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(Dr. Karla Kennedy-Hagan). Hello.
My name is Dr. Karla Kennedy-Hagan
with the School of Family and Consumer Sciences
at Eastern Illinois University.
If you're looking to spice up your appetite,
try our pico de gallo.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
(Christine Ross). Hi, my name is
Christine Ross and I'm a graduate dietetic student
at Eastern Illinois University.
Today, we're going to be talking about healthy ways
to use up those garden vegetables because
gardening season is fastly approaching.
Today, we're going to make a pico de gallo salsa.
Pico de gallo is a healthy alternative to some of the
higher fat, higher cholesterol, cheesy spreads
that we sometimes use on tacos and other Mexican foods.
So first of all I'll start out with tomatoes.
Tomatoes are high in cancer antioxidants, so this is 3 Roma
tomatoes cut up which is approximately 1 cup.
So we'll put those in and then we'll move on
to the green pepper.
Green pepper is very high in vitamin C along with tomatoes
which are also high in vitamin C.
We'll use about 1/2 cup of green pepper.
Red pepper could also be substituted or you could use
green pepper and red pepper if you want a little more variety.
Next, we'll use about 1/4 cup of onion and onions have also been
shown to have antioxidant properties and prevent cancer.
So now you can see we have a nice variety of color and we've
got three different vegetables in there and now we're
going to add some cilantro which is a fresh herb.
It just has a really fresh taste, a very distinctive taste.
So we'll add that in and we'll stir it up.
Now it's important to put this in the refrigerator overnight
so that all of the different tastes of the different
vegetables and the cilantro can mix together.
The next day you'll have a really nice fresh taste.
So we'll stir it up some more.
Then when you're done, after it's sat in the refrigerator
for the night, you've got a beautiful display of vegetables
and then you can add some chips.
These are some low-fat tortilla chips.
You can also use crackers, whole wheat crackers or you could top
this pico de gallo on top of tacos, burritos, or even meat.
And it's just a really heart- healthy alternative to some of
those other condiments that we often use.
It's good for high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer,
many disease states.
One of those reasons is because it's low in fat,
low in cholesterol, and has many antioxidant properties
that prevent cancer.
So here we are, we've got our finished product and it's
a nice way to use up those garden vegetables as I stated.