Organic Tomato Juice Recipes and Benefits

So, we can’t have all work and exercise and dieting all the time. It’s time for a bit of fun… and food! I’m hungry. And so here are a few really good tomato juice recipes you can whip up in your vegetable juicer for before or after your workout. We all know tomatoes are packed with vitamins and minerals, so get juicing!

Tomato Juice Recipes #1 – Plain Ole Tomato Juice
5 tomatoes

Tomato Juice Recipes #2 – V8
3 Tomatoes
4 carrots
1 small beet
3 stalks of celery
1 cup of spinach
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
1 cup of kale

Tomato Juice Recipes #3 – Garlicy Tom Juice
2 tomatoes
2 apples
1 glove of garlic

Tomato Juice Recipes #4 – The Deep Deep Red
5 tomatoes
1 cup of beet leaves
1 tbs of lemon juice

Tomato Juice Recipe #5 – Breakfast Tom Juice
1 grapefruit
1 tomato
1 cup of white cabbage
1/2 apple

Juicing Tomatoes
Tomatoes can be juiced raw or they can be blanched or cooked first, based on your preference. Either way don’t juice the stems, they are poisonous! I prefer to juice tomatoes raw with their skins on to take advantage of the many antioxidants that congregate in the skins. However, it is a good idea to not drink raw tomato juice too often because it contains oxalic acid, a compound that can leech calcium out of the body. If you cook the tomatoes, the oxalic acid will become neutralized, avoiding this problem

Organic Tomatoes Vs Non-Organic Tomatoes
Endless studies show that there can be a big difference between the nutrient content of organic and non-organic (intensively farmed) tomatoes. A study conducted by Betty Ishida and Mary Chapman at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Albany, CA found that organic ketchup contained three times as much lycopene (a potent antioxidant) as non-organic ketchup! It can be safe to assume this applies to tomatoes! So use organic tomatoes in your vegetable juicer recipes to get the benefits of extra lycopene. Non-organic tomatoes also get sprayed with carcinogenic pesticides that can play a heavy toll on the immune system.

Anti-Cancer Health Benefits of Lycopene
Lycopene is a phytonutrient that has undergo a lot of research in the past decade in its role to protect us from cancers. As an antioxidant, lycopene protects our cells from oxygen based damage that can lead to cancer. Animal studies have found that lycopene supplementation was especially effective at protecting them from developing prostate cancer. Although research in human males is still yet to be conducted.

Another study was focused upon the connection between blood levels of lycopene and colon cancer. It was found that patients who developed colon polyps ( a lump that often becomes cancerous) had 32% lower blood levels of lycopene than those who have developed no polyps. In this detailed study many other nutrients and lifestyle habits were also examined. However, low blood levels of lycopene and smoking were discovered to be the only risk factors for developing colon polyps.