tomato Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Vegetable Stacks with Tomato–Red Pepper Coulis Recipe

The AHA! Team — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 05:38:47 +0000

Recipe via Nutrition Facts – Vegetable Stacks with Tomato–Red Pepper Coulis Recipe Recipe by: Dr. Michael Greger & Robin Robertson from The How Not to Age Cookbook This dish takes a little extra time to assemble, but the bit of effort is so very worth it. It’s actually a quite simple dish to make and looks very fancy when plated. Perfect for when you want to impress your dining companion! COURSE: Main Course DIFFICULTY: Moderate SERVINGS: 4 Ingredients ▢ 1 large eggplant trimmed and into 4 rounds about 1/2-inch thick ▢ 1 large red onion cut into 4 slices about 1/2-inch thick ▢ 1 orange or yellow bell pepper sides cut vertically to make 4 square pieces ▢ 4 large portobello mushroom caps gills removed ▢ 1-2 large ripe tomatoes cut into 4 slices about 1/2-inch thick ▢ 3 tablespoons red onion minced ▢ 2 plum tomatoes chopped ▢ 2 roasted red bell peppers homemade or store-bought ▢ 1 teaspoon white miso paste ▢ 1 teaspoon dried basil ▢ ½ teaspoon dried thyme ▢ 1 ¼ inch turmeric, grated (or 1/4 teaspoon ground) ▢ black pepper to taste ▢ fresh parsley for garnish Instructions Preheat the oven to 425ºF (220°C) Line two large baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper. Arrange the eggplant slices in a single layer on one of the prepared baking sheets. Bake the eggplant until soft, turning once, about 15 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and set aside to cool; then remove the eggplant from the pan. Meanwhile, on the second prepared baking sheet, arrange the onion slices in a single layer and bake for 7 to 8 minutes. Turn over the onion slices, place the bell pepper pieces on the same baking sheet as the onion, and roast until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes longer. Set aside to cool. Arrange the mushroom caps, gill side up, on the baking sheet from which the eggplant has been removed. Roast until softened, about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool for a few minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 350ºF (180°C). Assemble the roasted vegetables in stacks: To begin, leave the four mushroom caps, gill side up, on their baking sheet. Top each cap with a slice of eggplant, followed by a slice of onion, then a bell pepper slice, topped with a slice of tomato. Cover the baking sheet and bake until the vegetables are hot, about 20 minutes. While the vegetables are cooking, make the sauce: In a skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of water (45 ml) over medium heat and add the minced onion. Cover and cook for 4 minutes, or until soft. Stir in the plum tomatoes, roasted bell peppers, miso, basil, thyme, turmeric, and black pepper to taste. Cover and cook until the vegetables are very soft, about 5 minutes longer. Transfer to a food processor and purée the sauce until smooth. Keep warm over low heat until ready to use. When the stacks are ready, use a metal spatula to carefully remove them from the baking dish. Place one stack in the center of each of four dinner plates. Top and surround each stack with the sauce and parsley garnish, and serve hot. TIP: For a more attractive dish, cut the stackable vegetables slices so they are approximately the same size. Reserve the remaining pieces of the vegetables for another use To read the original article click here.

The post Vegetable Stacks with Tomato–Red Pepper Coulis Recipe appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Gene-Edited Tomato Promoted as Therapeutic, But Is It Even Safe?

AHA Publisher — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 08:00:56 +0000

