Tomato

Food · Vegetables · Fruiting

Connected to · 1

food source · 1

Vitamin C
Tomatoes carry some vitamin C: one medium tomato supplies one to two tenths of the daily reference amount. Vitamin C is damaged by heat, so raw tomatoes have the edge here.
Mechanism · 2
Mechanism · Raw wins here, heat wins elsewhere
Vitamin C and folate are both damaged by heat and partly lost in long cooking, so raw tomatoes have the edge for vitamin C. The lycopene in the same fruit is the opposite: it dissolves in fat and is absorbed better when the tomato is cooked with a little oil. For one tomato, the best way to eat it depends on which nutrient you are after.
Numbers · The vitamin C in one tomato
Raw tomato has about 18 kcal per 100 g and is more than 94% water. One medium tomato supplies one to two tenths of the daily reference amount for vitamin C. Tomato paste has had its water cooked off, so 100 g of it concentrates the calories, sugar and lycopene several times over, while some of the vitamin C is lost in the long heating.

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What is tomato · botanically a fruit

EVIDENCEGUIDE 1

READ THE ORIGINAL

The most useful thing to know about tomatoes: lycopene, the pigment that makes them red, is fat-soluble, so the body absorbs more of it when tomatoes are cooked and eaten with a little oil; vitamin C is the opposite, and raw tomatoes keep the most. The chapter on why cooking helps lycopene get absorbed follows that path step by step.

In the kitchen, tomato is a vegetable; botanically, it is a fruit, because it develops from the flower's ovary and holds the seeds. A deeper red usually means more lycopene.

As for claims that "eating tomatoes prevents prostate cancer", the evidence comes mainly from observational studies, which can show only an association.

A whole red tomato and a cut half exposing seeds and flesh. — A CLOSER LOOK
The seeds explain its botanical identity
Used as a vegetable in the kitchen, it is a botanical fruit; the later cooking-and-fat mechanism explains lycopene absorption.

Educational content, not medical advice — consult a clinician.

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