No Indian curry recipe is complete without using tangy, red tomatoes, which are juicy and impart the same richness to the dish they’re added to. Not only this, but simply their presence in salad make it look delicious and complete. A vegetarian sandwich is incomplete without a few slices of tomatoes and even French fries are tasteless without tomato sauce.Though some people prefer tomato sauce or tomato puree over fresh tomatoes. But, in spite of just looking good, tomatoes have many hidden health benefits. If raw tomatoes are eaten on an empty stomach with salt and black pepper, they can get rid of worms in the digestive system. Apart from that, tomatoes are rich in vitamin C, low in calories and fat. Tomatoes, if eaten with other fruits and vegetables, lessen the chances of stroke, blood pressure and reduces high cholesterol.
This fruit which we consider a vegetable, is rich in water content. So eating this in a raw form makes you feel fresh and contributes to your daily water intake.
It has long been discovered that tomatoes have the ability to fight against cancer because of lycopene. Lycopene reduces the risk of many types of cancer, such as cervical, ovarian, and prostate. For best effect, select the red and ripened tomatoes, as the redder the tomatoes, the more lycopene they contain. Cooking further enhances the lycopene content in food, as it gets released by the tomato cells, due to the heat while cooking.
Tomatoes have a good amount of folate, potassium, vitamin B6 and magnesium, which are contribute to good health.
Girls for sure would like this point, tomatoes make your skin look fresh and give it a natural shine. Beta-carotene helps in fighting against skin damage caused by the sun and hence eating tomatoes will give you younger looking skin.
Here are a few more health benefits of tomatoes in a nutshell:
- Vitamin K and calcium in tomatoes will make your bones very strong.
- Vitamin A present in tomatoes helps in improving your vision and preventing night blindness.
- Kidney stones and gallstones can also be prevented by tomatoes, especially eating them without seeds.
- Tomatoes help in reducing age related diseases by preventing DNA damage, because of high concentration of vitamin A and vitamin C in it.
- Drinking 8 ounces of tomato juice helps in fighting against blood clots.
Owing to such a vast number of health benefits make sure to add tomatoes to your food daily.
