Consumer Area

Health and Wellbeing

Why tomatoes are health foods
Nutritional research has found in the tomato a point of contact with cooking. The tomato, and in particular tomato paste, performs an action that checks the aging process owing to its high lycopene content. The tomato is also a rich source of carotenoids. A large amount of these molecules provide foods with high added value.

Lycopene
Lycopene is the pigment that gives tomatoes their red colour. When they are picked red they have the highest concentration of lycopene. Lycopene is assimilated by the human organism only in part when fresh and almost entirely when the tomatoes are heated together with oil or other lipids. Recent studies by researchers, biologists and physicians have revealed that carotenoids, and among these especially lycopene, act as antioxidants, that is, they are capable of neutralizing free radicals and thus help to prevent some kinds of tumour, in particular that of the prostate and the stomach, and many cardiovascular diseases. Most of all, antioxidants slow down the aging of cells in the human body.