The Classic Duo: Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese

Tomatoes….

Tomatoes are a rich source of lycopenes, beta-carotene, folate, potassium, vitamin C, flavonoids, and vitamin E.

Lycopene is a naturally occurring chemical that give tomatoes their red color. Lycopene is also being investigated due to its ubiquitous ability to decrease oxidative (cellular) stress and prevent heart failure, cancer, and other chronic diseases.

So, having a hearty portion of tomatoes in your diet has shown to have beneficial effects in long term health, — isn’t that incredible? 😍 One of the things to note though, is depending on how you cook it, the amount of available nutrients can change. Cooking tomatoes with oil will actually increase the bioavailability of lycopene while loss of other of its great nutrients. This is good to know so that you integrate recipes that will use cooked tomatoes one day and then raw tomatoes the next to mix it up.

Another great thing about tomatoes is the variety available to us. As you may know, every fruit and vegetable carries its own set of toxins to protect itself, however, we can get around this by having a variety of different types of that vegetable or fruit. In the case of tomatoes, you can walk into almost any supermarket and have 6-8 options at any time. So this week, the Meltzer’s challenge you to move out of your comfort zone when you’re shopping and buy those tomatoes you never thought you would try before.