The Raf tomato is in season and has important nutritional properties and health benefits. It does not make you gain weight. It can be grown in pots, greenhouses, and other cultivation methods due to its particular characteristics. It can be grown from grafts or planted with seeds.
This tomato variety competes directly with other very tasty ones such as the so-called ox heart and species like pata negra.
Despite being a vegetable widely consumed around the world, both cooked and raw, there are many doubts about its nutritional contribution to humans, from issues related to its calories and its potential to cause weight gain, to whether its antioxidant content is truly effective. In this article, we will explain its characteristics, properties, and all the information related to the fruit of the Solanum lycopersicum plant, also known as Raf pata negra tomato.
Contents
What is the Raf tomato?
It is a variety or subspecies of Solanum lycopersicum, from the Solanaceae family, and it is a specimen obtained through successive crosses made by humans.
As with many other foods, the idea of selecting certain characteristics to fix them in the offspring was to produce high-quality, juicy tomatoes with a special flavor, as well as to facilitate their cultivation, since it is somewhat more resistant to pests than other types of tomatoes.
The Almería Raf tomato resists Fusarium oxyporum lycopersici mold, which is an advantage. This property allows it to grow in greenhouses with much less risk of losing part of the harvest. Its predecessor, the muchamiel tomato, does not have this property.
Does the tomato make you gain weight?
The good thing is that, besides being delicious, the tomato does not make you gain weight. It is very difficult to gain weight by eating them since, to increase fat in the body, we would have to eat large amounts of them, which is practically impossible in practice.
You would need to eat 1 kg of fresh tomatoes to provide 180 calories to the metabolism, almost the same as 100 grams of rice, and three times less than a kilo of vegetables like carrots.
So, if you’re dieting and you feel like eating Raf tomatoes, you can eat them without fear of gaining weight.
At the same time, they have low calorie and fat content, but are high in antioxidants and vitamin C, trace elements that help us regulate digestion, metabolism, and strengthen the body.
Now, let’s see what other nutrients and food substances they contain.
Types of antioxidants in Raf tomatoes
Within the group we have called beta carotenoids, we can distinguish one very powerful and fabulous for health. Lycopene is an antioxidant with properties to prevent eye deterioration, and it is very present in the composition of Raf tomatoes.
So eating tomatoes prevents aging of the eyes, but also of the skin.
Beta carotenoids
They protect the body against cellular degeneration and wear. They are very good for the eyes, acting as powerful natural antioxidants that slow down aging of the eyes.
The Raf tomato is one of the best antioxidant foods. Its properties protect the eyes, so it favors aging by preserving good vision.
Eating tomatoes regularly provides the body with many antioxidants, with the benefits of beta carotenoids standing out among them. These substances, which are red, orange, and yellow in color, block damage from free radicals.
These beta carotenoids in Raf tomatoes are very good for health. They are one of the best ways to obtain these plant metabolites that prevent oxidation of other molecules that form the skin and tissues essential for humans.
Almería Raf tomato
Currently, it is one of the main crops in this locality in Spain. The Almería Raf tomato grows in greenhouses and is highly valued. Although it has delicate roots, its properties to resist Fusarium have made it possible to plant almost 500 hectares of it in Spain alone, with the cultivated area increasing every year.
This makes it very easy to buy, and its price has dropped compared to other periods, although it is still somewhat expensive compared to salad tomatoes.
The seasonal Raf is special and different from other varieties, and since there is less available for sale, its prices go up.
Varieties
- Pata negra
- Ox heart
- Blue
They are actually practically the same types of tomatoes but with some properties that make them be named or considered different.
Ox heart tomato
The ox heart tomato is larger with a lot of flesh, and the Raf pata negra is the same.
It is a common denomination referring to its high quality. It is compared to pata negra ham.
Moreover, there are different brands such as Casi, Delicia, and many others. Depending on the locality, you may access the cultivation of authentic Raf, although the variety should always be Solanum lycopersicum with slight modifications or selections.
Raf Azul
It is the same as the regular one, only it has been modified to produce a blue or purple skin with dark tones.
The origin of the blue Raf tomato is genetic engineering. Since it is a vegetable, fruit, or plant —depending on who you ask— it is very accessible and produced in large quantities in the West. This makes it easy to obtain both for consumption and as food, as well as for producing new plants and species for research.
One of the advantages of the Blue Raf variety is that it has many nutritional properties, including its anticancer and protective actions, regardless of whether it has blue or red skin. These characteristics are simply an evolution based on successive plant crossbreeds, expressing a different phenotype but, in its nutritional composition, making it similar to the other Rafs.
Some plants express their genes by changing the phenotype, their exterior appearance, which can also happen in the fruits they produce, in this case, in the skin of the tomato, which will be red, purple, or blue.
Properties of the Raf Tomato
It is a fundamental food in the Mediterranean diet. Widely consumed in salads with lettuce, cucumber, and onion. It is also eaten alone with a pinch of salt and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Eating it raw ensures that the tomato and its properties remain intact, without losing any benefits from cooking or high temperatures, so consuming it raw is one of the recommended ways to ingest it.
This prevents its mineral and vitamin content from decreasing, making the properties of Raf tomatoes as follows:
- Diuretic.
- Digestive.
- Beneficial for hypertension.
- Stimulating and regulating cholesterol.
- Protective of epidermal tissues.
- Prolongs the life of vital organs.
- Antioxidant.
- Nutritious.
Where can we buy this type of tomato?
Anywhere. Buying Raf tomatoes is quite simple, at least in Spain, since a large part of its production comes from this country.
Raf tomatoes are sold by weight, and they are generally available in local fruit and vegetable shops, shopping centers, supermarkets, as well as in online stores.
The only difference is that if you decide to buy them online, you need to buy a basket or several kilos instead of individual pieces, but otherwise, they are of the same quality.
