Lycopene, the predominant carotenoid in tomatoes, exhibits the highest antioxidant activity and singlet oxygen quenching ability of all dietary carotenoids. Processing of tomatoes increases the biovailability of lycopene. This study evaluates the lycopene contents of fresh tomatoes and various commonly consumed tomato products (tomato paste, tomato sauce, tomato ketchup, spaghetti sauce) from the romanian market.
For analysis of lycopene we used a fast and simple spectrophotometric method, at 472 and 502 nm, in hexane:acetone:ethanol extract. The lycopene concentration was expressed as mg/100g product. The results show that lycopene content of samples of fresh tomatoes was aproximatly 12 mg/100g. In tomato products the lycopene content had the folowing values: in tomato paste aproximatly 16 mg/100g, in tomato boild sauce aproximatly 4 mg/100g, tomato Ketchup 17 mg/100g and spaghetti sauce 16 mg/100g. Analizing the results obtained, we concluded that the lycopene content of tomatoes remained raised during the multistep processing operations for the production of juice or paste.
MENU
