Discover how Tomatoes are a Low-Calorie Superfood
Tomatoes offer many benefits and properties. Furthermore, tomatoes are a low-calorie superfood and can be cooked in countless ways. As if that wasn’t enough, they’re affordable and can be found practically anywhere in the world, all year long. With all their qualities, it’s no surprise that tomatoes are a low-calorie superfood.
A little background information
Nowadays, you can find tomatoes anywhere in the world but do you know where they’re from originally? Tomatoes hail from Latin America and more specifically, from the Andes Mountains. They were cultivated by the Aztecs for centuries.
The Spanish discovered tomatoes during their conquest of the Americas in the 16th century and brought them back to the Iberian Peninsula. It was then that this valued product, that had been unknown beforehand, began to gain popularity and spread to other countries.
Still, the use of tomatoes didn’t catch on until much later, as many people believed that they were poisonous. It wasn’t until decades later that people became aware of their properties and realized, that they weren’t actually poisonous after all!
The properties of tomatoes
Tomatoes are a low-calorie superfood. It’s surprising that something so common, can be so beneficial.
Here are just some of the benefits that consuming tomatoes can bring:
- Strengthens your defenses. Tomatoes are considered to be natural medicine and can prevent illnesses.
- Promote healing. This is one of the most unknown qualities of tomatoes. Due to their healing effect, they’re especially useful for those who receive a wound or who are recovering from a medical procedure.
- Reduce cholesterol. Tomatoes can help to lower your bad cholesterol, thanks to its high vitamin C content.
- Act as a diuretic. Due to their high water and fiber content, tomatoes have a strong diuretic effect. As such, they’re great for those who want to lose weight or who tend to retain fluids.
- Regulate bowel movements. Thanks to their fiber content, they’re a natural bowel movement regulator. Therefore, they’re very efficient at helping with occasional bouts of constipation.
Tomatoes have so many other properties. They can improve your eye health and eliminate toxins. In addition, studies have shown that they can even prevent some types of cancer.
A very versatile food
Tomatoes are very versatile and offer many properties. Furthermore, tomatoes are a low-calorie superfood. Therefore, you can eat them every day and in different ways. There are so many ways to prepare them that it’s impossible to become tired of this delicious fruit. The following are a few different tomato recipes:
- Salad. Without a doubt, this is the easiest and most popular way to eat tomatoes. You can make a salad made only with tomatoes, or combine them with onions, lettuce, and corn. There are countless kinds of salads so you can easily switch things up.
- Tomato jelly. Although tomatoes are a salty product, you can make delicious jelly with them. If you haven’t tried it before, we recommend that you do; you’ll see that its tart taste will win you over.
- Tomato sauce. This is a base for many recipes and even though many buy this ready-made, homemade sauce is much more beneficial. You can store it in the fridge in generous amounts, so that you can use it to make pizza, meatballs, macaroni, etc.
Here is a recipe for you to make it yourself.
- Stuffed tomatoes. These are the perfect, healthy meal. You can stuff them with ground beef, tuna, or rice, and eat them raw or boil them beforehand to make them more tender.
Tomatoes are a low-calorie superfood
In conclusion, these are just a few examples of all the different ways that you can eat this superfood. Listing them all would be impossible since tomatoes are so versatile. Still, we hope we’ve shown you how tomatoes are a low-calorie superfood, with incredible properties and many different ways to eat them. Make sure to include them in your meals and make them a staple in your diet.
