José Antonio R. Piedrabuena -- Summer diet

A good gazpacho can be made with tomato, melon, watermelon, cucumber, onion, olive oil, garlic and lemon juice 

This is a way of heading an article that may seem strange, but it gives me no idea what to see people with their water bottles and the possibility of overloading the kidney. That can and should be replaced, if hydration is treated with a gazpacho without salt, with the composition of the headline. This would make us thirsty.

I have already written in one of my books that we need to supply daily materials for the mysterious, precise, varied and complicated factory that is the body. The building materials are proteins, carbohydrates and fats: the macronutrients.

Gazpacho is full of micronutrients that our body cannot manufacture, such as vitamins that do not give energy but serve a multitude of functions. When we put olive oil in it, it already contains almost all the micronutrients, but the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and E will find good transporters in the rest of the components. Some of them, such as vitamin D, are hormones or act as such, but without vitamin D we will not be able to take advantage of or maintain the calcium. All of them are stored in the adipose tissue or in the liver, which means that if we take them in tablets they can be toxic when they accumulate and reach toxic concentrations. This is something that cannot happen with food.

These vitamins from the best of liquids, gazpacho, are going to be used to produce coenzymes. They are also antioxidants, since they inactivate the harmful oxygen radicals so eager to shorten our existence.

We lose millions of cells every day, in all organs including those components responsible for making blood cells.

To rebuild all of this, we need water, minerals, proteins, oil, vitamins and fibre for our hard-working intestinal bacteria that also make components for the cells of our intestines, in addition to some vitamins.

That's why I start with gazpacho, because it has almost everything our factory needs. Also mineral nutrients.

Gazpacho itself is made up of good quality components that provide macro minerals such as sodium, calcium, potassium, chlorine, sulfur, and magnesium. These are the main components of enzymes, hormones and hemoglobin. Drinking gazpacho, perhaps a couple of glasses a day, which can replace at least a liter and a half of water, we ingest microminerals, chromium ions, cobalt, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, selenium, zinc.

Both need transport proteins that also control their concentrations. So beware of vegetarian diets. A good breakfast on a hot day would be eggs, which have all the vitamins and minerals, or cured ham, with wholemeal bread, because of the fibre, because of its richness in minerals and vitamins.

I put two tablespoons of whole grain oatmeal in gazpacho. We recommend 35 grams a day, half of it at night with Danacol, which contains milk peptides that lower cholesterol, since milk lowers cholesterol and regulates blood pressure.

All the components of gazpacho have fiber, so it will bind to certain toxic compounds, including certain carcinogens, reducing their absorption, also decrease the absorption of cholesterol, constipation, hemorrhoids, diverticulosis quite common, colon cancer, lowers the absorption of sugar and prevents diabetes. Now, if we go overboard with fiber we can prevent the absorption of iron, calcium, and vitamins.

We have included tomato and watermelon because they have the properties of being vasodilators, as well as protecting us from hypertension and the formation of clots, because the lycopene in tomato strengthens the nervous and circulatory system and that olive oil also helps to improve our cardiovascular health.

Watermelon and tomato are a great source of beta-carotene (that's why the reddish colour of its interior) which is converted into vitamin A. It helps produce the pigments in the retina of the eye and protects against age-related macular degeneration, keeps skin, teeth, skeletal and soft tissue and mucous membranes healthy.

My gazpacho has almost half its volume in watermelon because watermelon is rich in phenolic compounds such as flavonoids, carotenoids and triterpenoids. The lycopene carotenoid in this fruit is beneficial in reducing inflammation and neutralizing free radicals.

The triterpenoid cucurbitacin E is also present in watermelon, and provides anti-inflammatory support by blocking the activity of cyclooxygenase enzymes that normally produce an inflammatory surge. I include melon in all the shakes because among other components it has citrulline which the mitochondria transform into ornithine which is a substance that has the capacity to produce a relaxation of the capillaries, hypotension. Besides becoming, through the metabolism, an amino acid that produces vasodilation in the small arteries. That is why it is said that both watermelon and melon have a certain "viagra" effect.

We have left onion, garlic and lemon because I think we all know their anti-inflammatory capacity, partly because they are potentially anti-cancer, anti-bacterial and improve lung function.

I think this has shown that two or three glasses of this gazpacho can eliminate the need for the water bottle.

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