the other side spread some mustard. Make a sandwich, buttered sides of bread out, with the cheese, tomatoes, fresh basil leaves and thinly sliced shallots if you like. You can grill these traditionally in a pan but what really takes the sandwich from good to a-freakin-mazing is popping those puppies in a sandwich griller. Mmmm! I’ve just seen my future… I’m going back to the farm in Indiana next month where homegrown tomatoes and basil abound. I bought my parents a sandwich maker for Christmas last year. We haven’t whipped that bad boy out in a while. I think the time is ripe!

Just because McDonald’s and Walmart pulled tomatoes from their shelves and our mouths, doesn’t mean that we have to live through summer without our favorite juicy fruit. (Yes, a tomato is the ovary with seeds of a flowering plant, which makes it a fruit or a berry to be exact – botanically speaking, of course.) I’ve always felt the urge to speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves and now I have to say on behalf of my delicious friends: Don’t hate tomatoes! It’s not their fault. They’re not scary. Though the water used to irrigate them may be. Although authorities haven’t been able to pinpoint the place where the recent salmonella began, they do know what causes it: run off from livestock pastures and waste lagoons at industrial farming sites . Where can you get a tomato that’s guaranteed salmonella free? Your own back yard… or your front porch since growing tomatoes in pots may be the easiest method - for tips visit Growingtomatoe.com. If you don’t have a green thumb and have no desire develop one even for this red delight, do the sensible thing and buy local. Get the tomatoes from somebody you know. For more ideas about all the benefits of buying local produce, check out Envirovore.com