The Health Benefits of Tomatoes

Is it pizza, or maybe Italian food in general? Or do you just love Mexican food?

You may not think that Mexican and Italian food are very much alike, but they do have one thing in common: They both use tomatoes.

This makes sense, when you consider the history of the tomato. It was first cultivated by the Aztecs. The Spanish who conquered them "discovered" the tomato, and their missionaries took it back to Europe. The Europeans, however, were suspicious of this member of the nightshade family, thinking it was poisonous, so for a long time they grew it only as an ornamental.

It is true that the leaves of the tomato plant contain toxic substances called alkaloids. The fruit, though, as we all know today, is quite edible. The Spanish knew this, because they'd seen the Aztecs eating it. The Italians didn't seem to have problems with using it either. This is probably why even today, Italian and Mexican cuisine uses more tomatoes than any other.

The tomato's healthful components
Tomatoes contain many B vitamins, vitamin C, potassium, and fiber. They're also high in carotenoids, plant pigments that, because of their antioxidant qualities, can be very helpful in preventing cancer and other conditions caused by free radicals.

The carotenoids found in tomatoes include the following:
- alpha and beta carotene
- lutein/zeaxanthin, which is especially good for the eyes
- phytuene and phytofluene, which have only recently been identified, but which limited studies have shown to have anti-cancer properties
- lycopene, which seems to do a lot more than just make tomatoes red

Focus on lycopene
Like the other carotenoids, lycopene is an antioxidant, which helps neutralize free radicals, substances that can cause cell damage. Lycopene seems to be especially beneficial in the following areas:
- It may help protect the skin against antioxidant damage from the sun.
- It can indirectly help prevent cataracts and macular degeneration by keeping lutein, which is so important for eye health, from being oxidized.
- It may help prevent cancers of the breast, cervix, lung, bladder, gastrointestinal tract, and especially the prostate.

A very large study done in the mid-1990s showed a link between the amount of tomato products consumed and the risk of prostate cancer. The men who ate more tomatoes were much less likely to develop this cancer. Tomatoes have a lot of lycopene-in fact, people get most of their lycopene from tomatoes-so it was easy to make the assumption that it was the lycopene that was acting as the cancer preventive. However, the study didn't identify any specific substance, so it may actually be that all the components of tomatoes are combining to decrease the risk of cancer.

How to stay healthy with tomatoes
If you want to get more lycopene, this may be one instance where processed is better than unprocessed. Lycopene isn't nearly as available for use by the human body until it's been "freed" from the fiber and cell walls of the tomato by processing. You can actually get more useful lycopene from tomato paste than you can from a raw tomato. But check the product label carefully; many processed tomato products have other ingredients you may not want, like sugar. And many are high in sodium.

If you prefer to get your lycopene from raw tomatoes, eat red ones; they're much higher in lycopene than yellow, orange, or green tomatoes. The skin of tomatoes is also high in antioxidants, so make sure you eat the skin too.

A little bit of fat can help lycopene absorb better into the bloodstream. But this doesn't mean that "if a little is good, a lot is better." Pizza, for example, can be very nutritious, especially with extra sauce, but it's still a high-fat food, unless you use your own recipe.

A few cautions
- Don't cook tomatoes in aluminum cookware. The acid in the tomatoes may free some of the metal from the cookware and add it to your food.
- Members of the nightshade family, which includes potatoes, peppers, and eggplant as well as tomatoes, have been known to make the symptoms of arthritis worse. If you have arthritis, you may want to take this into consideration.
- Tomatoes contain oxalate, which is in kidney stones. If you have stones, it might be a good idea to avoid tomatoes.

But for everyone else, it's nice to know that the tomato, which is such a common ingredient in a lot of popular food, not only tastes good, but can also be a very healthful part of our diet.