Have you heard the latest news? If not, find out why TOMATOES are suddenly today's hottest health food.
Call it the revenge of the tomatoes. Until the 1800s, Americans considered tomatoes a poisonous fruit, either rarely eaten or boiled for hours to destroy its "toxins." In traditional nutrition, tomatoes are wimps with some vitamin C and a smidgen of beta carotene. But recently scientists have discovered spectacular secrets in tomatoes - various disease-fighting antioxidants, including the red pigment lycopene and an anti-clotting agent known as "P3 tomato factor." These discoveries have transformed the tomato into a hot health food, increasingly believed to help prevent and even reverse disease. Experts urge you to eat more tomatoes in any form - fresh or canned, raw or cooked, or processed in soups or as sauce, paste, juice or ketchup.
The latest remarkable reasons why:
Fights cancer. Researchers have known tomatoes might help prevent certain cancers; in a Harvard study, eating lycopene-rich tomato sauce two to four times weekly cut prostate cancer risk by 35%. The news is that lycopene may even shrink existing prostate tumors. Before surgery, one group of prostate cancer patients at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit was given lycopene extract for three weeks; another group got a placebo. Tumors in the lycopene group were smaller and less likely to spread.
Protects lungs. Eating tomatoes helps shield lungs from bad air and cigarette smoke. In a University of North Carolina test, people were exposed to high levels of ozone, an air pollutant. Those who drank a 12-ounce can of tomato-heavy V-8 juice daily in the three-week test showed 20% less DNA damage in lung cells than those not getting V-8. Other research suggests lycopene helps ward off lung cancer.
Combats heart disease. Tomatoes can make you less prone to clogged arteries and heart disease. Dramatic new evidence from Finland shows that middle-aged men with low lycopene are three times more apt to suffer heart attacks or strokes and 18% more apt to have narrowed carotid (neck) arteries. Probable reasons: Tomatoes help detoxify bad LDL cholesterol, hindering plaque building. In one test, eating 60 milligrams of lycopene daily (the amount in 11/2 cups of tomato sauce or 2.2 pounds of fresh tomatoes) for three months reduced LDL cholesterol by 14%. Also, an aspirinlike substance in the yellow jelly around tomato seeds helps thwart blood clots, according to Scottish research. The amount in only four tomatoes reduced clot-provoking blood stickiness by a surprising 72%.
Vision saver. Tomatoes may protect the eyes by deterring macular degeneration, a cause of vision loss in older people, suggests new University of Maryland research that found high levels of lycopene in eye tissue.
Skin saver. New German research shows that eating 1.3 ounces of tomato paste daily reduced sun-induced skin damage by 40%.
Brain food. Tomatoes are anti-aging nourishment for the brain. In a classic study, elderly women with the highest lycopene blood levels remained the most mentally and physically active.
To get the greatest benefit ...
Eat at least five weekly servings of
tomato-based foods. Eat tomatoes cooked, processed and
prepared with a little olive oil. Heating helps release lycopene, and you get
the most lycopene in concentrated, processed products such as tomato paste and
sauce, canned tomatoes, juice, soup and ketchup. Still, Americans get half their
lycopene from raw tomatoes. In new tests at Ohio State University, over a
two-week period, blood lycopene was raised 192% by a daily serving of tomato
sauce, 122% by tomato soup and 92% by V-8 juice. Other research shows that
adding olive oil to tomatoes increases lycopene absorption. Eat a variety. Lycopene isn't the sole
tomato power. For example, tomato soup has more antioxidant activity than can be
attributed to lycopene alone, meaning it contains other antioxidants. Raw
tomatoes are lower in lycopene but still may be good at combatting blood clots.