Eating tomatoes means eating health

       Since I keep recording my own eating journal last week, I found out some really interesting facts: I ate tomatoes almost every day. According to several people opinions, the vegetable is always the green color and with leaves. But in my mind, the tomato is also a kind of vegetables. However, different from other kinds of vegetables, the tomato is red, a little bit sweet, juicy, and contains lots of nutrients. The reason why I like to eat tomatoes is that first, I like sweet things, but I also care about my weight, which means I cannot eat so many sweet things. So the tomato becomes my best choice. Second, because the tomato is juicier than any other vegetable, so it become one of the most popular vegetables on my eating habits. I eat tomatoes every day because it is one of my favorite foods. Because the tomato is tasty and full of nutrients, I sincerely advise everyone to add the tomato in your eating recipe. However, there is still two questions exist. When we eat tomatoes, what kind of nutrients did we get? What are the nutrients used for? So I did the following research to find out the answers.

       Tomatoes are now eaten widely all over the word. Many people believe that eating tomatoes is great for their heart, among other organs. After doing several experiments, the scientists finally found out that the tomato contained so many carotene lycopene, which is one of the most powerful natural antioxidants that can defeat the cancer. In the same time, the lycopene is also been found to improve our skin’s ability to protect against harmful UV rays (Tomato dishes “may protect skin”). Besides the advantages of prevent from the cancer and improve the skin’s ability, the nutrients tomatoes contain also plays significant roles in human body. It contains large amount of vitamin C and beta-carotene; it also contains large amount of mineral manganese and vitamin E. (Tomatoes, par. 5). All these nutrients are really good for our health, especially our bone health. So in order to prevent from the cancer disease, we’d better eat tomatoes. For the women who care about the beautiful, they can also eat some tomatoes to improve their skin’s ability in a natural way and make themselves more beautiful.

       Building on the nutrients of tomatoes further, tomatoes also have some medical properties. As I said before, the lycopene contained in tomatoes is a great weapon to kill the cancer diseases. So in medical field, according to Rao and Balachandran’s perspective, tomato consumption has always been associated with decreased risk of breast cancer, head and neck cancers and might be strongly protective against neurodegenerative diseases (Nutritional Neuroscience 5). In fact, cooking tomatoes can release more lycopene from the tomato cells than the raw tomatoes. So it is better to eat cooking tomatoes rather than just eat raw tomatoes. A very special kind of tomatoes called jumbo tomato can effectively reduce the high blood pressure because it contained lots of potassium (Medicinal Applications of Tomatoes, par. 13). As we all know, the potassium can reduce the high blood pressure. So for the older people, especially the older people who have the high blood pressure, eating jumbo tomatoes is a great choice.

       In the United States, Florida and California are the top two fresh tomato producing states, together comprising over two-third of the total U.S fresh tomato acreage (Commodity Profile: Tomatoes, fresh market, par. 2). Nowadays, the demand of the tomato in United States increased heavily. More and more people recognized the importance of the tomato and became the “tomato eaters”, just like me. However, the ways people eat tomatoes are different. Some people prefer to eat raw tomatoes while others prefer to eat cooked tomatoes; some people would like to eat tomato sauces instead. But, whatever the way people choose to eat tomatoes, their main purpose is the same. People want to receive the nutrients contained in tomatoes to keep them healthy. The women would like to eat tomatoes because they want to keep their skins beautiful; the older people like to eat tomatoes because it can prevent them from high blood pressure and cancer diseases.

       With the help of the high technology, nowadays, tomato growers plant several different kinds of tomatoes. For example: beefsteak tomatoes, which is widely used in sandwiches; plum tomatoes, which is mainly used in tomato sauces; cherry tomatoes, which is smaller than other tomatoes; Campari tomatoes, which is low acidity and lack of mealiness. The cherry tomato is my favorite tomato because it is easy to deal with. All I have to do is clean them and then eat them. In our modern society, the tomato is an indispensable vegetable on our tables. It almost becomes a symbol of health. More and more people realize the nutrients that contained by tomatoes is really great for the health, so they would like to spend more money buying tomatoes.