Tomato soup without tomatoes. Surely this can't be healthy? Quite the reverse, reports Haydn Shaughnessy, tomatoes are toxic
Craig Sams makes Nomaytoes. We say Nomatoes. In a post-macrobiotic world, let's work the whole thing out.
What, you might ask, is all that about? Here is the decode.
Nomatoes are tomato-like products without the defining ingredient. In place of the round, red and often mushy fruit, American health food inventor and serial entrepreneur Craig Sams has created a health food sauce base comprising apple juice, for sweetness, lemon juice, for sour and bitter, and beetroot for colour (plus several other ingredients that give the sauce a tomato-like taste and consistency without the frogspawn texture).
Craig recently launched his Nomato range of tomato-free sauces, soups and ketchup to help us all take the next logical step towards healthy eating.
Why?
We are, he argues, all becoming a little more macrobiotic in our eating habits.
In the 1960s macrobiotic eating became fashionable among such a small minority that it stretched the definition of fashion. Typical followers of this Japanese-inspired diet were hardcore ascetics who denied themselves all forms of culinary pleasure, so it seemed. How times change. The macrobiotic message is now surprisingly mainstream. Keep sugar consumption down, avoid yeasted foods, eat fresh, eat local, eat wholegrain, eat organic.
Many of us are slowly transforming into the purists that 40 years ago attracted derision.
There was one inexplicable dictum in the macrobiotic canon that adherents followed without really understanding why (in fact two. Macrobiotics are urged to chew every mouthful 50 times. Hard to imagine modern pasta and rice dishes warranting that level of attention). But to the mysterious rule: Eat no tomatoes.
Tomatoes are a member of the nightshade family and are toxic. Fellow sibling nightshades are potatoes, aubergine and peppers.
Potatoes. Toxic?
Patrick Wall, former chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, confirms they are.
"I was told by my guys when I was CEO, if we took the same criteria used to assess GM this_is_a_left_sq_bracketgenetically modified] foods and applied them to potatoes today, the potato would not reach the market," says Wall, underlining how important tradition is in securing a place for certain foodstuffs.
Sams points to two problems with nightshade produce.
Potatoes contain solanine and solanine content increases with exposure to light (that means all those sacks of scrubbed spuds in plastic bags on the supermarket shelves are gradually becoming more toxic). Tomatoes contain tomatine, peppers contain soladinine. These are all nicotine-type chemicals.
All contribute to low-level toxicity and possibly to maintaining the kind of craving that goes with cigarette smoking, only in this case with foods. That process has the dual effect of making us lethargic, the relaxed effect of cigarette smoking, as well as making us want more food.
The problem is exacerbated by the huge changes in diet that English-speaking people have endured/enjoyed over the past 30 years.
Tomatoes used to be an occasional summer fruit whereas now they are the base in pasta sauces, pizzas and many Indian meals, as well as being available for year-round salads.
Wayne Anderson, a Food Safety Authority chemist, points out however that tomatoes are a staple of the Mediterranean diet and the Med Diet is considered one of the healthiest in the world.
Sams's answer is to look at the cumulative changes in diet of those of us in the cold north.
Capsicum peppers were virtually unheard of until recently, whereas now they are trucked over daily from the greenhouses of Holland and Spain.
Aubergines likewise were a rarity.
The humble and ubiquitous spud on the other hand was treated with respect and kept unwashed and in thick paper sacks to avoid exposure to sunlight.
What's more, the tacit knowledge of a nation reared on them meant only the foolish would use green or blighted potatoes.
Anderson agrees: "It is well known and the advice is, if you see any green in a potato cut it out, as most people do."
Iona Pratt, also with the Food Safety Authority, says of tomatoes and their relatives that yes, they contain nicotine but the amounts are infinitesimally small.
According to Sams, the problem lies in the quantity across food products and accumulation over time. We now eat huge amounts of products with low levels of nicotine in them.
When these levels increase so too do toxicity problems. Blighted potatoes or potatoes with high levels of solanine are associated with problems like Spina Bifida in childhood.
These claims are clearly open to debate. And a debate is no doubt needed.
But what do Nomatoes taste like? I happen to be averse to tomatoes. I believe that if a food has difficulty in maintaining its own bulk, if it sags under its own weight as tomatoes frequently do, then it will have the same effect on me. Perhaps that means I'm not the best person to judge. Nonetheless I found Nomato soup had a good consistency. The apple juice is slightly too prominent and creates too much sweetness for my liking. The lemon introduces a tartness that seems about right. On balance the taste is interesting and the after effect is less of a burden on the digestion than most soups, tomato or otherwise.
The kids on the other hand became Nomato Ketchup converts from the word go. One reason might be they can pour it on their bright white spuds without a hint of disapproval from the parents. Whatever its other benefits or drawbacks, Nomatoes could very well take on the role of domestic peace maker.
Serial health entrepreneur
WholeEarth: Hailing from Nebraska, US, Craig Sams opened London's first macrobiotic restaurant in the 1960s, and went on to found WholeEarth Foods, the first producer offering popular foods such as baked beans in sugar-free format. WholeEarth Foods has since passed to new owners but Sams's food ventures continue.
Green and Blacks: He is currently king of the chocolate bars (you may have sampled his organic Green and Blacks). Green and Blacks were a departure for Sams in that they contain sugar and were potentially damaging to the WholeEarth brand but they have rapidly become one of the most popular organic treats.
Gusto: A plant-based drink, Gusto is a caffeine alternative that releases its hit slowly over hours rather than directly when drunk.
Baking Sourdough with Sprouted Grains: Sams is about to launch a bakery based on traditional bread-making techniques. For inspiration he went to Belgium where in one small town, Maldeghem, they still practise the art of baking from grains that are several days sprouted. Combining sprouted wheat with flour and sourdough, these breads are about as close as we can get to original bread-making techniques in which the enzymes created by sprouting are pitted against the wild yeasts that stimulate fermentation.
Nomato: The world's first tomato-free range of tomato ketchup, tomato soup and pasta sauces Nomatoes is a range of soups, sauces and ketchup.
Nomatoes are available from Munster Whole Foods and Wholefoods Wholesale, Dublin