Tomato Is Revered Today But it Was Once Feared as “Poison Apple”

The pigment that turns tomatoes red may protect your heart and lower the risk of cancer.

The round red fruit’s made a big turnaround from its early days. The tomato that traces its origins to the Andes region of Mexico was admired for its looks when it reached Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries but feared as a potentially deadly food. But it turns out, it wasn’t the fruit that was the problem, it was the plates upon which it was served.

“Wealthy Europeans often ate from pewter plates high in lead, and tomatoes could leach that lead into food, causing illness that was then blamed on the tomato itself,” according to the food enthusiast blog Kitchen Divas. “Over time, cooks embraced it in sauces, soups, and salads, and the tomato transformed from a suspicious novelty into one of the world’s most used ingredients.”

While pewter has faded as a dinnerware, vintage dishes containing pewter, American dinnerware made before 1960, or dinnerware from other countries, may contain lead that could still leach into foods, especially if the dinnerware is chipped or cracked. So be careful if tomatoes, wine or other acidic food or drinks comes in contact with vintage cookware.

But today the tomato, in addition to being tasty, has newly discovered benefits that may include cancer fighting abilities. When researchers at the Iranian University of Medical Sciences analyzed 121 studies from four scientific databases tracking nearly 2.7 million participants they found that lycopene, the pigment that makes tomatoes red, might ward off cancer and lower the risk of cancer death.

The numbers published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition were plain. A diet rich in tomatoes appeared to produce high blood levels of lycopene which in turn was linked to an 11 percent lower cancer risk and 24 percent lower risk of cancer death.

How much lycopene and how many tomatoes to do the job? Benefits peak at 5 to 8 milligrams of lycopene daily, roughly one to two medium tomatoes.

However, in an excess of caution, the study’s authors wrote that observational research, i.e. simply recording behavior, may identify trends but cannot prove cause. Besides, because the data came mostly from Europe and America, applying the results worldwide would be iffy. Nonetheless, a pattern such as this one, repeated across so many studies, is the kind of clue that makes researchers sit up and take notice. .

Similar numbers and patterns point to lycopene’s ability to reduce cardiovascular problems by lowering blood pressure, according to University of Barcelona researchers. Their data, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, says that folks who eat the most tomatoes or tomato-based foods are more than 30 percent less likely to develop high blood pressure.

For their 7,056 participants, 82.5 percent of whom had hypertension whose pressure is already high, even a moderate number of tomatoes were beneficial. According to author Rosa María Lamuela-Raventós, Ph.D., director of the Research Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety at the University of Barcelona, “Lycopene, the most plentiful carotenoid in tomato, reduces the presence an enzyme that makes blood vessel constrict, leaving them open and free for blood to flow freely around the body. In addition, Michelle Routhenstein, cardiology dietician and preventive cardiology nutritionist at EntirelyNourished.com, noted that potassium, tomato’s heart healthy nutrient “helps balance sodium levels, regulating fluids and aiding in lower blood pressure.”

While tomatoes may be eaten raw, used in salads or sandwiches, or cooked in sauces, the current studies have not investigated which serving is most effective. Dr. Lamuela-Raventós cast one vote for cooked. “I believe future clinical studies should consider the processing of tomatoes and home-cooking techniques,” she said, “since bioavailability of carotenoids and other antioxidants (such as polyphenols) is increased when [the] tomato is cooked.”

Katrina Sommer, an advanced clinical dietitian with OSF HealthCare, says that preparation matters. Lycopene and potassium “need to be absorbed very well in our system. To do that, cook them and you can drizzle olive oil on them so we can absorb those nutrients optimally.” Tomato sauce and tomato soup count too, she noted.

All that being true, perhaps the most satisfying tomato news is something increasingly rare in modern health advice: A real benefit that comes from real food, not a prescription, needle or tablet, or, as the researchers said, a simple tomato “with an honest ingredient label may do more good than another pill with a fine-print list of side effects.”

Tastes better, too.