In “Tomatoes are 'stroke preventers’”, it is reported that after 12 years following research of 1031 men divided into four groups according to how much lycopene they had in their blood, researchers in Finland publish their study in the academic magazine, Neurology. According to the research, by eating lycopene rich fruits and vegetables, such as tomatoes, water-melons, and red-peppers could prevent blood vessels from clotting, and reduce the risk of having strokes by 55%.
For many Japanese TV gossip shows, presenting of the healthy food is a popular theme which can attract audience easily. Different kinds of crops, dairy products and meats are featured as a good food for health. As far as I can remember, fermented soybean called natto, bananas, yoghurt, soybean powder, blue-skinned fish, sesame, almonds, and apples were introduced in TV shows, and were often sold out at the supermarkets after the telecast. Tomatoes were also recommended to the people who wanted to lose their weight in the telecast last February, and eating tomatoes became a craze.
Until I read the article tonight, I almost forget the telecast in February. The title of the article caught my eye, because recently I have read some stories about elderly people who had strokes and suffered from long term damage after that. How to care those people is a serious problem in the aging society like Japan. My father also had a stroke several years ago. Fortunately it wasn’t a serious one, but he had some difficulties in speaking, which distressed him very much. After six months rehabilitation, he could speak almost as fluent as before having stroke. Now, he is very careful about his meal and lifestyle so that he won’t have a stroke again. I think, if he knows the article, he will eat tomatoes every day. I hope that more research will prove the effect of lycopene, and help elderly people live healthy.
There are some related stories about tomato’s power at the end of the article. After reading some, I decided to eat more Italian food, which I like very much anyway.
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Reference
from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19869666
I really love eating fresh tomatoes!
ReplyDeleteI think tomato is good not only for your health, but also for your skin. It uses for purifying and whitening skin. You can intake or attach it on your face to get healthy skin.
Eating in moderation of all necessary nutrients is good for our health. However, as I knew, Japanese has the longest life span in the world. And one possible reason is consuming soy bean products. In soy beans, there are many nutrients, but the most consideration is estrophytrogen which is natural like hormone from plants. Its effect acts as estrogen in our bodies. For example, our aging appearance decrease obviously when we take it daily. However, as same as soy, tomato is full of vitamins which prevent us from oxidants. Many people eat tomatoes everyday, their cheeks turn pink, which show healthiness.
ReplyDeleteIf you overeat any nutrients, it cause your elimination system as kidney and liver work loaded or even fail.
Fortunately, I like tomatoes, but less fortunately, I like a few other things that have less or no obvious health benefits, like duck, beef, and prawns.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Chieko's reflections on how such news affects people's behaviour. It reminded me of the fuss people have made about "organic" food over the past few years. It's promoted as healthier than normal food and so on, but with approximately zero evidence for that clever marketing, and people still happily pay more, much more, for a benefit that research suggests is purely ... imaginary.
But as Chieko's summary makes clear, there is some solid evidence that tomatoes have real health benefits, whether the "organic" type or normal.
And I think it's important to remember that fun and pleasure are excellent reasons for eating and doing other things, even if they are not healthy.
DeleteIs simply being unhealthy or dangerous a good reason not to do something? Is danger or unhealthiness a reason for a government to ban something?
Such as ...
DeleteI believe the tasty olive oil that goes with Italian food is also healthy. At least I'm eating one thing right. But I wish the olive oil did not get quite so quickly to my hips.
ReplyDeleteI used to eat italian food like tomatos in olive oil. I love it very much and I looked up by internet how to cook it but I don't try to do it yet. I think italian people plant vegetables themselves in their lands that can safe money than buy at a market.
DeleteAnyway fresh tomatos is better than tomatos in olive oil, my teacher at a university eat one big fresh tomato everyday as she love its taste and it made her skin looks very healthy in pink colour.
I liked to eat tomato 5years ago. However, when I ate fried rice in Thailand, tomato was in it. It was fried or baked. That’s taste awful for me. After that, I felt so bad, and vomited. Since this experience, I couldn’t eat tomato.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when I read your writing last night (10th Oct), it made me try to eat tomato. I ordered fried rice in this morning. It was with fresh cucumber and tomato. Usually, I don’t eat tomato because it is remembered bad experience, but today, I ate it, the taste was sweet and juicy. Maybe, I would eat more piece of it. Thank you for your writing. And I want to keep my health. However, I don’t want to try to eat fried or baked tomato, yet.
I don' like to eat much tomato, but I can eat it when this vegetable is in Tum Yum. And, I like eat it without cook after freezing. Maybe cold hide it's smell and taste, so it is yummy now.
ReplyDeleteI am the one who loves tomato. The most important reason why I love it and other vegetable is that fiber makes our body function well.
ReplyDeleteTo the topic about organic food, I think the word "organic" is just added value for produces. However, that doesn't mean that we should consume agricultural produces that are full of chemical. The organic ones is better but not more perfect than the normal vegetable and fruit, as well as meat.
Tomatoes are good source of Vitamins A, C, K, folate and potassium. They are naturally low in sodium and calories. In general, eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes, confers protection against high blood pressure, high cholesterol, strokes, and heart disease. Tomatoes also make your skin look great, because they have beta-carotene, also found in carrots, it protects the skin against sun damage. The lycopene makes skin less sensitive to UV light damage, a leading cause of fine lines and wrinkles. Tomatoes are a natural cancer fighter. The lycopene can reduce the risk of several cancers, including prostate, cervical, mouth, pharynx, throat, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectal and ovarian cancer. Tomatoes’ antioxidants (vitamins A and C) fight the free radicals which can cause cell damage. Would be nice if everyone ate at least one tomato a day
ReplyDeleteI have to ask ... is there actual evidence for all these claims for the health benefits of tomatoes, or is it only what someone thinks sounds reasonable?
DeleteI remember not so long ago doctors advising people to eat no more than two eggs a week because of their known high cholesterol content. When the research was done to support this popular belief among doctors it turned out they were wrong. It is true that eggs contain high amounts of cholesterol, but because of the way it works, it is not particularly unhealthy.
And now I'm off to see about my two egg omelette. Today it's with mushrooms, which have no particular health benefit I'm aware of, and baby broccoli, which is supposed to be a very healthy green, full of things I don't know of that will my body strong and healthy. And a healthy dash of virgin olive oil with truffles thrown in for taste and cholesterol reduction.
When I read reports about the good or bad health effects of certain foods, I now tend not to believe them unless they cite recent research that looks reliable. What people think must be the case about the world we live in often turns out to be completely not the case.
Your doctor's advice is completely different from mine. When I was primary school, my teacher always told us eating one egg per day is good to develop my body because eggs contains large amount of nutrients such as fat, protein, vitamin, and mineral. Although mostly nutrient in eggs is cholesterol which lead to many chronic diseases, other nutrients are useful for us, especially young people. For example, calcium in eggs increase bone strength. Chlorine help our brains and nerve system work well because it is a chemical inside our body systems. My teacher's advice might be helpful for children. However, more fifty ages people should not consume large quantities of eggs because all our organ's functions can work decreasingly. Our body's functions would not work well; it is the main cause why many chronic diseases, especially hypercholesterolemia , have developed in these ages.
DeleteHowever, in our body, there are not only bad cholesterol; LDL, VLDL, we also have a good LDL; HDL which can help us to delay high cholesterol in blood. We can raise it by doing any exercises.