The Gutless Kitchen
Every Ingredient Should Earn Its Place
Tomatoes: Sometimes Cooking Makes the Medicine Better
My garden has apparently decided we're opening an Italian restaurant.
The tomatoes are coming in faster than we can eat them.
Big ones. Little ones. Perfect ones. Weird ones. The occasional tomato that looks like it needs its own driver's license.
And while standing in the garden surrounded by them, I started thinking about our Gutless Kitchen rule:
Every ingredient should earn its place.
Tomatoes definitely do.
We tend to think of tomatoes as supporting players. They go on salads, sandwiches, burgers and sauces. But inside that ridiculously abundant garden fruit is an interesting collection of vitamins, minerals and plant compounds.
And one of them gets even more interesting when you turn on the stove.
First, Yes. A Tomato Is a Fruit.
Botanically speaking, tomatoes are fruits because they develop from the flower of the plant and contain seeds.
Culinarily, we treat them like vegetables.
Gutless verdict?
We don't care what you call them. Just eat them!
A Little Tomato History
Tomatoes originated in the Americas and were cultivated by Indigenous peoples long before Europeans encountered them.
After tomatoes arrived in Europe in the 1500s, they had a bit of a public-relations problem.
They belong to the nightshade family, and Europeans were understandably suspicious of them. For a time, tomatoes were grown more as ornamental curiosities than dinner.
Eventually somebody got brave.
Thank goodness.
Today they're central to cuisines all over the world, from Italian tomato sauce to Mexican salsa to Middle Eastern salads.
But their greatest contribution may be something you can't taste at all.
The Gutless Lab
Meet Lycopene
That gorgeous red color isn't just there to make your Caprese salad pretty.
It's largely thanks to lycopene, a carotenoid pigment and antioxidant found especially abundantly in tomatoes.
Antioxidants help the body deal with oxidative stress, which occurs when reactive molecules overwhelm our natural antioxidant defenses.
Lycopene has been studied extensively for its potential role in supporting cardiovascular health and protecting cells from oxidative damage.
Tomatoes also provide vitamin C, potassium, folate and other carotenoids.
But here's where tomatoes get really interesting.
Cook Them.
We often hear that raw vegetables are always healthier because heat destroys nutrients.
That's only part of the story.
Heat can reduce some heat-sensitive nutrients, including vitamin C.
But cooking also breaks down the cellular structure of tomatoes, making lycopene easier for our bodies to access.
Processed tomato products such as tomato sauce and tomato paste can therefore provide lycopene in a form that is more bioavailable than it is from a raw tomato.
In other words:
Raw tomatoes are nutritious.
Cooked tomatoes are nutritious.
They're simply bringing slightly different things to the party.
And Then There's Olive Oil
Here's where things get delicious.
Lycopene is fat-soluble.
That means eating tomatoes with some dietary fat can help your body absorb it.
Researchers have actually studied tomatoes cooked with olive oil and found increased blood levels of lycopene after they were eaten.
So that old combination of tomatoes, olive oil, garlic and herbs isn't just culinary magic.
From a nutritional standpoint, it's an awfully clever combination too.
Sometimes traditional cooking methods figured things out long before we understood the biochemistry.
Gutless Recipe #1
Ridiculously Easy Roasted Garden Tomatoes
This is what I make when the garden starts producing tomatoes faster than reasonable human beings can consume them.
Ingredients
Fresh tomatoes, any variety
Extra virgin olive oil
Fresh garlic
Sea salt
Black pepper
Fresh basil, oregano or thyme
Directions
Heat oven to 400°F.
Cut larger tomatoes into halves or quarters. Cherry tomatoes can stay whole or be halved.
Spread them on a baking sheet.
Drizzle generously with olive oil.
Add minced or sliced garlic, salt and pepper.
Roast for approximately 25–35 minutes, until the tomatoes soften, concentrate and begin caramelizing around the edges.
Finish with fresh herbs.
Eat them immediately or refrigerate them for later.
They're wonderful over fish, eggs, vegetables, steak or just about anything else that wandered too close to your kitchen.
Gutless Recipe #2
Garden Tomato & Herb Salad
Because we're not cooking all of them.
Ingredients
3 ripe garden tomatoes
Fresh basil
Fresh parsley
Thinly sliced red onion
Extra virgin olive oil
Splash of red wine vinegar
Sea salt
Fresh cracked pepper
Cut the tomatoes into generous pieces.
Add herbs and onion.
Drizzle with olive oil and a little red wine vinegar.
Season with salt and pepper.
Let it sit for 10 minutes before eating.
Those tomato juices, olive oil, herbs and vinegar create their own dressing at the bottom of the bowl.
