Monday, 3 September 2007

Avid tomatoes eaters have healthy pink glowing skin – Myth or Fact?

Never liked tomatoes? Consider this; it contains an antioxidant which strength lies in repairing skin cells. Stress, depression, malnutrition, lack of rest can cause your skin to have a dark, dry and scaly surface and lycopene is the solution to regaining healthy skin again.

Lycopene is what makes the flesh of a tomato red in color, the redder it is, the higher the level of lycopene it contains. That is pretty easy to tell. Tomato skin is actually yellow in color and so, a green tomato is definitely not going to contain a good amount of lycopene as compared to its red counterpart.

But how do you ensure that you obtained the maximum level of the antioxidant?

Strangely, the level of lycopene released increased when heated. That is to say, cooked tomatoes allows absorption rate as much as 2.5 higher than raw tomatoes. Couple that with oil and you topped lycopene absorption level by another 2.5 times.

Lycopene is present in watermelons, guava, rosehip and pink grapefruit too but none as generous a level as in tomatoes.

Like all antioxidants, it is not internally produced by the human body so start on a tomato-rich diet and enjoy the benefits of lycopene!

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