Tomatoes, which are extremely useful for an array of reasons, are full of flavor and are thought to have amazing medicinal properties. In the past, people would use it as a medicine to address several health problems.

The tomato, which many believe is a vegetable, is actually a fruit. It can be used in soups, gravies and salads. It’s also found in juice form. That’s where most of the benefits lie with the tomato – in juice form.

Tomato juice has been known to keep the liver, gut and heart healthy while also battling carcinogens that could lead to cancer development. With vitamin A, antioxidants, flavonoids, lycopene and other nutrients, you can lose weight, have healthy hair and skin and see better.

Bright red tomatoes can lead to good health because of the vitamin C, folate, potassium and other nutrients. However, what sets apart tomatoes from other fruits and vegetables is the amount of antioxidants such as carotenoids they contain.

In order to get the most nutrients out of the tomato, it should be eaten raw or cooked very little. However, if you don’t like the idea of consuming raw tomatoes, consider tomato juice. With a small bit of cayenne pepper and salt, you can make it quite tasty. And, you can get a plethora of benefits from it. What kinds of benefits?

What Are The Possible Benefits Associated With Tomato Consumption?

Life Free of Cancer

Tomatoes are loaded with the carotenoid lycopene, which is non-pro vitamin A carotenoid that gives the tomato its reddish color. The U.S.’ key dietary lycopene source is processed tomato products.

Lycopene is the main bioactive compound seen in tomatoes and its derivatives. Tomatoes also contain antioxidants, which look for free radicals that can cause tissue and cell damage that could lead to cancer development. Lycopene has anti-carcinogenic activities that ensure the body is protected from carcinogens that can lead to cancer.

Check this Daily Mail article to read more about how tomato juice may help prevent breast cancer.

Vision Improvement

Tomatoes have a good amount of vitamin A in them, which can help improve your eyesight. Vitamin A, which is commonly known as retinol, will help keep the retina’s tissues healthy. Retinol is also important to the development of retina’s visual purple, which lets the vision become accustomed to dim light.

Speeds Up Weight Loss

If you’re trying to lose weight, add tomato juice to your diet. Again, lycopene works to protect the body from metabolic diseases while also decreasing the inflammatory adipokine, serum cholesterol and waist circumference, giving you a slimmer look. In fact, a recent study suggests that high levels of lycopene in the blood serum can reduce mortality in people with metabolic syndrome.

Liver Detoxification

Your body’s biggest internal organ needs a lot of care because it has a very important job, which is to purify the body. The liver must address all the toxins in the body, which means it needs to detox too. Tomatoes and other plant foods are very effective in liver detoxification. Tomato juice is also useful in bettering liver problems.

Keeps The Heart Healthy

High intakes of tomato juice is associated with reduced risks of cardiovascular diseases. The tomato is great for keeping the heart healthy as well by lowering LDL levels and boosting oxidation resistance of the LDL. Because of these arthero-protective properties, blood plasma that contains lycopene can lower the chance of suffering from cardiovascular diseases.

Improves Your Gut’s Health

Tomato juice boosts the amount of gut microbiota that helps with improving its health. A study involving rats found that drinking tomato juice for five weeks would counter the effects a high-fat diet had on the stomach. The reason? Possibly due to the increase of tomato juice’s lactobacillus bacteria present in the stomach.

Improvement In Bowel Regulation

Millions of people are affected by irregular bowel movements, which can be helped by consuming tomato juice on a daily basis. It can relieve constipation, better digestion and stimulate the bowels to work properly.

Healthy Skin

Tomato juice, which is rich in antioxidant will stop cell damage and lead to tissue and cell repair. All of this will better your skin’s health and keep it looking good all the time. A deficiency in vitamin C will cause the skin to become dry and scaly.

The ascorbic acid will aid the body in producing collagen – a protein that’s needed for developing cartilage, blood vessel, ligaments, and tendons – and is necessary for keeping skin healthy and looking well.

The beta-carotene in tomatoes also has antioxidant properties that keep cells from becoming damaged from oxidation.

Do you need any other reasons to start drinking tomato juice?

Nutritional Information

100 grams of Tomatoes contains only 17 calories, 3.8 grams of sugar, 0.8 grams of protein, 0.4 grams of fiber and zero total fats. There is 230 milligrams of potassium and 10 milligrams of sodium, some iron and magnesium, and moderate amounts of Vitamin C, Vitamin A, and Vitamin B6.

One of the best and most beneficial nutrients in Tomato juice is the antioxidant lycopene. Lycopene is carotenoid like beta carotene, but the body doesn’t convert it into Vitamin A. Lycopene can be biologically active for a longer period of time than the other carotenoids found in vegetables.

Another bioactive chemical found in tomato is alpha-tomatine. If you have ever prepared home made tomato juice, the foam is a result of this phytochemical. Alpha-tomatine is very useful as it triggers apoptosis, which is a sort of autodestruction of cancer cells.

Home Made Tomato Juice

Whether you grow your own tomatoes, or you buy them in your local store, you can make a great home made tomato juice. In either case, use organically grown tomatoes. If grown conventionally, they are on the top of the list of veggies that contain a lot of pesticides. In fact they are on the dirty dozen list for 2017. So be careful.

You can choose to prepare cooked or raw Tomato juice. When cooked, the body’s lycopene uptake is considerably improved, and this is one reason why you would choose  cooked Tomato juice. However, the usefulness of all the other nutrients and Vitamins upon cooking will be diminished. So, we believe is always better to prepare your Tomato juice raw, which is why below we list a recipe for preparing raw Tomato juice.

