Eat your Reds if you get the Blues! Tomatoes help brighten our mood. This is according to a 2012 study in which 70-year-olds a…
Eat your Reds if you get the Blues!
Tomatoes help brighten our mood. This is according to a 2012 study in which 70-year-olds and over, with depressive symptoms (mild depression/low mood) half of whom, felt helped by eating them. And that was in contrast to all the other vegetables they tried.
So why could this be?
It lies in tomatoes main antioxidant called ‘lycopene’, which is the most powerful antioxidant (amongst the carotenoids) for helping prevent oxidative stress, which in itself can be related to depression. The lycopene content of a tomato is further increased by cooking. In fact by a further 164%!
How they’re stored is quite important too, they are ideally left outside the fridge at temperatures between 13C and 21C and eaten at room temperature (or indeed cooked). In an overly hot room, they can rapidly lose their freshness, not a common issue in the U.K! But refrigerating is worse, the tomatoes really lose their taste and texture, so treat them to their own bowl!
#tomatos #lycopene #vegetables #depression #moodswings
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