Tag Archives: Lycopene

TRUTH ABOUT WATERMELONS

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The Truth about Watermelons…and Benefits

By: Catherine Ebeling 

Nothing says “Summer” better than a cool, refreshing, sweet, juicy, delicious slice of ripe watermelon—no matter what time of year it is. But I often hear cautions on eating watermelon—that it is high glycemic, full of sugar, mostly water, not very nutritious, etc.

NOTE: While watermelon does contain fruit sugar —fructose — like all other fruits, it is nearly 92 percent water. Just because it tastes sweet does not make it high in sugar. … This term, called glycemic load, is very low for watermelon — meaning that blood sugar is not changing much after eating it-but for diabetics, don’t overdo it!

Right? Or wrong?

While watermelons are mostly water—90% or so, they are also full of vitamins A, B6, C, lycopene, antioxidants and minerals. Remember hearing about the lycopene in tomatoes? Watermelon, another red-colored fruit, is FULL of this powerful phytonutrient! In fact, watermelon has some of the highest levels of lycopene of all fruits and veggies. Just one cup of watermelon has 1 and a half times the lycopene of a large fresh tomato. And who eats just one cup of watermelon? I know I don’t!

Because watermelon is one of the best sources of lycopene with more than 6,500 micrograms in less than half a cup, you are getting an army’s worth of inflammation-fighting antioxidant activity! Lycopene from the red flesh of watermelon is very stable, even after the watermelon has been cut and stored in the refrigerator. Lycopene is thought to be even more powerful than its other orange/red colored ally, beta carotene—found in red and orange fruits and veggies.

Cardiovascular Benefits

Lycopene is a powerful natural anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, valued for its role in protecting the cardiovascular system, bone health, and preventing cancer. Along with lycopene, watermelons contain another powerful phytochemical, citrulline, an amino acid. Citrulline gets converted into another important chemical in the body, arginine, or L-arginine. Arginine is used to create nitric oxide, which has powerful benefits on the heart and blood vessels. NO can actually cause blood vessels to relax and open up, lowering blood pressure and helping the body carry more oxygen to parts of the body where it is needed–like muscles, your heart and your brain. A study from Florida State University found that watermelon could make a significant difference in lowering blood pressure–especially in overweight people, by relaxing the blood vessel walls.

Citrulline, when it converts into arginine, can also help prevent excess accumulation of fat in fat cells, because it blocks an enzyme that stores this fat. And because citrulline is a precursor to nitric oxide, it can also help improve erectile dysfunction in men, in a similar way that Viagra works—although you would have to quite a bit of watermelon to get the same effect as Viagra.

As you can see in this article, watermelons are on the list of foods that beat statins for heart health!

It’s All About the Lycopene

Carotenoids are powerful antioxidants, capable of destroying free radicals which attack our bodies and can contribute to chronic disease and aging. In one study of 13,000 adult Americans, low levels of carotenoids were a key predictor of early death. Especially low blood levels of lycopene! Lycopene protects our cardiovascular system, the male reproductive system, and in the skin, it protects and prevents UV damage from the sun.

Several studies have been conducted showing the strong link between levels of lycopene and heart disease. Analyses from the Physicians Health Study showed a 39% decrease in stroke risk in men with the highest blood levels of lycopene. Another study in Finland following 1,000 men for 12 years has had similar results as well.

Lycopene is also responsible for limiting the enzyme responsible for making cholesterol, so eating foods with more lycopene also helps to reduce cholesterol—specifically, LDL cholesterol.

Anti-Cancer Power

Lycopene is a life-saver in more ways than one! Besides its cardiovascular benefits, lycopene’s antioxidant power extends to anti-cancer effects as well. A 2014 meta-analysis of 10 studies shows dietary lycopene to be protective against ovarian cancers, as well as brain tumors and breast tumors.

