Growing Your Own Tomatoes and Their Antioxidant Health Benefits

Growing your own fresh tomatoes offers not only a delightful summer food, yet this vegetable contains valuable and essential healthy antioxidant carotenoids for your body. Think about plucking that fresh red tomato from the vine on your patio or backyard garden and then chopping the juicy red thin slides into a beautiful garnish for a summer salad, or coring it and stuffing with tuna or chicken salad. And, not to forget the delicious taste of tomatoes in gazpacho.

Of all the carotenoids, lycopene is thought to be one of the most potent antioxidants. Lycopene is particularly able to fight singlet oxygen and peroxyl radicals, both of which are thought to be responsible for damaging DNA in a process that can lead to the formation of cancer. Due to this ability, lycopene is being researched as a potential agent for the prevention of certain types of cancers, especially prostate cancer.

Chinese Case Study on Reduced Risks of Prostate Cancer

According to WebMD.Com: “In a case-control Chinese study, that evaluated the association between consumption of carotenoids-rich fruits and vegetables and risks of prostate cancer incidence, it was reported that risk of prostate cancer declined with increasing consumption of lycopene and other carotenoids (alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, lutein and zeaxanthin). According to the study intake of tomatoes, pumpkin, spinach, watermelon and citrus fruits were also associated with reduced risks of prostate cancer.”

Best Source of Lycopene is Pasteurized Tomato Juice

Tomato.Org says that: “Unlike other fruits and vegetables, where nutritional content is diminished upon cooking, processing tomatoes actually increases the concentration of lycopene. Lycopene in tomato paste is four times more bioavailable than in fresh tomatoes. Thus, the best sources of lycopene are pasteurized tomato juice, tomato soup, tomato paste, tomato sauce and ketchup. Cooking and crushing tomatoes and serving in oil-rich dishes (such as pizza) greatly increases assimilation of lycopene from the digestive tract into the bloodstream. Lycopene is a fat-soluble substance, so the oil helps absorption. Tomatoes are also high in vitamin C, potassium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin A and vitamin B.”

Growing Tomatoes Within Walking Distance of the Kitchen

Growing tomatoes is fun and easy. They lend themselves to growth in patio containers where they will need 5 to 6 hours of daily sunlight. Plant them in a blended soil of compost and top soil insuring proper drainage if container growth is your plan. Set the plants deep into the soil with a protective ring of newspaper wrapped from just above the roots to just below the top of the leaves (a spent toilet tissue roll or paper towel roll is ideal for this. Immediately after transplanting, add a generous amount of warm water to the transplanted set. Daily and for the next 10 days give each tomato a quart of water because they need this to get off to the important task of building and setting their roots deep which will result in greater production of this delicious vegetable.

As your tomatoes begin to grow taller, you should provide wooden stakes, bamboo poles, or tomato cages to support each plant as the young tomatoes begin appearing shortly after the beautiful yellow blooms appear. Tomatoes should be fertilized weekly using a product such as Miracle-Gro or other granulated well balanced fertilizer such as (10-10-10). Watering tomatoes frequently is the secret to a large crop.

As the tomato plant grows taller, and blooms begin to form, carefully select branches on the plant without or with limited blooms and carefully trim them from the plant. This will allow the fertilizer and water that the plant is being fed to go toward production of more and larger tomatoes.

So, what are you waiting for……let’s get those healthy and delicious tomatoes planted and begin dreaming about fresh red tomato slices with some olive oil based mayonnaise spread between two slices of warm french bread!…..or stewed tomatoes, or freshly squeezed tomato juice! And, don’t forget all that rich lycopene that simply goes along for the ride!