José Antonio R. Piedrabuena -- The 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 it is like to see people with their water bottles and the possibility of overloading their kidneys. Which can and should be substituted, if hydration is what it is all about, with a gazpacho that does not contain salt, with the composition of the heading. It 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 provide energy, but which serve a multitude of functions. When we put olive oil in it, it is because 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 D we cannot use or maintain calcium. They are all stored in fatty tissue or in the liver, which means that if we take them in pill form 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, will be used to produce coenzymes. They are also antioxidants, as they inactivate the harmful oxygen radicals that are so keen 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 this, water, minerals, protein, oil, vitamins and fibre are needed for our busy gut bacteria, which also make components for the cells in our intestines, as well as some vitamins.

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

The gazpacho itself is made up of good quality ingredients which provide macro minerals such as sodium, calcium, potassium, chlorine, sulphur, and magnesium. They are the main components of enzymes, hormones and haemoglobin. By drinking gazpacho, perhaps a couple of glasses a day, which can replace at least a litre and a half of water, we ingest microminerals, ions chromium, cobalt, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, selenium, zinc.

Both need transport proteins, which 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, for its richness in minerals and vitamins.

I add two tablespoons of wholegrain oat flakes to the gazpacho. We recommend 35 grams a day, half in the evening with Danacol, which contains cholesterol-lowering milk peptides, as milk lowers cholesterol and regulates blood pressure.

All the components of gazpacho contain fibre, which binds to certain toxic compounds, including certain carcinogens, reducing their absorption. It also reduces cholesterol absorption, constipation, haemorrhoids, frequent diverticulosis, colon cancer, lowers the absorption of sugar and prevents diabetes. However, if we have too much fibre, 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 of the lycopene in tomato in strengthening the nervous and circulatory system and because olive oil also helps to improve our cardiovascular health.

Watermelon and tomatoes are a great source of beta-carotene. (hence the reddish colour inside), which is converted into vitamin A. It helps produce pigments in the retina of the eye and protects against age-related macular degeneration, keeps skin, teeth, skeletal and soft tissues and mucous membranes healthy.

My gazpacho has almost half of its volume in watermelon because the watermelon rich in phenolic compounds such as flavonoids, carotenoids and triterpenoids. The carotenoid lycopene in this fruit is beneficial in reducing inflammation and neutralising 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 smoothies 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. It is also converted, through metabolism, into an amino acid that produces vasodilation in the small arteries. This is why it is said that both watermelon and melon have a certain "Viagra" effect.

We have left out the onion, garlic and lemon, because I think we are all aware of their anti-inflammatory properties, partly because they are therefore 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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