And of course, we know about lycopene’s value in fighting prostate cancer. In several studies, higher intakes of foods containing lycopene and a higher serum or plasma concentration of lycopene was associated with a very significant decreased risk of prostate cancer—especially the more lethal kind of prostate cancer. When researchers studied only the men who had had at least one high risk PSA test, the subjects had a 50% decreased risk of lethal prostate cancer.

“Based on these results, we hypothesize that the consumption of a diet rich in lycopene-containing foods reduces the aggressive potential of prostate cancer by inhibiting the neoangiogenesis that occurs in tumor development,” Dr. Giovannucci’s team reported online ahead of print in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.”

Other studies have shown lycopene’s powerful cancer fighting ability effective against lung cancer, esophageal, stomach, pancreatic, colorectal, and cervical cancers as well.

Extremely Good for Rehydration

Watermelons get their name because they are over 90% water, and that water is full of electrolytes and potassium which helps you stay hydrated or to rehydrate. The perfect fruit to eat on hot summer days, or after a hard, sweaty workout! And that delicious juice can also help prevent muscle soreness—especially if you have watermelon before your intense workout.

It’s Not Just the Red Part

While most of us only eat the juicy red flesh of the watermelon, the whole thing is actually edible and chock full of nutrients! From the red center to the stem end, and also the blossom end–including the white part near the rind–are a plethora of impressive antioxidants, flavonoids, lycopene, and vitamin C. Even the green rind is full of nutrients. The rind is full of chlorophyll, and contains even more citrulline than the red flesh. Try throwing your watermelon rinds into the blender with fresh squeezed lime juice for a healthy slushy treat.

It is still best, however, to pick ripest, reddest watermelon you can find. Lycopene content continues to increase all the way up until the time the watermelon is at its reddest and ripest.

And don’t spit out those seeds, unless you are in a watermelon seed-spitting contest! The black watermelon seeds are not only edible, but actually extremely good for you. They are full of iron, zinc, fiber and protein. Seedless watermelons are ok to eat too—they are not genetically modified, only hybrid forms of watermelon bred especially for their no-seed content.

Watermelons also are rich in anti-inflammatory substances including cucurbitacin E, triterpenoid which help to block the pain and inflammation of certain enzymes, in a similar fashion as NSAID’s like ibuprofen and aspirin.

While being very low in calories (only about 46 calories in a cup), watermelon also contains an impressive variety of other important essential nutrients including:

  • Vitamin A
  • Vitamin C
  • Vitamin B6
  • Potassium
  • Magnesium

The Age-Old Question—How Do You Pick the Perfect Watermelon?

It can be a huge gamble finding the perfect, red, sweet watermelon. But—if you know what to look for, there is a real method to finding the best one. Look on the underside of the watermelon for a pale, butter-colored yellow spot—not white or green. This is one of the best indicators of the ripeness of the watermelon. Also pick up a few and choose the one that is heaviest for its size. Many people ‘thump’ the watermelon to check its ripeness too—listen for the best hollow bass sound.

Be aware that watermelons do contain a reasonable quantity of fructose, so be mindful of your sugar intake, and eat watermelon in moderation.  With that said, because watermelons are so filling, and have both high water content AND high fiber content, the old myth that watermelons are high glycemic is not entirely true… This is because the “glycemic load” of a watermelon is actually fairly low since it’s nearly impossible to overeat large quantities of a food that is as filling as watermelon

Tomatoes are Tremendous

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Tomatoes are Tremendous

It wouldn’t be summer without plump, juicy heirloom tomatoes piled high on a table at the farmers’ market, or containers of cherry tomatoes as sweet as raspberries reappearing in supermarkets for the season. Eating a rainbow of produce is an effective—and tasty—way to ensure intake of a wide array of nutrients and phytochemicals; and just within the tomato family itself, you can find red, green, yellow, orange, and purple varieties.

