Tomato’s can be eaten in a variety of different ways including raw, cooked, stewed, fried, juiced, or as a sauce. Although tomatoes are classified as a fruit when using them in a culinary fashion they are considered a vegetable because of their savory flavor. One of my favorite private chef tips is to use tomatoes in both there raw and cooked form because the texture, flavor and overall taste is so unique in both preparations.
Cooking Raw Tomato Tip: Add a little salt to your raw tomatoes and they will become much brighter and plump in flavor. Try a piece of Wassa complex carb hard bread, Tomato and light Cheese for a healthy breakfast start to your day.
Cooking Cooked Tomato Tips: Roasting tomatoes in the oven gives them a rich and full flavor. Try roasting some vine tomatoes in the oven with olive oil and salt for about 45 minutes, peal the skin off once complete and blend to create delicious sauces, dips or spreads to accompany your meals!
Health Benefits: The tomato is excellent for your health and is often praised for benefiting your heart as well as many key organs because it contains one of the most powerful natural antioxidants called lycopene. Lycopene is not naturally found in the body but has the ability to flush out free radicals that build up and cause cellular breakdown and cancer. No other fruit or vegetable has as high a concentration of this powerful antioxidant as the tomato and studies show that eating specifically cooked tomatoes (more lycopene in cooked than raw) can help prevent numerous types of cancer, heart disease, and even neurodegenerative disease. Just 1 cup (or in our case pint glass!) of powerful has 59 calories, 29% of your daily vitamin c, 17% of your daily vitamin a, lycopene, calcium and iron making it a great low fat snack or condiment. Tomatoes have been said to help with or reduce the risk of Prostate cancer, Heart, Breast Cancer, Cervical Cancer, Colon Cancer, Reduce Blood Pressure, Rectal Cancer, Stomach Cancer, Mouth Cancer, Neck cancer, and Neurodegenerative diseases.
We really love your article Chef Ryan. Thanks for sharing it and we look forward to more healthy cooking tips!
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[…]Health Benefits of Tomatoes | Private Chef Hawaii | Honolulu Personal Chef | Culinary Insider[…]…
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