CATCH UP ON CATSUP
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, providing us with a little vitamin C and a smidgen of beta carotene.
But according to an article brought in by local resident, Jim Ebbing, scientists have discovered spectacular secrets in tomatoes—various disease-fighting antioxidants, including the red pigment lycopene and an anti-clotting agent known as “PS tomato factor.” These discoveries have transformed the tomato in to a hot health food, increasingly believed to help prevent and even reverse disease.
So get out in that garden and save the tomatoes.
Experts urge you to eat tomatoes in any form – fresh or canned, raw or cooked, or processed in soups or as sauce, paste, juice or ketchup.
These remarkable reasons are 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.
•Protects lungs.
Eating tomatoes helps shield the lungs from bad air and cigarette smoke. In a University of North Carolina test, people were exposed to high levels of ozone. Those who drank a 12-ounce can of V-8 juice daily in the 3-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. Evidences from Finland has showed 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.
Also, an aspirin-like substance in the yellow jelly around tomato seeds helps thwart blood clots. The amount in only 4 tomatoes reduces 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.
•Skin Saver.
German research shows that eating 1.3 ounces of tomato paste daily, reduced any 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 sauces, canned tomatoes, juice, soup and ketchup. Still, you can get half of your lycopene from raw tomatoes.
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