This is a classic recipe that we adore for its taste and simplicity. We love to prepare it with cucumbers, but you can leave them out and it will taste just as great. Parsley is packed with Vitamin K, while cayenne pepper has also a huge range of important health properties. You can add some salt as well, and we prefer using the pink variety of Himalayan salt. Tomatoes derive their characteristic taste from aromatic compounds in the peel. Before juicing, ensure that you wash them but never peel them, to keep their flavor intact.

If you make too much Tomato Juice, you can cool it down and keep in a freezer. When cooled it would turn into a pulp and before serving it again, you would have to keep it out of the refrigerator for some time.

Ingredients

4 large tomatoes

2 cucumbers

2 medium celery

parsley, salt, and cayenne pepper

Directions

Cut the tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, and celery into smaller pieces and put them in a juicer. Add some salt and cayenne pepper.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Tomato Juice Acidic?

As far as the initial consumption goes, tomatoes are acidic. In the mouth, fresh tomatoes have a pH value between 4.3 and 4.9. Tomato juice has a pH between 4.1 and 4.6. So, if you have concerns with regard to causing mouth irritation if eaten in excess, you should go easy on Tomato juice.

However, once digested, Tomato juice leaves an alkaline residue in the body (and the blood) and alkalizes the body. So, with respect to the final effect, with respect to what really matters, tomatoes are alkaline. This behavior is very similar to lemon and lemon juice, which is even more acidic in the beginning, only to be metabolized into alkaline nutrients.

Keep in mind that if you plan on drinking cooked Tomato juice, most of the nutrients will become more acidic after cooking.

What Combinations of Tomato Juice Should I Make?

By combining with other veggies you can make your Tomato Juice way much more interesting. As we indicated above, celery is one option, and cucumber another. You can mix tomato and carrot juice.

What is the Best Tomato Juice Brand?

First of all, the best Tomato Juice is the one you prepare at home from fresh organically grown tomatoes. If you can’t do that or you don’t have enough time to prepare home made juices, you have to buy one. It is hard to talk about the absolute best brand. We can only comment on the one we like the most. One of the most popular is certainly the V8 brand (also the best seller among all tomato juices), with seemingly superior taste. But it’s not organic.

Therefore we prefer the Lakewood Organic Super Tomato Juice. Whatever you choose, make sure there’s no added sugar, select an organic brand if possible, and beware of bottles made of dangerous plastic materials or BPA coatings. Glass bottles are the best.

Can Tomato Juice Cause Gout?

Tomatoes contain low amounts of purine, which is a substance notorious for triggering gout. Moreover, Tomato juice is mostly water, so the main cause of concern may be its high initial acidity. But what counts is the alkaline residue and the resulting alkalinity of the blood, so there’s no real cause for concern.

Can Tomato Juice Lighten Skin?

Yes it can, either alone or in combination with other ingredients like Lemon juice. It also has other beneficial action on the skin. It may help reduce wrinkles, improve the skin’s elasticity, protect against radiation, soothe sunburns, and hydrate its surface.

To whiten the skin, apply some pure Tomato juice over the skin. Let it stay there for 15 minutes or so and then rinse the area with water. You can also mix equal amounts of Tomato and lemon juice and repeat this process as well. Lemon juice also has skin lightening properties.

Can I Drink Tomato Juice on an Empty Stomach?

Sure you can. Nothing speaks against it, and in fact, you may get a lot of benefits for doing that first thing in the morning.

Can Tomato Juice Cause Allergies?

Yes it can. Some people are allergic to Tomatoes. The reason is that Tomatoes contain histamines that trigger allergic reactions in some people. The possible symptoms include sneezing, coughing, swelling of the throat, face, or mouth, rashes, eczema, etc. Another type of reaction is allergic dermatitis.

Is Tomato Juice Gluten Free?

Yes, provided that you make your own freshly squeezed Tomato juice. If you buy one, you never know. The best you can do is read the label for hidden sources of gluten.

Is Tomato Juice High in Potassium?

Yes, it has about 500 milligrams of Potassium per cup. One cup won’t satisfy the full recommended daily allowance for this important mineral, but it is a great step in the right direction. Tomato juice is one of the best natural sources of potassium.

Will Tomato Juice Raise Blood Sugar?

Should I Juice the Leaves and Stems?

Is Canned Tomato Juice Healthy?

Can I Cook Tomato Juice in Metal Cookware?

For similar reasons as above (acidity of the tomato juice) avoid cooking in mental cookware, like aluminum or iron (you shouldn’t be using them anyways for other foods too!). Use enamel cookware and you will be fine.

The Bottom Line

Tomatoes are a wondrous type of food. You can use them fresh and raw, you can prepare Tomato Juice, or you can even eat them sun-dried to pick up their densely packed nutrients. The most beneficial bioactive nutrient of Tomato juice is lycopene, so it would be wise to take a dosage of this important chemical compound on a daily basis. In addition, when you drink Tomato Juice your body will enjoy taking in a lot of potassium.

Make sure you prepare your own home made juice from ripe organic tomatoes, either raw or slightly cooked. If you are going to buy some Tomato juice, this article has given you some helpful tips on how to select the best brands to maximize the health benefits of Tomato Juice.

To your health!