Stephanie Woods via NaturalHealth365 – Engineered foods are becoming more and more prevalent as scientists seek to make our whole, natural fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats into substances that vaguely resemble the original product. They claim to be doing it all in the name of better health, but is it really? Japanese startup, Sanatech, is behind the launch of the CRISPR gene-edited tomato, the first of its kind in the world. The engineered fruit contains higher levels of the sedative Gamma-AminoButyric Acid or GABA. It is garnering a mixed reception, with some experts touting its supposed health benefits and others voicing concerns about its safety for human consumption. The Trouble With GABA and Gene-Editing GABA is an amino acid that is believed to help lower blood pressure and increase relaxation. It is naturally found in tomatoes in small amounts, but the gene-edited tomato contains five times more GABA than a regular one. This has some scientists very concerned. In Japan, GABA is considered to be a health-promoting substance. However, studies show mixed findings. More disturbing, though, there have been absolutely zero studies showing that consuming the CRISPR tomato has any health benefits for humans or is safe to consume. There haven’t been enough studies done to determine if GABA is safe to use. It seems to be safe in the amounts commonly found in foods, but higher amounts could cause problems. There just isn’t enough evidence for many experts to feel comfortable with these higher amounts – and worse, putting in our food. Gene-editing has also raised some serious concerns. Research has shown that it can lead to serious chromosomal damage. Eyebrow-Raising “Marketing” – or Lack Thereof Sanatech is stepping lightly around the so-called benefits of the gene-edited tomato. In fact, they are very careful to avoid any claims of its ability to promote relaxation or lower blood pressure. To get around this, the company is using a more general tactic, marketing GABA as a substance that can help with relaxation and lower blood pressure. It then follows up by explaining that its tomatoes are fortified with high levels of GABA. Essentially, they are saying it without saying it, and this is causing some concern within the research community, especially since there is little evidence that even supports the substance as a viable health supplement, much less a safe one. Another Genetically Modified Tomato Is Also Causing Concern Cathie Martin of the UK’s John Innes Centre has developed a purple tomato using an older genetic modification technique. She plans to market to the public directly even though there have not been any human intervention studies on the tomatoes. This means that the health effects of conventional tomatoes and genetically modified tomatoes have not been studied or compared. The fact that she does not intend to make any claims regarding health benefits is of little comfort. However, the media and the John Innes Center have created a great deal of hype regarding the tomatoes’ cancer-fighting properties over the past few years. Warning from health organizations that state there is no evidence supporting the claims has not deterred or stopped them. With weak government regulations on genetically modified crops, these foods are already making their way onto American soil. After that, these scientifically-altered foods will be coming to a market near you … and most consumers will have no idea it’s happening. Sources for this article include: ChildrensHealthDefense.org FruitNet.com ChildrensHealthDefense.org To read the original article click here.

The post Gene-Edited Tomato Promoted as Therapeutic, But Is It Even Safe? appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Tomato Sauce Put to the Test for Prostate Cancer

