Tag Archives: tomatoes

Recipe: Turkey Tomato Bowl + Macadamia Nuts

paleobetic diet, low-carb

This Turkey Tomato Bowl fits criteria for the Paleobetic Diet

This is what I did with some of our leftover Thanksgiving turkey. If you don’t have leftover turkey, I bet leftover chicken or steak would be  fine substitutes. Heck, I’m tempted to try it with salmon or canned tuna or chicken. In addition to the flavor, what I like about this meal is that it’s crazy quick.

Ingredients:

6 oz (170 g) cooked turkey chunks, light meat (or 8 oz (225 g) if you’re starting raw and planning to cook it)

5 oz (140 g) raw tomato (2 small roma tomatoes, for example), cut into chunks

2 tbsp (30 ml) balsamic vinaigrette

black pepper to taste

1 oz (30 g) roasted macadamia nuts

paleobetic diet, low-carb, diabetes, diabetic diet, paleo diet

These roma tomatoes were amazingly flavorful for late Fall in the northern hemisphere. Before cooking, my wife injected the bird with olive oil, massaged periodically over 30 minutes, then popped it in the oven.

Instructions:

Toss the turkey and tomato chunks in a bowl, splash on the vinaigrette, then microwave for 60-80 seconds. Pepper as desired. Drink the leftover juice right out of the bowl. Enjoy with macadamia nuts for dessert and you’ve got a full meal.

Discussion:

paleobetic diet, low-carb, diabetes, diabetic diet

Grok wouldn’t have access to this

I was lazy when I made this so I just used a commercial salad dressing rather than making my own vinaigrette. Wish-Bone Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing “with extra virgin olive oil.” Here are the top ingredients, in order: water, balsamic vinegar, soybean oil and extra virgin olive oil (sic), sugar, salt, spices, etc. So the oil could have been soybean oil (from a legume—the horror!!!) with one drop of EVOO for all I know. Olive oil is a rich source of monounsaturated fatty acid, so you might be able to calculate how much EVOO was in the dressing if I tell you there were five grams of fat per two tbsp (30 ml) serving, of which 1.5 grams were monounsaturated. That serving also has three grams of carbohydrate (all sugar) and only 60 calories. Right there on the bottle is says gluten-free and “no high fructose corn syrup.” I bet it had HFCS in it three years ago and there would be no mention of the trendy “gluten-free.”

I don’t know any home cooks who add water to vinaigrettes. They are essentially oil and vinegar (in a ratio of 3:1) and spices. The ones I make have quite a bit more than 60 calories per two tbsp (30 ml); more like 220 cals. All of the oils you would use have about 120 calories per tbsp all from fat. If you make this recipe with home-made vinaigrette, add 150 calories to the nutritional analysis below. It won’t affect the carb count.

Note that of the common vinegars, balsamic has the most carbohydrates—some vinegars have zero. If you use typical amounts of balsamic vinaigrette, you shouldn’t need to worry about the carbohydrates unless perhaps you’re on a strict ketogenic diet and limited to 20-30 grams of carb daily.

Servings: 1

Nutritional Analysis:

58% fat

7% carbohydrate

35% protein

620 calories

11.5 g carbohydrate

3.7 g fiber

8 g digestible carbohydrate

743 mg sodium

877 mg potassium

Prominent features: High in protein, vitamin B6, iron, manganese, niacin, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc.

paleobetic diet, low-carb, diabetic diet, paleo diet

Bonus pic! A new horse at the Parker Compound. He’s an old-style Morgan.

Do Tomatoes Have Too Many Carbohydrates?

Eat greens for vitamin K

Looks reasonable to me

Dr. Richard Bernstein wrote a great book advocating strict carbohydrate restriction for folks with diabetes.  I’m talking about a max of 30 grams a day, compared to 250–300 g in the standard American diet.

Dr. Bernstein cautions his diabetic patients and readers of Diabetes Solution to keep a tight lid on consumption of tomatoes.  An excerpt from page 149:

If you have them uncooked in salad, limit yourself to one slice or a single cherry tomato per cup of salad.

His concern is that tomatoes will raise your blood sugar too high.

That doesn’t make sense to me.  A 3-inch diameter tomato has 7 grams of carbohydrate, 2 of which are fiber.  So the digestible carb count is only 5 grams.  That’s not much.  So do tomatoes have a high glycemic index?  Unlikely, although it’s hard to be sure.  Good luck finding a reliable GI for tomatoes on the Internet.

I think Dr. Bernstein’s wrong about this one, which is rare.  I suppose it’s possible that tomatoes deliver some other substance to the bloodstream that interferes with carbohydrate metabolism, but Dr. Bernstein doesn’t mention that.

Do tomatoes play havoc with your blood sugars?

Steve Parker, M.D.

Are You Afraid of the Night(shades)?

Rosemary Chicken (garnished with pico de gallo) and Rosemary Potatoes

Rosemary Chicken (garnished with pico de gallo) and Rosemary Potatoes

The nightshade family includes potatoes (not sweet potatoes or yams), tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, goji berries, and even tobacco.  Anecdotal reports indicate that consumption of these either cause or aggravate certain chronic medical conditions, such as arthritis, chronic fatigue, or irritable bowel syndrome.

Georgia Ede, M.D., has an article on medical effects of nightshades at her website.  The potentially offensive chemicals in nightshades are called glycoalkaloids.  I looked into this issue when deciding whether to include potatoes in my version of the paleo diet.  (They’re included).

Dr. Ede’s writes:

As with any food sensitivity, the only way to find out is to remove nightshades from your diet for a couple of weeks or so to see if you feel better.  There are ZERO scientific articles about nightshade sensitivity, chronic pain, or arthritis in the literature, however, the internet is full of anecdotal reports of people who have found that nightshades aggravate arthritis, fibromyalgia, or other chronic pain syndromes.

I bet I could eat a couple potatoes and tomatoes every day without ill effect.  And there’s Chris Voigt, head of the Washington State Potato Commission, famous for his 60-day potato diet.  As they say, your mileage may vary.

Steve Parker, M.D.