Do not waste that part.
We have standards.
Fresh vs. Cooked: Who Wins?
Neither.
And that's the point.
Fresh tomatoes provide plenty of vitamin C and other nutrients.
Cooked tomatoes make lycopene easier for the body to absorb.
Tomatoes eaten with healthy fats such as extra virgin olive oil give fat-soluble carotenoids an additional absorption advantage.
So rather than obsessing over the "healthiest" way to eat tomatoes, rotate them.
Fresh today.
Roasted tomorrow.
Sauce this weekend.
Your body doesn't need nutritional perfection.
It needs variety.
This Week's Challenge
Buy some tomatoes from a local farm stand, farmers market or grocery store. Better yet, pick them from your own garden if you're lucky enough to have one.
Eat tomatoes two ways this week.
One raw.
One cooked with olive oil.
Pay attention to how dramatically the flavor changes.
And while you're cooking, ask our favorite question:
What is this ingredient doing for me?
The Gutless Takeaway
Sometimes we get so caught up in eating food in its most "natural" state that we forget something humans have been doing for a very long time:
Cooking.
Preparation changes food.
Sometimes we lose a little of one nutrient and gain better access to another.
So don't worry about finding the single perfect way to eat.
Eat real food.
Eat it in different ways.
Pair ingredients thoughtfully.
And remember:
Every ingredient should earn its place.
Turns out that tomato sitting on your kitchen counter has been working harder than you thought.
Now, lets talk about something that just belongs with tomatoes...
Gutless Kitchen: Oregano
Before It Was Pizza Seasoning, It Was Medicine
Before oregano became the green confetti scattered over pizza...
Before somebody's Italian grandmother shook half a bottle into Sunday sauce while refusing to measure anything...
Before it became one of those dusty little jars in the back of the spice cabinet that you vaguely remember owning...
Humans had considerably bigger plans for oregano.
For centuries, this pungent little plant has wandered between the kitchen and the medicine cabinet. It has been brewed into teas, applied to skin, used for digestive complaints, reached for during coughs and colds, and, eventually, sprinkled enthusiastically over tomatoes and cheese.
Which raises an excellent Gutless Kitchen question:
Did our ancestors know something about oregano that we forgot?
Grab your apron.
We're going backward before we go forward.
Oregano Before the Pizza
The oregano we're talking about is primarily Origanum vulgare, a perennial member of the mint family with a native range stretching broadly from Europe and the Mediterranean into Asia.
And oregano has been hanging around human beings for a very long time.
Historical and ethnobotanical records describe oregano being used not only as food, but traditionally for digestive complaints, coughs and respiratory ailments, menstrual discomfort, wounds and other everyday maladies.
In other words, long before oregano had a relationship with mozzarella, it had a relationship with the human body.
Different cultures used it differently. Preparations included teas and infusions, tinctures and external applications. In some traditions it developed a reputation as an expectorant and digestive herb. Other historical uses involved wounds and skin.
Traditional use is evidence of human observation, not the same thing as evidence from a clinical trial.
But when people scattered across generations keep reaching for the same plant, Gutless Kitchen likes to ask another question:
What's actually in there?
Meet Carvacrol and Thymol
Now oregano gets interesting.
Oregano contains an assortment of plant compounds, but two of its most famous are carvacrol and thymol, aromatic phenolic compounds found in oregano essential oil.
They are responsible for some of oregano's characteristic punch, but researchers are considerably more interested in what they can do to microbes.
Carvacrol in particular has demonstrated substantial antimicrobial activity in laboratory research.
One proposed reason is surprisingly physical: these compounds can interact with microbial cell membranes and interfere with their integrity and function.
Essentially, oregano isn't merely standing there smelling Mediterranean.
There's chemistry happening.
Researchers have demonstrated antimicrobial activity involving oregano or its constituents against a variety of bacteria and other microorganisms in laboratory settings.
Which sounds spectacular.
And this is precisely where the internet normally puts on a cape and announces:
OREGANO KILLS INFECTIONS!
Reason has unfortunately entered the kitchen.
Does Oregano Cure Colds and Flu?
No.
At least, we don't have good evidence that eating oregano or taking oregano oil will cure your cold or influenza.
This distinction matters.
A substance demonstrating antimicrobial activity against microorganisms in a laboratory is not the same thing as demonstrating that it safely and effectively treats an infection inside a human being.
Petri dishes are considerably easier patients than people.
Oregano does have a long history of traditional use for coughs, colds and respiratory complaints. Modern research also gives us legitimate reasons to be interested in its antimicrobial, antioxidant and other biological properties.
But the human clinical evidence has not caught up with oregano's rather enthusiastic reputation on the internet.
