Avocado and Tomato Salad
Vital To Your Health, Delightful for Your Taste Buds!
4 cups avocados, diced medium
2 cups grape tomatoes or 2 cups cherry tomatoes
2 cups cucumbers, peeled and diced medium
4 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup red onion, diced small
2 teaspoons fresh garlic, minced
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/4 cup olive oil
touch of salt and black pepper
Toss all ingredients in a bowl and top on a bed of lettuce (if desired)
Makes 8 servings
Avocados: Anti-Inflammatory Antioxidant Goodness
Avocados have a long list of potential health benefits. For example, besides its anti-inflammatory properties, previous research from Japan suggests this powerful fruit may also help protect against liver damage. Furthermore, avocados are very high in potassium and can help balance your vitally important potassium to sodium ratio.
Due to its beneficial raw fat content, avocado enables your body to more efficiently absorb fat-soluble nutrients (such as alpha- and beta-carotene and lutein) in other foods eaten in conjunction. For example, adding avocado to salads allows may allow you to absorb three to five times more carotenoids antioxidant molecules, which help protect your body against free radical damage.
Other research has found that avocados can help improve lipid profiles in both healthy individuals and those with non optimized HDL/ total cholesterol levels.
Get More Avocado into Your Diet
While avocado is commonly eaten raw, on salad or in guacamle perhaps, there are many other ways to include avocado in your diet. For example, you can use avocado as a fat replacement in baking. Simply replace the fat called for (such as oil, butter or shortening) with an equal amount of avocado. Also, it is not unusual to use avocados as a first food for babies, in lieu of processed baby food
Tomatoes: Incredibly Versatile, Vitally Healthy
Tomatoes are often considered a vegetable, though in actuality they are a citrus fruit. Tomatoes are delicious eaten raw, in salads or on sandwiches, and they take on a unique sweetness when cooked. Tomatoes are such an important part of the American diet.
Numerous studies have concluded that the more tomatoes people eat the lower their risks of certain cancers, especially lung, stomach and prostate cancers. A substance called lycopene, which is responsible for their red color, is thought to be the reason for this protection against some cancers. Processed tomatoes contain even more lycopene than raw ones. The process of cooking breaks down the cell walls, helping to release the lycopene. In addition, eating tomatoes with a little bit of fat, such as olive oil, helps lycopene to be better absorbed by the body.
Tomatoes are also high in important antioxidants such as vitamin C and Vitamin A. These vitamins work to fend off DNA damage from free radicals. Consequently, tomatoes may help to ward off age related diseases such as atherosclerosis and diabetes.
