Indian cooking is incomplete without all the spices and ingredients like garlic, chili, onion and tomatoes. You can hardly avoid these when you relish any typical Indian dish. Now comes the million dollar question- will eating tomatoes lead to forming of kidney stones in your body?
To know this, let us find out how kidney stones are formed - Interestingly, you may not know that you have a kidney stone, till it starts moving within your kidney or gets into your ureter. That’s when you start experiencing symptoms like severe pain in and around your ribs and lower abdominal area, nausea, increased urination, smelly urine and painful urination often with traces of blood in it.
Kidney stones often occur due a number of factors. Simply speaking, kidney stones form when there are substances in your urine which help form crystals. Uric acid, calcium and oxalate are examples of such substances. Also at the same time, if your urine does not have compounds that stop the crystals from sticking together, then stones occur.
Food that you eat plays a major role in forming kidney stones. Avoiding such foods will definitely lower the risk of stone formation.
So, what do tomatoes contain that may result in forming a kidney stone?
It is a good idea to clearly understand the link between tomatoes and kidney stones to avoid getting flustered over this issue. Normally eating tomatoes or tomato seeds does not result in kidney stones.
However, eating tomatoes may not be a good idea after all for those people who already have a tendency of developing kidney stones or have kidney related problems. There is a reason for this.
Tomato seeds have a lots of oxalate content. When this oxalate comes in contact with calcium in the body, it forms a compound known as calcium oxalate. This compound leads to forming of crystals in the kidneys eventually leading to formation of kidney stones.
So, if you already have kidney stones in your body or have the tendency to develop them, then you should keep away from consuming tomatoes in any form like in salads, dishes, sauces, puree etc. This will lower your risk of getting kidney stones.
One more thing to keep in mind is that if you already have kidney stones then avoid eating green tomatoes seeds. They are harmful for your kidneys. This is because these seeds are very difficult to digest and may lead to formation of more kidney stones if you eat them too frequently.
Tomatoes are a minefield of fibre, minerals, vitamins, lycopene and other antioxidants that boost your health tremendously. You should avoid its consumption in any form only if you have kidney stones.
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