It’s British tomato fortnight starting today, so we thought we’d celebrate this jewel of a vegetable

Or fruit if you want to be technical about it.

Tomatoes are the fruit of the vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans and peas, and not vegetables at all!

Tomatoes come in a large variety of shapes and sizes from big beef tomatoes to oval shaped plum tomatoes to cherry tomatoes. They come on the vine, loose, tinned and dried, and are probably one of the most used vegetables in cooking today.

The recent re introduction of heirloom tomatoes means that we also see them in all sorts of colours and even stripy!

So, are they good for you?

Tomatoes are a good source of vitamin C, but their most potent nutrient by far is lycopene, with an 80g portion giving you: 

• 138% of your RDA (recommended daily amount) for raw tomatoes
• 220% of your RDA when made into a sauce

And an outstanding 307% of your RDA for just 10g of sundried tomatoes!

That’s all well and good I hear you saying but what is lycopene and what does it do?

Lycopene

Lycopene is a carotenoid (carotenoids are the yellow, orange and red pigments that plants create) phytochemical.