Lycopene is an antioxidant that makes fruits and vegetables orange, red or yellow. It is part of the carotenoid family, like beta-carotene, but your body can't turn it into vitamin A. However, it may have some other beneficial health effects. Cooking can actually increase the amount of lycopene in tomatoes and other foods.
Cooked Tomatoes and Lycopene
When you cook or puree tomatoes, it breaks down the tomato's cell walls, making it easier for you to absorb the lycopene. Up to 15 minutes of cooking will continue to increase your absorption of lycopene but there is no increased benefit for longer cooking times, according to Consumer Reports.
Benefits of Lycopene
Lycopene has twice as much antioxidant activity as beta carotene, according to Science Daily. Because of this antioxidant activity, consuming foods rich in lycopene may help to prevent or treat certain health conditions, including high cholesterol, heart disease and certain types of cancer, such as prostate cancer, lung cancer and breast cancer.
Other Sources
Although lycopene from foods is beneficial, purified lycopene supplements are not effective for preventing or treating health conditions. Food sources of lycopene include watermelon, apricots, guava, pink grapefruit, papaya and tomatoes. Scientists at Purdue University created a tomato with more than three times the lycopene of conventional tomatoes, according to a 2002 article in the "Journal of the National Cancer Institute."
Considerations
Although cooking tomatoes increases lycopene content, it decreases the amount of some other vitamins in tomatoes, including vitamin C. If you eat a lot of foods containing carotenoids like lycopene, your skin may turn more orange but lowering your intake of this nutrient corrects this problem. Lycopene supplements can cause side effects including nausea, diarrhea, gas, indigestion, bloating and vomiting.
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