AHA Publisher — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 07:00:05 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – What happened when cancer patients were given three quarters of a cup of canned tomato sauce every day for three weeks? “Occasionally…positive things happen in the field of cancer prevention science to popular, good-tasting foods.” Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli are wonderful, but they may be “a hard food for the public to swallow.” By contrast, who doesn’t like tomatoes? As I’ve discussed previously, studies using high-dose supplements of lycopene, the antioxidant red pigment in tomatoes thought to be the active anti-cancer ingredient, failed over and over again to prevent or treat cancer. In fact, it may even end up promoting cancer, since lycopene may actually act as a pro-oxidant at the high levels one can get with supplements. But, lycopene in supplement form doesn’t appear to be effective at lower doses either. “There is a strong inverse [protective] correlation between the intake of fruit and vegetables and the incidence of certain cancers.” However, when we supplement with only a single compound isolated in pill form, we may upset the healthy, natural balance of antioxidants. It does seem to be quite the human hubris to think we can reproduce the beneficial effects of consuming entire fruits and vegetables by giving supplements of a single phytochemical, which would normally interact with thousands of other compounds in the natural matrix Mother Nature intended. “In addition to lycopene, [other] known carotenoids in tomatoes and tomato-based products include β-carotene, γ-carotene, ζ-carotene, phytofluene, and phytoene, all of which…have been found to accumulate in human prostate tissue.” There are also numerous non-carotenoid compounds in tomatoes that may have anti-cancer activity, not to mention all of the compounds we have yet to even characterize. It’s not about finding the one magic bullet, though. As one study title reads, “The anti-cancer effects of carotenoids and other phytonutrients resides in their combined activity.” For example, as you can see at 1:52 in my video Tomato Sauce vs. Prostate Cancer, at the low concentrations of the tomato compounds phytoene, phytofluene, and lycopene that are found in most people who eat normal amounts of tomatoes, there’s very little effect on cancer cell growth in vitro when used separately. But, when they are combined together, a non-effective dose of phytoene and phytofluene plus a non-effective dose of lycopene somehow become effective, significantly suppressing prostate cancer cell growth. The same synergy can be seen across foods. Curcumin, the yellow pigment in turmeric and curry powder, tomato extracts, and the vitamin E found in nuts and seeds do little individually to inhibit pro-growth signaling of prostate cancer cells—less than 10 percent—but all three together suppress growth signaling about 70 percent. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So, instead of giving cancer patients lycopene pills, what if we give them some tomato sauce? Researchers gave 32 patients with localized prostate cancer three quarters of a cup of canned tomato sauce every day for three weeks before their scheduled radical prostatectomy. In their bloodstream, PSA levels dropped by 17.5 percent. PSA, prostate-specific antigen, is a protein produced by prostate gland cells, and elevated blood PSA levels are routinely used to monitor the success of cancer treatment. “It was surprising to find that the 3-week, tomato sauce-based dietary intervention” could decrease PSA concentrations in men with prostate cancer. As well, free radical damage of the DNA in their white blood cells dropped by 21 percent. Imagine how antioxidant-poor their diet must have been beforehand if less than one cup of tomato sauce a day could reduce DNA damage by more than a fifth! What did they find in their prostates, though? Human prostate tissue is thought to be “particularly vulnerable to oxidative DNA damage by free radicals, which are thought to play a critical role in all stages of carcinogenesis,” that is, of cancer formation. This may be for a number of reasons, including fewer DNA repair enzymes. Well, the researchers had tissue samples taken from biopsies before the tomato sauce regimen started, as well as tissue samples from surgeries after three weeks of tomato sauce, and resected tissues from tomato sauce-supplemented patients had 28 percent less free radical damage than expected. I show a graph of the DNA damage in the prostate before the tomato sauce and after just 20 days of sauce at 4:18 in my video. You can see the drop yourself. What’s interesting is there was no association between the level of lycopene in the prostate and the protective effects. Tomatoes contain a whole bunch of things, some of which may be even more powerful than lycopene. Regardless, in contrast to the lycopene supplements alone, the whole food intervention seemedto help. To see if lycopene plays any role at all, one would have to test a lycopene-free tomato—in other words, a yellow tomato. So, what if you compared red tomatoes to yellow tomatoes, which have all the non-lycopene tomato compounds, to straight lycopene in a pill? Researchers fed people red tomato paste, yellow tomato paste, lycopene pills, or placebo pills, and then dripped their blood onto prostate cancer cells growing in a petri dish. As you can see at 5:18 in my video, the red tomato serum—the blood from those who ate red tomato paste—significantly decreased the prostate cancer cell’s expression of a growth-promoting gene called cyclin D1, compared to those not eating anything. This downregulation of the gene by the red tomato consumption “may contribute to lower prostate cancer risk by limiting cell proliferation.” The red tomato seemed to work better than the yellow tomato, so maybe the lycopene helped—but not in pill form. This gene “was not regulated” by the lycopene pill serum, indicating that it may be something else. And, lycopene alone significantly upregulated procarcinogenic genes. “Therefore, it can be stated that tomato consumption may be preferable to pure lycopene…” So, what’s the best way? A spouse wrote to the editor of the Harvard Men’s Health Watch, saying their husband wants to have pizza for his prostate but they don’t think it’s a healthy food. The doctor replied with the suggestion of a “cheese-free pizza (with broccoli instead of pepperoni, please)” or just some “tomato juice.” To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Greger click here.

