This week’s Super Food is one that makes many people salivate in the summer, imagining thick, juicy slices with a little salt and pepper. Newspapers and Gardening magazines are peppered with tips on how to grow them. They are the most popular home-garden-vegetable around: Tomatoes. It’s easy to find meals with tomatoes because they make such a great sauce. (Click here for Katie’s pizza sauce.) Where would we be without Italian food? (Especially all those kiddos who eat nothing but spaghetti for a few years of their young life!) So what’s in a tomato, anyway?
Nutrition of Tomatoes
Tomatoes will give you the following nutritional benefits:
- Vitamin C (40% of recommended daily value in one tomato)
- Vitamin A (20% RDA)
- Vitamin K (over 15% RDA)
- Decent source (7% RDA) of fiber
- Potassium, niacin, vitamin B6, folate
- Lycopene (antioxidant)
All those nutrients can improve your health:
- Lots of cancer protection
- Protects against heart disease, stroke
- Colon and prostate health
- Improves LDL cholesterol
- Natural anti-inflammatory (helps with above diseases plus Alzheimer’s and osteoporosis)
- Bone health
- Reduces stress
- Can reduce frequency of migraines
- Helps regulate blood sugar in diabetics
Lycopene is the Tomato’s Secret Weapon
Lycopene is an antioxidant, which means it helps cells protect themselves from oxygen damage. You’ve heard the phrase “free radicals” thrown around, I’m guessing. They’re bad for you, inside and out, and lycopene is a great weapon against them. It has been shown in studies to protect against colorectal, prostate, breast, endometrial, lung, and pancreatic cancers, quite significantly in many cases. It also protects against heart disease.
In one study, 10 healthy women ate a diet containing two ounces of tomato puree each day for three weeks, either preceded by or followed by a tomato-free diet for three weeks. The researchers measured blood levels of lycopene and evaluated oxidative damage to cells before and after each phase. They found that cell damage dropped by 33% to 42% after consuming the tomato diet. ( source )
Organic tomatoes (ketchup, etc) and darker red colors have more lycopene, sometimes as much as three times! You also need the rest of the tomato for the benefits: lycopene supplements don’t cut it.
Fresh or Canned?
In the summer, when you can get local produce, of course eat fresh tomatoes if you enjoy them. However, tomatoes are one of those few foods that actually increase in nutrition after being cooked. Cooking breaks down cell walls, releasing and concentrating carotenoids (lycopene).
The tomatoes available in grocery stores are generally cultivated for toughness and even color, not flavor or nutrition. Most are picked green and treated with ethylene gas, which causes them to turn red without really ripening. You can put a store tomato in a sunny window upside down to ripen it up (but it might not be worth the $ for the lack of flavor!). Hydroponic tomatoes, because of the lack of soil, lack nutrients. They’re not worth your time. Canned tomatoes get one more leg up because they’re picked at peak ripeness and processed immediately, thus retaining more nutrients than produce-section toms. (from Nourishing Traditions )
God Builds a Complete Package when He Makes Food!
Eating the whole tomato increases absorption of lycopene, so if you can find canned tomatoes with peels (most aren’t) or make your own tomato sauce/paste/etc, you can increase the nutritive value even further. To make sure your body absorbs the lycopene best in whatever kind of tomato you’re eating, add a bit of fat. Carotenoids are fat-soluble, so they will get into your system better if they had some oil to ride upon. There’s a reason God made tomato sauce go with olive oil in good Italian food!
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If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.
Other Super Food Health Benefits:
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This week’s Super Food is one that makes many people salivate in the summer, imagining thick, juicy slices with a little salt and pepper. Newspapers and Gardening magazines are peppered with tips on how to grow them. They are the most popular home-garden-vegetable around: Tomatoes. It’s easy to find meals with tomatoes because they make such a great sauce. (Click here for Katie’s pizza sauce.) Where would we be without Italian food? (Especially all those kiddos who eat nothing but spaghetti for a few years of their young life!) So what’s in a tomato, anyway?
Nutrition of Tomatoes
Tomatoes will give you the following nutritional benefits:
All those nutrients can improve your health:
Lycopene is the Tomato’s Secret Weapon
Lycopene is an antioxidant, which means it helps cells protect themselves from oxygen damage. You’ve heard the phrase “free radicals” thrown around, I’m guessing. They’re bad for you, inside and out, and lycopene is a great weapon against them. It has been shown in studies to protect against colorectal, prostate, breast, endometrial, lung, and pancreatic cancers, quite significantly in many cases. It also protects against heart disease.
In one study, 10 healthy women ate a diet containing two ounces of tomato puree each day for three weeks, either preceded by or followed by a tomato-free diet for three weeks. The researchers measured blood levels of lycopene and evaluated oxidative damage to cells before and after each phase. They found that cell damage dropped by 33% to 42% after consuming the tomato diet. ( source )
Organic tomatoes (ketchup, etc) and darker red colors have more lycopene, sometimes as much as three times! You also need the rest of the tomato for the benefits: lycopene supplements don’t cut it.
Fresh or Canned?
In the summer, when you can get local produce, of course eat fresh tomatoes if you enjoy them. However, tomatoes are one of those few foods that actually increase in nutrition after being cooked. Cooking breaks down cell walls, releasing and concentrating carotenoids (lycopene).
The tomatoes available in grocery stores are generally cultivated for toughness and even color, not flavor or nutrition. Most are picked green and treated with ethylene gas, which causes them to turn red without really ripening. You can put a store tomato in a sunny window upside down to ripen it up (but it might not be worth the $ for the lack of flavor!). Hydroponic tomatoes, because of the lack of soil, lack nutrients. They’re not worth your time. Canned tomatoes get one more leg up because they’re picked at peak ripeness and processed immediately, thus retaining more nutrients than produce-section toms. (from Nourishing Traditions )
God Builds a Complete Package when He Makes Food!
Eating the whole tomato increases absorption of lycopene, so if you can find canned tomatoes with peels (most aren’t) or make your own tomato sauce/paste/etc, you can increase the nutritive value even further. To make sure your body absorbs the lycopene best in whatever kind of tomato you’re eating, add a bit of fat. Carotenoids are fat-soluble, so they will get into your system better if they had some oil to ride upon. There’s a reason God made tomato sauce go with olive oil in good Italian food!
Coming this week:
Make sure you don’t miss a thing! Sign up for an email subscription!
If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.
Other Super Food Health Benefits:
Looking for other Food for Thought?