What you
didn't know
abouttomatoes
You should eat both fresh and prepared tomatoes
There’s a high lycopene content in both processed and prepared tomato products – like tomato sauce, tomato juice and ketchup. When you heat and cook a fresh tomato, it helps the body to absorb the nutrient more efficiently. The drawback is that the vitamin C value is lost. So, to reap the full benefit of tomatoes, it’s essential to consume both fresh and prepared fruits.
Tomatoes and gastrointestinal cancers
A group of Italian scientists has succeeded in proving that tomato extract can have an influence on stomach cancer cells in the laboratory environment. When the cancer cells were treated with tomato extract (San Marzano and Corbarino), the cells exhibited impaired growth and their ability to move and to spread was reduced. This suggests that making tomatoes a part of your diet might be beneficial in both preventing cancer and as part of nutritional support for cancer patients.
A tomato is a fruit
The distinction between fruit and vegetable is far from clear. Fruit is an umbrella term for edible fruits, but some fruits are also considered vegetables. This includes the tomato. From a horticultural perspective, the tomato is a vegetable, but from a botanical perspective, it is a fruit. What we do is based on the culinary world, where because of its savoury taste and primary use in savoury dishes, like salads, sauces and soups, it is considered a vegetable. This classification as a vegetable has more to do with culinary tradition that with the botanical definition.
What else is a tomato
suitable for?
Tomatoes are an excellent source of vitamin C, which is essential to our health. Vitamin C contributes to things like:
The potassium and vitamin C in tomatoes are already major contributors to a healthy heart – but there’s more. Tomatoes are also rich in lycopene, a carotenoid that works as an antioxidant. This means that it helps to protect your body from oxidative stress. This protection is essential, as oxidative stress elevates your risk of disease and accelerates the ageing process. Lycopene is extremely powerful, and can help to:
Taken together, these three aspects can significantly reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. Studies conducted on middle-aged men have shown that low lycopene levels in the blood may be linked to an elevated risk of heart attack and stroke, so it’s important to consume more of it. Generally speaking, the redder the tomato, the more lycopene it contains. The skin contains the highest concentration. Tomato sauce and tomato purée are also rich in lycopene.
Tomatoes are a natural source of folic acid, also known as vitamin B11. When you hear folic acid, you probably think of pregnancy, and it’s true that women who are trying to get or already are pregnant can benefit from folic acid as it helps to reduce the risk of congenital defects in the baby. But folic acid can also be beneficial to those who aren’t pregnant as it helps with the production of white and red blood cells.
Want to lose some weight? Tomatoes are a perfect fit for your diet.
That's because tomatoes are low in carbohydrates and very low in calories, while they provide your body with valuable nutrients. The water and fibre they contain also help you feel satiated.
To prevent and reduce high blood pressure, your body needs plenty of potassium and not too much sodium. That’s because sodium causes blood pressure to rise, while potassium neutralises it. Tomatoes are an excellent source of potassium, so they can help your body to maintain a healthy blood pressure. This helps to keep your heart and blood vessels in a healthy condition. It’s useful to know that for many years, we have been blind to the danger that salt poses to our blood pressure. Research also shows that a diet rich in sugar can be just as harmful to blood pressure.
The super-compound lycopene has even more to offer and can help you to maintain healthy skin. One way it does this is by protecting your skin from sun damage from the inside out. The vitamin C in tomatoes can also help. In addition, vitamin C helps to reduce the harmful effects that smoking has on the skin.
You need more than just calcium to ensure that you maintain healthy bones – vitamin D and magnesium also have an important role to play, as does vitamin K. Vitamin K deficiency is linked to reduced bone density and an elevated risk of fractures. Tomatoes are a good source of vitamin K, which means that they can contribute to healthy bones.
Health doesn’t come from just eating wisely. Getting plenty of exercise has proven to be an essential component of a healthy mind and a healthy body. At Stoffels, we have our own running and cycling kit and we encourage our staff and supporters to exercise regularly.
Straight out of
the greenhouse
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