Of Things Lycopene

These days people are more and more aware of what they are putting in their bodies. Thank goodness for TV and endless researches (trivial it seems they are) out there, people are getting more involved in making the right health choices.

Nevertheless we still can't get over certain food dislikes even though they are "supposedly" good for you. My husband, Ed, seems to have a distinct dislike for tomatoes, tomato juice, tomato-based sauce and even ketchup, well, he would only eat it with fries or eggs. Most of the time, Ed would avoid it like the plague! Because of it, I have devised many clever disguises for the tomatoes so that Ed would eat it.

Now you would be wondering why in the world would I be "forcing" him to eat tomatoes. Why not just let him be. Well, other than tomatoes, he also doesn't like/eat if he could green veges unless if they are deep fried, he also doesn't like eggplants, fruits, well actually, most veges in general. So why tomatoes in particular?? Reason=LYCOPENE. It's a powerful antioxident which in a recent research could prevent prostate cancer and various other cancer as well. Now tell me, wouldn't that be a good incentive enough to eat your tomatoes!! :)

So with all these "disguises", Ed would eat tomatoes and sometimes not even realise that he did eat it! What a laugh. Probably he had a bad experience with tomatoes once, who knows, the point is, what he doesn't know he wouldn't stop himself from eating it! Thank goodness Ethan loves his tomatoes...maybe got that from his mommy??? ;)

As for the picture above, it's a grilled open face tomato-cheese sandwich. I sliced some homemade maple-oat wheat bread, some roast beef on top, add slices of tomatoes and then a slice of cheese, placed in the grill and just melt the cheese, ready to be serve. It's just that easy.