While I didn't actively avoid tomatoes during the salmonella scare, I am quite happy the FDA has finally given raw tomatoes [1] the thumbs up. To celebrate my favorite fruit disguised as a veggie, I thought I would share five things ways tomatoes benefit your health.

1. Blood Pressure: Eating tomatoes for eight weeks was found to reduce blood pressure [2] in people with mild hypertension. So eat some tomatoes to help your heart chill out.
2. Ketchup: Cooking tomatoes increases their lycopene [3] content, and America's favorite condiment, ketchup, is no exception. However, organic ketchup [4] has three times the amount of the antioxidants than its conventional counterpart.
3. Cancer: Tomatoes have been shown to decrease the risk of pancreatic cancer [5] as well as breast cancer [6].

There are two other reasons to eat tomatoes, so .

4. Skin: Eating tomatoes can help increase skin's natural [7] defenses when it comes to UV rays. While you should still wear sunscreen, eating tomatoes regularly can boost your skins ability to protect itself from harmful rays.
5. Cholesterol: Eating tomatoes four times a week, easy to do during Summer, can reduce cholesterol [8].

Do love tomatoes? Tell me how you like to eat them in the comments section below.

Source [9]