Calories in Tomatoes, whole

What makes tomatoes so powerful?

Botanically, a tomato is a berry, which makes it a fruit, but in 1893 the U.S. Supreme Court legally declared it a vegetable in the case of Nix v. Hedden. The court ruled that based on how people use it in cooking—served with dinner rather than dessert—it should be taxed as a vegetable. Beyond its confusing legal identity, tomatoes contain a powerful carotenoid called lycopene. Unlike many nutrients that degrade when heated, lycopene actually becomes more bioavailable when tomatoes are cooked. The thermal processing breaks down the plant's cell walls and transforms trans-lycopene into the cis-isomer, which the human body absorbs much more easily. Adding a small amount of fat, like olive oil, further increases this absorption because lycopene is fat-soluble. This means a raw tomato on a salad still offers excellent vitamin C, but a slow-simmered tomato sauce delivers a significantly higher dose of this antioxidant. The red pigment accumulates in the skin, so keeping tomatoes whole and unpeeled during cooking maximizes the final nutritional payload.