Benefits of Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a popular and tasty fruit/vegetable - on their own, or cooked into sauces and other preparations. Any way you slice them, tomatoes add up to a great nutritional boost and healthy meal helper.

Tomatoes are high in vitamin C

1. One cup of tomatoes gives you 2.2 grams of fiber … 8 percent of the daily-recommended level.
2. Vitamins! One tomato gives you a whopping 28 percent of your daily vitamin C requirement. One cup of tomatoes gives you 15 percent of the daily-recommended B6 and 12 percent of recommended iron.
3. Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, a phytonutrient that has numerous health benefits, like lowering prostate and breast cancer risk, and aids in healthy skin. Hint: Cooked tomatoes offer the highest lycopene levels.
4. Tomatoes contain a lot of water, making them filling. A sliced tomato with [many variations] … makes a satisfying low-cal snack.
5. …[Tomato juice] may lower levels of inflammatory compounds. Inflammation is associated with many chronic diseases, such as cancer, arthritis and diabetes&helip;

Even stirred up as tomato sauce, you can find bottled tomato sauce comes chock-full of vitamin C and antioxidants like lycopene, revered for reducing oxidative stress in the body. If in a hurry, choose an organic tomato sauce (bottled in glass to avoid BPA). Look for very little added sugar, a downside of many bottled options.

Make it your own

Whether store bought or home-made, you can dress up your own recipe for success by stirring in some toasted walnuts for flavor boost, or adding cooked lentils for protein punch:

Just one half cup of cooked brown or green lentils contains a whopping 9 grams of protein. As with walnuts, you can use cooked lentils to [enhance] the sauce without adding any saturated fat or isolated soy proteins. Like other legumes and beans, lentils contain ample iron, which will be made more bioavailable in combination with the vitamin C of the sauce’s tomato base.

Mix up your tomatoes so many ways to get their potent nutritional benefits while filling yourself up with solid natural produce.

Read More from Dr Aron on Weight Loss Diet and Nutrition

• Dr Aron Website: Weight Loss Diet and Nutrition
• Dr Aron blog: Look for Antioxidants
• Dr Aron blog: Watch out for hidden sugar

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Labels: diet, easy weight loss, nutrition, nutrition facts