How much do you love tomatoes? There must be 90% of food lovers who love to eat tomatoes. An interesting fact here is, the health benefits of tomatoes are understood better relating to its taste, the one who loves its taste can relate to them more easily.
This presentation explains tomato nutrition facts in a different perspective.
Tomato Nutrition:
Tomato is often considered as fruit based on its evolution, but based on its purpose being served for us, it is a vegetable. Most usually, there is the difference amongst all the fruits and vegetables when we consider flavour as the deciding factor. If we consider nutrition and health benefits of tomatoes, they both compete to the peak and there’s no comparison in the usefulness of tomato with any other food entity.
What’s So Different in Tomato?
The list of health benefits of tomatoes extends up to volumes. Thus, tomato’s flavour is chosen to describe the beauty of its nutrition and uses for our health.
The uniqueness of tomato lies in its every part. The skin, the seeds, the pulp, and most importantly, the water content which is there all over its tissues. The juicy taste of tomato and its tempting skin are the crucial portions of this vegetable that also give great answers to what are tomatoes good for.
We are stepping into the benefits of tomatoes beginning with its nutrition facts and then with an interesting analysis of its peel, seeds, and pulp.
Tomato Nutrition Facts:
The table gives a clear information of the magnitude of nutrient-density in tomatoes.
| Nutrient | Content (per 100gm of Tomato or DV) |
| Energy(Carbs) | 18 kcal, 5 g |
| Fiber | 1.2 g |
| Protein | 1 g |
| Lycopene | 2573 μg |
| Vitamin A | 5 % of DV |
| Thiamine | 3% |
| Niacin (B3) | 4% |
| Vitamin B6 | 6% |
| Vitamin C | 17% |
| Vitamin E | 4% |
| Vitamin K | 8% |
| Magnesium | 3% |
| Manganese | 5% |
| Phosphorous | 3% |
| Potassium | 5% |
The whole above contents are found in tomato by sharing a huge percentage of content with ‘water.’
Water is found in 93-95% amounts by weight which is a great addition to health benefits of tomatoes.
Health Benefits of Tomatoes:
The more exciting discourse is ahead. Considering the delicious parts of tomato, we are going to explore whole benefits of tomatoes.
The tender, smooth skin attracts everyone to taste it in raw, and you will know this experience if you have been eating raw tomatoes from your childhood.
The health benefits of tomatoes vary a lot with and without the peel. Almost 25% of nutrients go absent if we take off the peel for cooking.
Following are the major contents of tomato peel which stand as a great asset to tomato nutrition value.
- Antioxidants, the biggest strength of tomatoes. The tomato nutritional value table also gives an evidence to this fact that Vitamin C content of tomatoes is way too high than other nutrients. Vitamin C content enhances the antioxidant effect left by tomatoes on the body. Tomatoes thus become so powerful in combating cancer, visionary problems, skin diseases, etc.
- Lycopene, the reason behind the texture of tomatoes! Eating tomatoes is majorly provoked by that tempting red texture of its skin. Because of lycopene, there are hundreds of benefits of tomatoes added to the list. The peel needs a special mention here because lycopene content is so crucial only with the peel of the tomato taken in.
The antioxidant effect, cancer prevention, eye health are usual advantages of having any fruit/vegetable. But, with lycopene, you are assured to protect your brain tissues, improve bone strength, and save your heart for a longer life.
- Fibers, for healthy digestion. Tomatoes are not just for pacing up the process of digestion but they control many disorders upon a healthy intake.
Bowel Movements get easier with tomato. Constipated stomach gets a great relief. Diarrhea also finds a simple cure with tomato’s intake. All these positive effects are due to strong fiber content present in tomato’s peel.
Preventing these serious digestive problems also helps in avoiding colorectal cancer.
- Folate, a precious supplement for pregnant women. Infant’s health is supported by the action of folate in tomato. Folate supports women’s health and protects infant’s neurological health.
Tomato gives a great boost to blood circulation in which the role of Vitamin B9(folate) is of prior importance. Other uses of folate are reducing cholesterol and stroke prevention.
- Protein, the most useful of all. Though mentioned at last in the list, protein has the most important role in health benefits of tomatoes. Predominating the Daily recommended amounts of carbs and fats, protein gives excellent nourishment which greatly extends the usefulness of tomatoes for overall health. Intake of protein also improves digestive health which is an added benefit in the list.
The Sixth and the Major Ingredient of Tomato:
Wondering what it could be? ‘Water’ is that most important ingredient of tomato! Water shares approximately 94% of tomato’s content which is the greatest reason for it to be healthy for everybody. Similar to watermelon, the benefits of this water-rich food stand out to be so perfectly suitable for everyone’s health, even for diabetics.
All these top ingredients of tomato give collective benefits to the health viz., bringing the blood pressure down, regulating diabetes, curing UTI(urinary tract infections), etc. Other purposes like skin care(Pimples, acne, tanned skin, etc.), heart health protection are also achieved with regular intake of tomato. Skin benefits of tomatoes are also popular in the form of skin packs and face packs.
One last mention about the friendliness of tomatoes to human health is, they can counteract on the body’s free radicals particularly when you are looking to quit smoking. Tomato supports the body to get rid of the damage that is caused by the effect of smoking.