Why you should put ketchup on everything

Last Christmas, we had sort of a misfit's Christmas -- we invited a few people who didn't have family in town to celebrate with our small family. And the thing I remember most about that Christmas was that one of the guests poured ketchup over everything we served for Christmas dinner -- the turkey, the stuffing, the broccoli and cheese, you name it. The only thing he didn't have ketchup with was dessert.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, he might be on to something -- we should all be putting ketchup on everything, according to this article from the Daily Mail. Eating ketchup every day can significantly improve your heart health, according to recent studies. In fact, volunteers who ate ketchup with every meal of the day were shown to have lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels than those who didn't. It's all down to the tomatoes, or rather, the lycopene in the tomatoes. Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant and for some reason, it's more prevalent in ketchup than it is in regular tomatoes.

I think it should be pointed out, however, that what you put ketchup on is important too. Slathering it on your French fries doesn't make them healthy, but go ahead and have it with your egg-white omelet.