Health Benefits of Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a food with great health benefits for the body. Although availability is limited because of their growing season in the past, tomatoes now available in unanimously. Even if you can not find fresh tomatoes, the nutritional benefits of this super food can be found in processed foods as well. Spaghetti and pizza sauce, ketchup and barbecue sauce all have the same health benefits as fruit.

Lycopene

Lycopene is a member of the carotenoid family and is responsible for the red pigment of tomatoes. More important for our body, lycopene has been extensively studied and praised for its antioxidant properties and prevents cancer. Studies conducted in 1980 showed that people who eat large amounts of tomatoes are much less likely to die from various types of cancer than those who ate little or no tomatoes. Another Stuyd suggests that lycopene is introduced into the cell culture existing cancer also prevents the continued growth of their culture.

In addition to the cancer prevention benefits, lycopene plays a key role in the antioxidant defense of the skin. This can increase your skin's sun protection factor (SPF) of up to 33% acting as a natural internal sunscreen! Animal studies have shown that tomatoes can reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration, but studies in humans have shown mixed results and needs further research.

It should be noted that lycopene is fat soluble. This means it takes a little fat food will be transported into the bloodstream. So even though whole tomatoes not a good source of nutrients, tomato-based foods are prepared with some kind of oil will give your body health benefits. Also organic tomatoes have three times as much lycopene as non-organic brands.

Cardiovascular protection

In addition to lycopene, vitamin C and beta-carotene also acts as a powerful antioxidant. These antioxidants protect cell membranes from damage inflammation that inhibit the development of atherosclerosis. In fact, a German study showed that men who suffer heart attacks have high levels of lycopene are much lower than those who do not.

Tomatoes also contain potassium, niacin, vitamin B6, and folate, all of which promote heart health. Potassium has been shown to help lower systolic blood pressure. Niacin reduces your LDL levels while increasing your HDL cholesterol, which reduces the risk of heart attack. Vitamin B6 and folate help lower homocysteine ​​levels in your body. High levels of homocysteine ​​are often associated with increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

Bottom Line

What should you take away from reading this article is that if you do not eat tomatoes, you should. Not only tomatoes available for purchase at your local grocery store, processed tomato-based foods also contain nutritional benefits of fruit. It is advisable to get between seven and ten servings of lycopene-rich foods per day to provide health benefits it provides. This equates to about 30 mg per day. To demonstrate how easy it is to get that number, consider that the tomato paste gives 75.4 mg in one cup of puree has a 54.4 mg in a cup and tomato soup contains 26.4 mg in one cup.