With their low carbohydrate content, fiber, and complement of nutrients, tomatoes fit nicely into many different nutritional strategies, including vegetarian, low-carb, and Paleo-style diets. Due to tomatoes’ natural sweetness, people on very low carbohydrate diets sometimes avoid them, but this isn’t necessary. Tomatoes—particularly when they’re in season—are sweet, but although they have a slightly higher glycemic index than, say, spinach and broccoli, their glycemic load is extremely low. This means it would take a very large amount of tomatoes to have an adverse impact on blood sugar, although, of course, individual sensitivity to carbohydrate varies. They are a good source of vitamin C, vitamin K1, beta-carotene, and potassium.

Tomatoes are perhaps most touted for their antioxidant phytochemical, lycopene – best known for its role in men’s health (lycopene is the most abundant carotenoid found in the prostate gland). This great antioxidant has other beneficial roles worth mentioning. Lycopene may help prevent sunburn, and studies have shown it also has the potential to be mildly hypocholesterolemic via naturally inhibiting HMG CoA reductase, as well as increasing LDL receptor synthesis. Interestingly, lycopene concentration is higher in tomato products—such as tomato paste and tomato sauce—than in fresh tomatoes. As a fat-soluble carotenoid, the body absorbs lycopene best when taken with some fat—in case anyone needed an excuse to drizzle a fresh tomato salad with a little olive oil, or sprinkle some cheese over tomato sauce and zucchini noodles.

As if their flavor and nutrient content weren’t good enough reasons to eat tomatoes, there’s another beneficial substance hiding in tomatoes, tucked away like a little secret: melatonin! Yes, it’s true: tomatoes contain a small amount of melatonin, and it seems to have a similar function in plants as it does in humans: regulation of the circadian rhythm. A study in which multiple tomato cultivars were grown in the same greenhouse, but some were grown in full sunlight while others were shaded, found that the shaded tomatoes had as much as 135% more melatonin than the non-shaded ones, suggesting that light exposure plays a role in their melatonin content, just as melatonin synthesis is regulated by photo-exposure in people. Some researchers have pointed to the bioactive phytochemicals in various plants as being a key factor contributing to the healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet. In looking at select foods common in certain Mediterranean countries, they noted tomatoes, olive oil, wines, and grape skins, for their melatonin content, which, while small, might still be one part of the multifactorial picture underlying the benefits of this traditional cuisine. At about 250ng/g of dry weight, the melatonin content of tomatoes isn’t enough to act as a sleep aid, but it’s an interesting bit of trivia nonetheless.

Don’t limit yourself to the more common red tomatoes. Other varieties bring enhanced nutritional properties, such as purple tomatoes, which have a higher anthocyanin and antioxidant content. Plant breeders recognize these as providing a longer shelf life and protection against certain plant pests, but they’re helpful for human health, as well. Yellow tomatoes also have something to offer beyond their sweet taste. While the lycopene in red  tomatoes has been shown to be helpful in fighting prostate cancer, serum from rats fed yellow tomatoes—which contain no lycopene—has been shown to beneficially influence expression of  Connexin43 (Cx43), a protein that regulates cell growth, on human prostate cancer cells in vitro.

With summer upon us, enjoy the bounty of tomatoes the season offers and enjoy experimenting in the kitchen with this wonderful food. You can find such a great variety of recipes, both hot and cold, where tomatoes add a splash of flavor, a touch of color, and of course, nutrition galore.

Note: As a Sicilian American my family’s whole life revolved around tomatoes. Every autumn my grandfather bought hundreds of cases of plum tomatoes which he my grandmother and all the aunts cooked, prepped and canned for the entire coming year. I say hundreds because there were 10 families and each of those 10 needed enough jars to make “gravy” every Sunday.  I also remember my NoNa taking tomatoes onto the roof to make tomato paste–another time consuming process worth the time and energy it took to make. When they passed the family no longer canned the tomatoes; and buying them in cans just about killed them–but they adjusted to the “modern times” of 1965.