Health & Wellbeing

Fight Inflammation & Cancer with This Yummy Tomato Soup

Tony A.

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This simple soup is not only full of delicious fresh flavors that will give you that fuzzy warmed up feeling of safety, it’s also an unbelievably healthy dish that can reduce the risks of cancer and stave of dangerous inflammations. You can get all this with help from 3 key ingredients: turmeric, tomatoes and black pepper. This could be the golden combination that your health has been calling for all year.

Read on to learn more about why this dish is so healthy, and how you can make it for yourself.

Inflammation and Chronic Diseases

Image courtesy of depositphotos.com

Inflammation is indeed a natural and essential immune system response that protects you from health threats. However, inflammation can occur for no good reason, which is actually dangerous to your health. Research now establishes that inflammation of this kind, if unchecked, can lead to disease. Indeed, this unnecessary inflammation has been cited as the cause of the following chronic diseases:

• Arthritis
• Asthma
• Multiple sclerosis
• Bowel disease

To avoid these terrible diseases, the best thing you can do is combat inappropriate inflammation with an improved lifestyle and diet. According to a recent study on this subject, T. Edwards has stated:

‘We have enough information presently to make the necessary changes in our lifestyles to significantly affect the inflammatory process and potentially live longer, healthier lives, with fewer burdens to an overburdened and failing medical system.'

Fighting Inflammation

Therefore, to fight inflammation it’s necessary to take steps to improve our diet. We can do so by learning which ingredients will actually reduce the likelihood of inflammation – and hopefully provide plenty of other unrelated health benefits too. Of course, some foods may actually cause inflammation, but there are also some that abate and soothe inflammations, the most important of which is turmeric.

Benefits of Turmeric

tomato, turmeric, black pepper, soup, inflammation, cancer, health

Turmeric has a long history of being used medicinally in the Orient, especially for its anti-inflammatory abilities. Unsurprisingly, the West has now woken up to the wonders of this spice’s benefits. A recent scientific study, comparing the anti-inflammatory properties of turmeric and ginger, found that turmeric is even better equipped to decrease the production of inflammatory cytokines and increase the production of their anti-inflammatory equivalents. Though this study was performed on rats, there is great hope that a human study will confirm this.

Turmeric is not just useful when it comes to combating inflammation, however. Have a look at this comprehensive article to find out more. But here is a brief summary of the ailments that turmeric can help fight:

• Promotes digestive health
• Treats Crohn’s disease
• Treats ulcers
• Treats inflammatory bowel disease

As an antioxidant, it also helps prevent cancers, such as:
• Breast cancer
• Colon cancer
• Leukemia
• Melanoma cancer

Benefits of Black Pepper

To get the best of these turmeric benefits, we recommend eating it with black pepper. By itself, black pepper is a useful ally in the fight against oxidation in our bodies, and can also help stimulate digestion. Yet the wonderful thing here is that black pepper contains piperine, which increases our ability to absorb turmeric by a whopping 2000%. Absorption (also known as bioavailability) should always be taken into account when it comes to wonder substances like turmeric powder, and that’s why black pepper should be considered its perfect complement.

Benefits of Tomatoes

Tomatoes also have some wonderfully healthy attributes, which you can read about here. The most important of these here is that tomatoes are full of lycopene (this, in fact, makes them appear beautifully bright red), which makes them incredibly anti-oxidant. This means tomatoes can:

• Lower the risk of cancer
• Help prevent heart disease
• Lower your cholesterol levels
• Lower or balance your blood pressure

And did you know that to increase your body’s absorption (bioavailability) of cancer-fighting tomatoes, you should choose cooked over raw tomatoes?

Turmeric-Tomato-Black Pepper Soup Recipe

To take advantage of these three wonderful cancer and inflammation-fighting ingredients in one sumptuous vegan-friendly meal, try this easy-to-make soup. Since it only takes 15 minutes, this must be one of the best ways you can fight inflammation and cancer as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Image courtesy of depositphotos.com

Ingredients

• ¾ cup cherry tomatoes, rinsed then sliced in half
• 3-4 medium-sized tomatoes, diced and de-seeded
• ½ cup low-sodium vegetable stock
• 1 minced onion
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 2 tsp. turmeric powder
• 1 tsp. virgin coconut oil
• Sea salt (to taste)
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• A pinch freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

Directions

1. In a pan fry the onion and garlic with coconut oil for just 1 minute on a medium heat.
2. Add the cherry tomatoes and turmeric, cooking until the former becomes soft.
3. Then add the stock, apple cider vinegar, diced tomatoes, and basil. On a medium-high heat bring the mix to the boil. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes on a low heat.
4. Using either a hand mixer or blender, blend until creamy, or however you prefer.
5. Finally, season with black pepper and salt. Serve, and enjoy!

Cover image courtesy of depositphotos.com
H/T: healthy-holistic-living.com