The post Tomato Sauce Put to the Test for Prostate Cancer appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Stuffed Peppers with Rice Recipe

AHA Publisher — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 08:00:46 +0000

Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DMN, CNS – Rice gets a bad rap but, if you choose the right type, it can be a healthy, filling carbohydrate to occasionally include in meals. That’s why I use brown rice in this stuffed peppers recipe. This easy stuffed peppers recipe combines it with meat (use ground bison or grass-fed beef) and seasonings for a perfectly portioned meal that tastes great. There’s no need for a side dish, since vegetables make up the base of the meal, plus hands-on cooking time is minimal. I know you’ll love these stuffed peppers with rice! The Keys to Successful Stuffed Peppers What can I put in stuffed peppers? It’s a common question, and truthfully, there are myriad options. For this healthy stuffed peppers recipe with rice, we make it pretty simple, using just: bison or beef brown rice bell peppers onion scallions basil Italian seasoning salt tomato Because brown rice keeps almost all of its layers during refinement, it’s packed with vitamins and minerals that are stripped from white rice, making it the perfect choice for stuffed bell peppers. Brown rice nutrition is good for the heart and, since it’s a gluten-free carb, it can even pass for keto stuffed peppers if you go a little lighter on the amount. Of course, bell peppers are the star attraction to this dish. Whether you choose to make stuffed green peppers, red peppers or yellow peppers, bell pepper nutrition is on full display with this recipe. High in vitamins C, A and B6, peppers support immune, eye, skin and brain health. Combine that with either the bison meat or ground beef, and you have lean, healthy protein that complement this veggie-rich recipe perfectly. Of course, the onion, tomato and seasonings only add to both the flavor and the health benefits. How to Make Stuffed Peppers With Rice Wondering how to make stuffed bell peppers, how long to cook stuffed peppers and how do you keep stuffed peppers from getting soggy? Follow these directions. We’ll kick things off by turning on the oven to preheat. While that happens, sauté your meat in a pan along with some chopped onions for extra flavor. By the time the meat loses its pink color, the oven should be almost ready. Time to switch gears! Get your peppers in the pan, face-side down. This ensures they achieve those great charred marks from the oven while they cook. Looking good, peppers. You may be asking: Should I boil peppers before stuffing them? Personally, I prefer to roast them as I prep the filling. While the peppers are roasting for the next half hour or so, prepare the brown rice according to the instructions on the package. Speed things up or get help from little ones by using a microwaveable variety. When the rice is fully cooked — just say no to crunch — mix it up with the meat, seasonings and veggies. Resist sneaking bites. Now comes the fun part. Stuff those beautiful peppers with your rice and meat mixture. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, sprinkle a little cheese on top before returning the peppers to the oven. Fresh cheddar would be excellent, as would mozzarella or feta … or any cheese, really. Sky’s the limit here, folks. How do you make stuffed peppers stand up? Ensure the bottoms are cut to lay evenly, or wrap some foil around the base to keep them upright. Wondering how long to bake stuffed peppers? Cook the stuffed peppers with rice in the oven for about five minutes or until all the ingredients are warmed through. Then serve and enjoy! What to Serve With Stuffed Peppers Here are some great accompaniments to this recipe: Acorn Squash Soup Recipe Hearty Arugula Salad with Pecorino Recipe Grecian Spinach Recipe Sautéed Kale Recipe DESCRIPTION This easy stuffed peppers with rice recipe combines rice with meat and seasonings for a perfectly portioned meal. INGREDIENTS ¼ pound of ground bison or grass-fed beef ½ cup brown rice 2 bell peppers, halved and seeded ½ onion, chopped 2 scallions, sliced 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil leaves 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning 1 teaspoon salt 1 tomato, diced INSTRUCTIONS Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. While oven preheats, sauté meat and onions over medium heat in pan until meat is no longer pink. Remove from heat. Meanwhile, place peppers cut side down on baking sheet and roast until tender, 25–30 minutes. Prepare rice per package directions. Stir meat and onion mixture, scallions, basil, Italian seasoning and salt into cooked rice. Add tomato and stir to combine. Fill pepper halves with rice and meat mixture. Return to oven for 5 minutes or until heated through. NOTES You can use bison meat in place of beef (or really any healthy meat of your choosing). Add a cheese of your choosing as a topper if you want a little extra flavor. Hot sauce is alway a nice touch to spice up the finished product. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Axe click here.

The post Stuffed Peppers with Rice Recipe appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.