So should oregano replace your doctor, medication or flu shot?
No.
Should this stop us from putting oregano in dinner?
Absolutely not.
Because food doesn't have to cure influenza to be valuable.
Fresh Oregano vs. Dried Oregano
Here's another surprise.
Fresh and dried oregano aren't necessarily chemically identical twins.
Drying changes oregano's volatile compounds, and the method used matters. Research examining different drying techniques has found changes in total volatile compounds as well as oregano's aromatic profile.
So the jar in your spice cabinet isn't simply fresh oregano minus the water.
It's a slightly different botanical product.
And that wonderfully aggressive aroma when you crush dried oregano between your fingers?
Those volatile compounds are announcing themselves.
This is also why herbs don't remain immortal simply because we've put them in tiny glass bottles.
If your oregano was purchased during the Obama administration, thank it for its service and let it go.
And Then We Found the Soap Study
Now we arrive at my favorite oregano plot twist.
Researchers published a study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology testing oregano essential oil as an antimicrobial additive in liquid detergent.
They added 0.5% oregano essential oil to the detergent and actually tested it in human hand-washing trials.
The oregano-containing soap reduced naturally occurring microbes on the hands as effectively as the commercial antimicrobial soap used for comparison and performed better than the plain soap without the oregano essential oil.
They also tested the formulation for cleaning contaminated surfaces. For three of the four bacterial pathogens studied, adding oregano essential oil improved cleaning performance.
Now THAT is interesting.
It doesn't mean oregano soap prevents colds or flu.
It doesn't mean more oregano oil equals better soap.
And it certainly doesn't mean you should pour oregano essential oil directly onto your hands.
Essential oils are highly concentrated substances, and "natural" does not automatically mean "gentle." They can irritate or sensitize skin.
But it does give us something far more valuable than a viral wellness claim:
an intriguing human experiment worth paying attention to.
And yes.
Gutless Kitchen will be investigating oregano soap.
Because apparently this is what happens when you give me access to PubMed and a kitchen.
So What Should We Actually Do With Oregano?
Eat it.
Seriously.
We have developed a strange relationship with medicinal plants in which we sometimes become so obsessed with extracting, concentrating and encapsulating their "active ingredients" that we forget humans spent thousands of years doing something much simpler:
They ate the plants.
Oregano works beautifully with tomatoes, garlic, onions, beans, roasted vegetables, fish, meat, olive oil and countless other foods.
And several of those ingredients bring interesting plant chemistry of their own.
No supplement aisle required.
Gutless Kitchen: Cold-Season Oregano & Garlic Oil
Here's where I want to keep things beautifully simple.
You'll need:
- 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2–3 cloves fresh garlic, finely minced
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- Fresh oregano if you have it
- Black pepper
- A pinch of salt
- Optional red pepper flakes
- A squeeze of fresh lemon
Warm the olive oil gently over low heat.
Add the garlic and oregano and allow them to become fragrant without browning the garlic. Remove from heat, add black pepper and red pepper if you're using it, and finish with a little lemon.
Spoon it immediately over roasted vegetables, fish, beans or warm tomatoes, or use it as a dipping oil with whatever fits the way you eat.
Important kitchen note: Don't make a big jar of fresh garlic-in-oil and leave it sitting on the counter. Garlic stored improperly in oil can create conditions where Clostridium botulinum can grow. Make this fresh, enjoy it fresh, and refrigerate leftovers promptly.
See?
Sometimes reason keeps us from getting botulism.
Suddenly he's more fun at parties.
The Gutless Bottom Line
Our ancestors didn't have gas chromatography.
They didn't know the words carvacrol or thymol.
What they did have was generation after generation of observation.
They knew oregano made food taste better.
They also noticed something about this plant that caused cultures to keep reaching for it when people had coughs, upset stomachs, wounds and other ailments.
Centuries later, science looked inside oregano and discovered a surprisingly complicated collection of biologically active compounds.
Does that prove every traditional use?
No.
Does oregano cure colds?
No evidence says that it does.
But does modern research suggest that the humble herb sitting beside your garlic powder deserves considerably more respect than we've been giving it?
Absolutely.
Maybe that's one of the things we've lost as food became sterile, packaged and convenient.
The line between the kitchen and the medicine cabinet used to be considerably blurrier.
At Gutless Kitchen, we're interested in that line.
Not because everything our ancestors believed was correct.
And not because everything worth knowing was discovered in a laboratory.
But because somewhere between traditional knowledge and modern evidence there are fascinating questions waiting for somebody curious enough to ask them.
Sometimes the answer is complicated.
Sometimes it's surprising.
And sometimes...
it's oregano.