Are organic tomatoes better for you?

Most would agree that among all the organic vegies out there (though tomatoes are technically a fruit!), organic tomatoes offer your taste buds a better ride.

Well research from the US hints that they might also contain higher nutritional value, too. A study published in the Journal of Science of Food and Agriculture tested levels of quercetin and kaempferol in dried tomato samples over a period of ten years.

Those grown organically were revealed to contain 79 percent more quercetin, an ingredient that acts directly on the cells of the body and stops them releasing histamines; and 97 percent more kaempferol, a natural flavonoid which has been associated with reduced risk of heart disease.

The reason, researchers believe, is that over-fertilisation – which often occurs with conventionally grown tomatoes – was less pronounced in organic tomatoes, stimulating them to produce higher levels of flavonoids.

"Flavonoids are produced as a defence mechanism of the plant in response to nutrient deficiency," explains Stephen Daniells of NutraIngredients in response to the study. "In the organically grown plants, no fertilisation occurred which was mirrored in increasing levels of the flavonoids over time as the soil fertility decreased."

As the researchers from University of Calfornia conclude:

"This increase corresponds not only with increasing amounts of soil organic matter accumulating in organic plots but also with reduced manure application rates once soils in the organic systems had reached equilibrium levels of organic matter."