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What is the Good of Tomatoes?

Tomatoes begin to the nightshade family and were once believed to be deadly and full of toxins. It was once the commonly held belief that tomatoes were to blame for a variety of types of cancers, as well as appenditicitis and what was referred to as "brain fever." Tomatoes were not consumed until the start of the 1800's when a citizen from New Jersey by the name of Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson returned from a trip overseas with tomatoes. Nor one to shrink from courageous acts, Johnson announced on September 26, 180 to the many shocked onlookers of his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts that he was going to eat an entire basket of tomatoes right in front of them. The onlookers' expe4cted the worst but the worst did not occur. Since Johnson broke ground in regards to tomatoes they are now recognized as a healthy part of a balanced diet and has become a commonplace food item for many people.

Tomatoes are chocked full of vitamin C and are able to provide a person with an estimated 40 percent of the daily value (DV) they require. As far as daily value is concerned, tomatoes also supply 15 percent of the necessary vitamin A and 8 percent of the daily value of the mineral potassium. Tomatoes also contain the mineral iron and it allows for 7 percent of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of iron that women need and 10 percent that men need.

The red color of color is due to a pigment called lycopene. Lycopene has many antioxidant properties and it helps to destroy free radicals that in turn set to work damaging as many cells in the human body as they possibly can. In fact recent studies have shown that lycopene in tomatoes might be every bit as good, if not better, than the antioxidants contained in beta carotene. Researchers in Italy have discovered that people who eat more than seven servings of raw tomatoes on a regular basis are able to decrease their risk of developing stomach cancer or rectal colon cancer by as much as 60 percent. Researchers in Israel have discovered that lycopene is also very effective at inhibiting endometrial cancer cells, as well as the cells that are responsible for the development of breast cancer and lung cancer. Eating tomatoes and the lycopene they contain is beneficial to older individuals because it helps support them in being as physically active for as long as they possibly can be.

New research into tomatoes is finding that they are useful in preventing the onset of lung cancer. There are two very strong compounds in tomatoes, called chlorogenic acid and coumaric acid that are able to block the negative effects of nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are naturally occurring in the human body but they also enter the body by way of such avenues as the carcinogens found in cigarettes.

When buying tomatoes choose ones that are the most vibrant red shades you can find as this means that they boost large quantities of lycopene and beta-carotene in them. Raw tomatoes are good but cooking them in a bit of olive oil helps to coax the lycopene out even more.