Want to Get the Best Antioxidant Foods? Eat Tomatoes – Part II
Pizza
If you have read part I of my article on tomatoes, best antioxidant foods, you may be wondering if you should eat pizza every day to get your daily doses of lycopene.
Well, although pizza is not the ideal way to get your daily lycopene because the fat in cheese is mainly the saturated kind, the wrong one for your arteries, you can eat pizza in moderation. Ask the waiter or cook to go easy on the cheese and hold the pepperoni and ham.
Are tomatoes a fruit or a vegetable?
If you are not sure when to eat tomatoes, the following may help you. Botanically speaking, the tomato is a fruit, but from a culinary point of view, it is always grouped with vegetables. In the past, the tomato was classified as a fruit to avoid taxation, but in 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court, using the popular definition that classifies vegetables by their use, settled the controversy by ruling that the tomato was a vegetable and should be taxed accordingly. Based on this popular definition, tomatoes are generally served with dinner and not as dessert.
Ways to include more tomatoes in your meals
- Make it a point to always have tomatoes at home. Bright red, ripe tomatoes have more lycopene than green or yellow.
- Always include tomatoes in your salads. Use olive oil and lemon or vinegar as dressing.
- Eat pasta with tomato sauce.
- Add some tomato slices to your sandwich.
- Rub half a tomato on the bread you eat with your meal. See recipe below.
- Always keep canned tomatoes—“no salt added”—on hand. They are very handy when you are in a hurry and need them for soups or sauces.
- Whenever possible, visit your local farmers’ market and look for locally grown tomatoes.
Key points to remember about lycopene
- Lycopene is a fat-soluble pigment that gives tomatoes, guava, pink grapefruit, watermelon, and a limited number of other foods their red color.
- Bright red, ripe tomatoes have more lycopene than green or yellow.
- Lycopene is easily absorbed and stored in the prostate, adrenal glands, and testes.
- In order for lycopene to act as an antioxidant in the human system, it has to be absorbed first from dietary sources.
- Lycopene has been shown to be better absorbed from processed tomato products than from fresh tomatoes.
- The availability and absorption of lycopene depend on the processing and treatment of the food that contains the carotenoids and on the fat content of the meal in which lycopene is consumed.
- Levels of lycopene in our cells seem to be better indicators of disease prevention than the amount of lycopene ingested.
- Men who have a high concentration of lycopene in their tissues have a lower risk of heart attack than men whose tissues have a low concentration.
- Lycopene is an antioxidant that once absorbed by the body, helps to prevent and repair damaged cells.
- In laboratory experiments, lycopene has been found to possess the most protective effects against free radicals within the entire carotenoid family.
“Fighting” stress with tomatoes
Every year, at the peak of the tomato season, the medieval town of Buñol in Valencia, Spain, celebrates a fiesta centered on an enormous tomato fight. For two hours, from 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m., the streets of this town turn into rivers of tomato juice as people happily pelt each other with ripe, red tomatoes.
La Tomatina, as this festival is called, goes back to the 1940s when a group of people started a tomato fight. Nobody knows with certainty what triggered the fracas but it seems it started as an assault on city officials and extended to some unlucky pedestrians caught in the line of fire. It didn’t take long for everyone to start having a great time and after this episode, in an effort to draw more tourism (and therefore more targets), the residents of Buñol incorporated La Tomatina as the town’s national holiday.
Now it has grown into a major fiesta where, for a week, the town is filled with parades, fireworks, food, street parties, and of course, tomatoes. The night before La Tomatina, more than 100 metric tons of overripe tomatoes arrive to Buñol, waiting impatiently for tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world to participate in this harmless battle.
I have always considered this festival an excellent way to get rid of stress; as we all know, stress can wreak havoc in our heart. If you’re interested in going, the festival is held on the last Wednesday of August. Make sure you go dressed to wear tomato juice. Keep in mind you’re only allowed to use tomatoes, and you must squish them before slugging them. Any other items are forbidden as they may harm people.
To your health!
Emilia Klapp,RD,BS
www.TheDiabetesClub.com
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