Saturday, August 21, 2010

Tomatophobia

Tomato (Tamatar)Image via Wikipedia
We all know macrobiotics do not like to use the tomato in the kitchen, because it's extreem Yin nature.
But there are ways that you sometimes can use it : I use it after 12 hours drying in my de-hydrator (3 kg becomes 300 gr after drying) to make tomato pesto, or baking tomatoes (cut in half) for 50 minutes in sesame oil, or cooking tomatoes for 90 minutes to make ketchup.
I use temperature (Yang) and salt (Yang) to neutralize the acid nature of the plant.
In his book "Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition", Paul Pitchford writes that tomato is very cooling in nature, it builds the Yin fluids and relieves dryness and thirst, it tonifies the stomach and cleans the liver: it purifies the blood and detoxifies the body in general. He add the caution: tomato upsets calcium metabolism and should be avoided in cases of arthritis. Large amounts of tomatoes are weakening for everyone.
So if used in the right season and in the right quantityt, you sometimes can use tomatoes.
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