Tomato

It is believed that the present type of tomato is descended from a species no larger than marbles, that grew thousands of years ago. The tomato is native to the Andean region of South America and was under cultivation in Peru in the sixteenth century at the time of the Spanish conquest. Before the end of the sixteenth century, the people of England and the Netherlands were eating and enjoying tomatoes. The English called it the' 'love apple," and English romancers presented it as a token of affection. By cultivation and use the tomato is a vegetable; botanically, it is a fruit, and can be classified as a berry, being pulpy and containing one or more seeds that are not stones. It is considered a citric acid fruit and is in the same classification as oranges and grapefruit. Some oxalic acid is also contained in the tomato.

Tomatoes are best when combined with proteins. Use tomatoes in both fruit and vegetable salads. They are cooling and refreshing in beverages, and are especially good as a flavoring for soups. Tomatoes can be used to give color, and make green salads more inviting. Tomato juice should be used very soon after it has been drawn from the tomato, or after the canned juice is opened. If it is opened and left that way, it will lose much of its mineral value, because it oxidizes very quickly.

Tomatoes should be picked ripe, as the acids of the green tomato are very detrimental to the body and very hard on the kidneys. Many of the tomatoes today are grown in hothouses and are picked too green and allowed to ripen on their way to the markets or in cold storage plants built for this purpose. If the seeds, or the internal part of the tomato, is still green, while the outside is red, this is an indication that the fruit has been picked too green.

Medical properties

The tomato is not acid forming; it contains a great deal of citric acid but is alkaline forming when it enters the bloodstream. It increases the alkalinity of the blood and helps remove toxins, especially uric acid, from the system. As a liver cleanser, tomatoes are wonderful, especially when used with the green vegetable juices.
In many of the sanitariums in Europe tomatoes are used as a poultice for various conditions in the body. There is a mistaken belief that tomatoes are not good for those who have rheumatism and gout. People with these conditions should mix tomato juice with other vegetable juices to avoid a reaction that may be too strong.
Whenever the blood is found to be stagnant in any part of the body, a tomato poultice is wonderful as a treatment in removing that stagnation. It acts as a dissolving agent or solvent.
Tomatoes are very high in vitamin value. They are wonderful as a blood cleanser, and excellent in elimination diets. However, they should not be used to excess on a regular basis. Tomato juice can be used in convalescent diets, in combination with other raw vegetable juices such as celery, parsley, beet, and carrot juice.

Lycopene, a member of the carotenoid family and a pigment that contributes to the red color of tomatoes, is a major contributor to their health promoting power. Lycopene has demonstrated a range of unique and distinct biological properties that have intrigued scientists. Some researchers have come to believe that lycopene could be as powerful an antioxidant as beta-carotene. Lycopene is the most efficient quencher of the free-radical singlet oxygen, a particularly deleterious form of oxygen, and lycopene is also capable of scavenging a large number of free radicals.
Studies started to reveal that people who ate large amounts of tomatoes were far less likely to die from all forms of cancer compared with those who ate little or no tomatoes. Many other studies echoed the positive findings about the effect of eating tomatoes.
It's not only cancer that the lycopene in tomatoes helps mitigate. Lycopene is an important part of the antioxidant defense network in the skin, and dietary lycopene by itself or in combination with other nutrients can raise the sun protection factor (SPF) of the skin. In other words, by eating tomatoes you're enhancing your skin's ability to withstand the assault from the damaging rays of the sun. It acts like an internal sun block.
Lycopene may also indirectly lower the risk for age-related macular degeneration by "sparing" lutein oxidation so that lutein can be transported to the macula in its unoxidized, protective form.
Lycopene is rare in foods, and tomatoes are one of only a few that are rich in this powerful antioxidant. Red watermelon is another excellent source of lycopene. A very concentrated, bioavailable source of the nutrient, some food sources say that watermelon is even richer in lycopene than tomatoes. Watermelon definitely results in a blood level boost of lycopene comparable to that of tomatoes.
While lycopene has received a lot of attention recently, tomatoes are rich in a wide variety of nutrients, which seem to work synergistically to promote health and vitality. Low in calories, high in fiber, and high in potassium, tomatoes are not only a rich source of lycopene, they are also a source of beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lutein/zeaxanthin, phytuene/phytofluene, and various polyphenols. They contain small amounts of B vitamins (thiamine, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, and niacin), as well as folate, vitamin E, magnesium, manganese, and zinc.

Tomatoes and cancer - Some of the most exciting studies on tomatoes have focused on their ability to protect against cancer, especially prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer isn't the only type of cancer that tomatoes seem to help protect against. A growing body of evidence suggests that lycopene provides some degree of protection against cancers of the breast, digestive tract, cervix, bladder, and lung.
Lycopene seems to reduce the risk of cancer in several ways. As a particularly powerful antioxidant, it helps block the ongoing destructive effects of the free radicals in the body. It's especially effective in this mission when sufficient vitamin E is present, lycopene also seems to interfere with the growth factors that stimulate cancer cells to grow and proliferate. And finally it seems to stimulate the body to mount a more effective immune defense against cancer.
Lycopene, which is fat soluble, needs a bit of dietary fat to transport it into the bloodstream. A whole, fresh tomato, eaten out of hand, is not a good source of this nutrient. The top-ranked tomato-based foods that seem to be the most cancer-protective are all prepared with some oil. A salad of tomatoes with some extra virgin olive oil is really a health-promoting food. The green color of olive oil indicates the presence of polyphenols. Those polyphenols combined with the powerful nutrients in tomatoes are a healthy taste treat on spaghetti sauce, or in tomato-based soups.

Tomatoes good for heart - In addition to being cancer-protective, there's ample evidence that tomatoes also play a role in reducing your risk for cardiovascular disease. The antioxidant function of lycopene, combined with the other powerful antioxidants in tomatoes such as vitamin C and beta-carotene, work in the body to neutralize free radicals that could otherwise damage cells and cell membranes. This preservation of cells and their membranes reduces the potential for inflammation and thereby the progression and severity of atherosclerosis.
Lycopene in tomatoes was found to be the most protective against heart attack.

Healthy skin - Growing out in the wild, plants must protect themselves from attack. They're under constant assault from ultraviolet rays, pollution, and predators. It's important that they have a first, powerful line of defense. Skin is that defense. Whether it's the skin of an apple, the peel of a grape, or the rind on an orange, this part of the fruit has a tremendous antioxidant ability that permits it to withstand the assaults of nature. The outer leaves of spinach and cabbage, for example, have the highest levels of vitamin C, and broccoli florets have more vitamin C than the stalks. One hundred grams of fresh apples with the skin contain about 142 milligrams of flavonoids, but the same amount of apples without the skin has only 97 milligrams of flavonoids. Quercetin-a common flavonoid with anti-inflammatory properties-is found only in the skins of apples, not in the flesh of the fruit. The antioxidant activity of 100 grams of apples without the skin is 55 percent of the activity of 100 grams of apples with skin. The skinless apples are about half as powerful. The papery brownish skins on almonds and peanuts are loaded with various bioactive polyphenols.
Try to eat appropriate fruits and vegetables with the skin on. The skin is where the pesticides and potentially harmful bacteria reside, so a careful washing is a mandatory. Don't forget that juices with sediment on the bottom are the ones to choose. That sediment contains bits of skin and pulp and is a great source of antioxidants.