Cucumber and tomato go together well in salads.
There is various food combining diets that recommend combining certain foods and not others.
Today, I will cover whether it’s ok to combine cucumbers and tomatoes, and what the cucumber and tomato diet is.
To get more into the health benefits of combining cucumbers and tomatoes below I’ll provide a breakdown of the levels of the main vitamins and minerals in each.
As well as, explain the benefits of tomato and cucumber juice, as well as, adding as combining tomato juice, cucumber juice, and other vegetable juices into one drink.
Is Eating Tomatoes and Cucumbers Good for You?
Tomatoes are technically fruit but many people call them a vegetable because they aren’t very sweet.
The general wisdom is that fruits and vegetables are good for you.
But, I thought I’d look a bit deeper into it and see if eating tomatoes and cucumbers are indeed good for you.
Eating tomatoes and cucumbers is good for you.
The main thing is not to consume too much of them at once or on the same day.
The reason is that tomatoes are high in vitamin C, which has a laxative effect.
Don’t consume more than 2 cups of either tomatoes or cucumbers per day.
Most people wouldn’t have a desire to consume more than a few cups of either tomatoes or cucumbers.
But, it’s important to note in case you’re doing a cleanse or doing a lot of vegetable juice.
Juicing is a little bit different because it takes a lot more cucumbers and tomatoes to make 2 cups of juice.
On average it takes about 6 medium-sized tomatoes to make one cup of tomato juice.
If you were to finely chop tomatoes and measure it out, 6 medium size tomatoes would equal 3 cups of chopped tomatoes.
This means that if you drink 1 cup of tomato juice you would in fact be getting the equivalent of the nutrients in 3 cups of tomatoes.
Although, this sounds good and an efficient way to get high levels of nutrients, this amount of tomatoes would give you more than the recommended daily intake (RDI) of vitamin C.
When you consume more than the RDI of vitamin C it has a laxative effect. In other words, it’s likely you’ll get diarrhea.
However, if you’re experiencing constipation, drinking a few cups of tomato juice can be a great remedy.
I explained this in more detail in this article about whether tomatoes cause diarrhea.
That article also shows how the nutrients differ by the 3 main types of tomatoes: regular tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and grape/plum tomatoes – also called Italian tomatoes.
Cucumbers also have a high amount of vitamin K, which in high amounts can be harmful according to the NHS.
To make 1 cup of cucumber juice requires 1.5 cups of chopped cucumber.
This is equal to about 60% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin K.
For this reason, about 2.5 to 3 cups of cucumber juice is the maximum you should consume in a day.
To get an idea of the nutrients in both tomatoes and cucumbers here’s a table that shows how many nutrients they contain as a percentage of the recommended daily intake.
For example, 1.5% means 1.5% of the recommended daily intake.
I’ve included data for peeled cucumbers, unpeeled cucumbers.
For the tomatoes, I included the skin as most people don’t remove the skin when eating tomatoes.
Nutrient | Cucumber (peeled) | Cucumber (unpeeled) | Regular tomato raw |
Protein | 1.50% | 1.00% | 2.00% |
Fat | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
Calories | 0.75% | 1.00% | 1.00% |
Carbs | 0.75% | 1.00% | 1.00% |
Fiber | 3.01% | 2.00% | 5.00% |
Sugars | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
Calcium, Ca | 1.50% | 2.00% | 1.00% |
Iron, Fe | 1.50% | 2.00% | 1.00% |
Magnesium, Mg | 3.01% | 3.00% | 3.00% |
Phosphorus, P | 2.26% | 2.00% | 2.00% |
Potassium, K | 3.76% | 4.00% | 7.00% |
Sodium, Na | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
Zinc, Zn | 1.50% | 1.00% | 1.00% |
Copper, Cu | 3.76% | 2.00% | 3.00% |
Manganese, Mn | 3.76% | 4.00% | 6.00% |
Selenium, Se | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
Vitamin C | 5.26% | 5.00% | 21.00% |
Thiamin | 2.26% | 2.00% | 2.00% |
Riboflavin | 1.50% | 2.00% | 1.00% |
Niacin | 0.00% | 0.00% | 3.00% |
Vitamin B-6 | 2.26% | 2.00% | 4.00% |
Vitamin B-12 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
Vitamin A | 1.50% | 2.00% | 17.00% |
Vitamin E | 0.00% | 0.00% | 3.00% |
Vitamin D | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
Vitamin K | 9.02% | 21.00% | 10.00% |
The nutrients that are found in high amounts in cucumbers are vitamin C and vitamin K.
The nutrients that are found in high amounts in tomatoes are fiber, manganese, potassium, vitamin C, vitamin A, and vitamin K.
Another significant reason why tomatoes and cucumber aren’t bad for you is that WebMD, a website run by doctors and medical professionals provides a recipe for cucumber and tomato salad.
In my opinion, if there were any concerns about mixing tomatoes and cucumbers they would not have put this recipe on their website.
Are Tomatoes and Cucumbers Healthy?
Cucumber can taste a bit bitter, and tomatoes are slightly sour.
Therefore, you may think that they contain some toxins or that they might not be that healthy for you.
Based on the advice of medical professionals, here’s whether tomatoes and cucumbers are healthy.
Each of these nutrients is essential for bodily processes such as repairing and making cells.
And are required by the organs.
These nutrients can come from other sources, such as other fruits and vegetables but tomatoes and cucumbers are high in these specifically.
And there is no concern with eating them every day and as part of your regular diet.
Some foods are high in starch, foods that are high in starch generally have a lot of calories.
If you’re wondering whether tomatoes contain starch I explained this in detail in this article about thestarch in tomatoes.
It also explains whether tomatoes are high in carbs.
Fruit and vegetable juices can be very delicious and refreshing.
They are a fast way to consume the beneficial nutrients in fruits and vegetables.
Here’s a brief summary of the benefits of tomato and cucumber juice.
Because of that, you do need to ensure the other foods you consume will give you enough fiber.
The recommended daily intake of fiber is quite easy to get from other fruits and vegetables.
So this isn’t a major concern when drinking fruit and vegetable juices instead of regular fruits and vegetables.
The main thing is to not consume all of your fruits and vegetables from juice alone as you may not get enough fiber with your diet.
I’m Chris Watson & the Founder of EatForLonger.com. I’m a food and wellbeing enthusiast researching and sharing foodstuffs and simple food-based concepts, such as fasting and clean eating.
I hope it inspires you to make tiny changes to what you eat and when you eat while optimizing your healthspan and all-around well-being.
Read more About Me here.