In summer, you don’t really want to eat hot and hearty dishes, so many people prefer to snack on salads made from fresh seasonal vegetables with the addition of dressings.
And one of the first places on the list of popular summer salads is the one made from cucumbers and tomatoes.
Cut them, season with sour cream or mayonnaise, garnish with herbs - and you're ready to eat.
But this simple and tasty dish has long been questioned in terms of its health benefits, notes Yulia Arkhipova, an expert on culinary issues at the BelNovosti online publication.
Here are some myths associated with cucumber and tomato salad.
The first of them is that tomatoes and cucumbers consumed together stimulate fermentation processes in the intestines.
This is not entirely true: unpleasant sensations may only occur in people with ulcers or irritable bowel syndrome.
And in the absence of such diseases, a serving of tomato and cucumber salad will not cause any bloating or rumbling in the stomach.
Myth number two: eating vegetables such as cucumbers and tomatoes together promotes the formation of oxalates, which are harmful to the kidneys.
Again, no: this claim is made by alkaline diet fans and has no real evidence. What is it based on?
On the fact that tomatoes are supposedly an acidifying product, and cucumbers are an alkalizing one. And when acid and alkali combine, those very oxalates are formed.
But both tomatoes and cucumbers have rather a light acidity and consist of almost 95 percent liquid. Therefore, they do not form any harmful salts.
The third myth is that cucumbers “kill” the vitamin C contained in tomatoes, so it is better not to mix these vegetables in the same salad.
This is a misconception: the enzyme ascorbinase destroys ascorbic acid from tomatoes only if they are in contact with sliced cucumbers for several hours in a row. Of course, no one would leave a salad of fresh vegetables for that long.
And when it gets into the stomach, ascorbinase from cucumbers is almost instantly neutralized by gastric juice. So vitamin C from tomatoes, which comes "in a set" with cucumbers, is still not completely destroyed by this enzyme.
So, eating a little cucumber-tomato salad for lunch or dinner is a good and healthy idea? Yes. But even an initially healthy salad can be made even healthier.
How?
Since there is not much vitamin C in tomatoes compared to bell peppers or black currants, you can increase the amount of this substance in the salad a little by adding greens to the vegetables. Watercress, parsley or cilantro are suitable. However, bell peppers are also appropriate in the dish.
There are those who add onions to their tomato and cucumber salad for a spicy twist. And they are right to do so, because onions contain healthy biotin, which is essential for hair and nails, as well as an antioxidant called quercetin.
Finally, in order for the salad to meet the principles of a balanced diet, it is important to select a dressing with a certain calorie content.
If you care about your slim figure, it is best to season cucumbers and tomatoes in a bowl with low-fat sour cream or Greek yogurt, and those who are not worried about their figure can use vegetable oils and sauces based on it.
Earlier we talked about how to cook real pilaf at home .
Expert: Julia Arkhipova
