Tomatoes, Wonder Food, Indiadiets: Your guide to Health, Nutrition, Diets, fitness, Weight loss, Diet counselling,

Tomatoes

The tomato fruit is consumed in diverse ways, including raw, as an ingredient in many dishes and sauces, and in drinks. While it is botanically a fruit, it is considered a vegetable for culinary purposes. The fruit is rich in lycopene, which may have beneficial health effects.

The tomato is now grown and eaten around the world. It is used in diverse ways, including raw in salads, and processed into ketchup or tomato soup. Unripe green tomatoes can also be breaded and fried, used to make salsa, or pickled. Tomato juice is sold as a drink, and is used in cocktails such as the Bloody Mary.
Tomatoes are acidic, making them especially easy to preserve in home canning whole, in pieces, as tomato sauce or paste. The fruit is also preserved by drying, often in the sun, and sold either in bags or in jars with oil.

Tomatoes are used extensively in Mediterranean cuisine, especially Italian and Middle Eastern cuisines. They are a key ingredient in pizza, and are commonly used in pasta sauces. They are also used in gazpacho (Spanish cuisine) and pa amb tomàquet (Catalan cuisine).Though it is botanically a berry, a subset of fruit, tomato is a vegetable for culinary purposes, because of its savory flavor.

Nutrition
Tomatoes consumption is believed to benefit the heart, among other organs. They contain the carotene lycopene, one of the most powerful natural antioxidants. In some studies, lycopene, especially in cooked tomatoes, has been found to help prevent prostate cancer. Lycopene has also been shown to improve the skin's ability to protect against harmful UV rays. Natural genetic variation in tomatoes and their wild relatives has given a genetic plethora of genes that produce lycopene, carotene, anthocyanin, and other antioxidants. Tomato varieties are available with double the normal vitamin C (Doublerich), 40 times normal vitamin A (97L97), high levels of anthocyanin (resulting in blue tomatoes), and two to four times the normal amount of lycopene (numerous available cultivars with the high crimson gene).

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz):
• Energy - 74 kJ (18 kcal)
• Carbohydrates - 4 g - Sugars - 2.6 g - Dietary fiber - 1 g
• Fat - 0.2 g
• Protein - 1 g
• Water - 95 g
• Vitamin A equiv. - 42 μg (5%) - lutein and zeaxanthin 123 μg
• Vitamin C - 14 mg (17%)
• Vitamin E - 0.54 mg (4%)
• Potassium - 237 mg (5%)

Medicinal properties
Lycopene has also been shown to protect against oxidative damage. In addition to its antioxidant activity, other metabolic effects of lycopene have also been demonstrated. The richest source of lycopene in the diet is tomato and tomato derived products. Tomato consumption has been associated with decreased risk of breast cancer, head and neck cancers and might be strongly protective against neurodegenerative diseases. Tomatoes and tomato sauces and puree are said to help lower urinary tract symptoms and may have anticancer properties.

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