Hello Everyone,
I`m sure many of you heard this idea about lycopene ( a carotrnoid found in fruits and vegetables). Let me copy here the Encyclopedia.

Unlike other fruits and vegetables, where nutritional content such as vitamin C is diminished upon cooking, processing of tomatoes increases the concentration of bioavailable lycopene. Lycopene in tomato paste is four times more bioavailable than in fresh tomatoes. This is because lycopene is so insoluble in water and is so tightly bound to vegetable fiber. Thus processed tomato products such as pasteurized tomato juice, soup, sauce, and ketchup contain the highest concentrations of bioavailable lycopene. Cooking and crushing tomatoes (as in the canning process) and serving in oil-rich dishes (such as spaghetti sauce or pizza) greatly increases assimilation from the digestive tract into the bloodstream. Lycopene is fat-soluble, so the oil is said to help absorption.

I don`t buy this idea but I can not prove it wrong to one friend of mine, who thinks that in this case cooked is superior to raw.
Any opinion is appreciated.
Lejla

1. more is not necessarily better.
2. going on the assumption that more is better, and then looking at the difference between raw and cooked amounts will show that cooked is only marginally higher, trivially so, in my opinion.
3. we should not eat based on nutrients, but on the suitability of the food for our physiology and on the entire picture. if cooking causes other problems in the food, these should be taken into account instead of just looking at lycopene amounts.
4. raw tomatoes taste better
....

Watermelon is loaded with lycopene.

Watermelon Packs a Powerful Lycopene Punch

You don't want to cook your watermelon

I've heard that only two fruits are nutritious heated: tomatoes & pineapple.

While I wouldn't heat pineapple, the other is debatable.

The other responses are great, too.

Lejla Wrote:

> I don`t buy this idea but I can not prove it wrong
> to one friend of mine, who thinks that in this
> case cooked is superior to raw.
> Any opinion is appreciated.
> Lejla

there are probably and im gonna hazard a guess .. thousands of species of edible fruits in the world (does anyone have a number just out of curiosity ? lol)

to use 1 or 2 as an example to prove that cooked is better then raw seems a bit silly to me ..when the majority show the benefits of them exceed in the raw state

sometimes when i hear these arguments based on these studies i have to wonder who are the financiers of such studies .. i mean who stands to lose if someone speaks up an says heyyyyyy ! get yer lycopene from watermelon ! instead of a mushy ol' cooked toMater !!

can you imagine how hard the spagettie industry would fall if everyone stopped eating cooked tomatoes !!???!! chef boyardee would fall to peices ! not to mention the pasta industry ..oh an the parmeson industry ..

horrors !!

yup ! dont stop eatign them cooked tomatoes cuzzz boy oh boyardee them starchy carbohydrated fat laden el cheapo canned and packaged pasta dishes just keep us ROLLING in yer dough (no pun intended hehe) .. just come on down an line up at the ol' diabetes clinic folks ! have we got a shot for YOU !

dont even get me started on ketchup

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2007 05:08PM by Jgunn.

The company sells 11 billion bottles of this condiment every year, and Heinz has dominant market share in almost every nation where it competes with one or more other brands

11 B I L L I O N .. wow .. hmm do ya think maybe someone up their in heinz might have a vested interest in doing a study about how GOOD cooked tomatoes are for us

sure makes me go hmmm



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2007 05:19PM by Jgunn.

vit a in carrots is more accessible cooked then raw.

unless you juice them.

why is it important to have so much lycopene? the amount in the raw fruit is a measure doled out by nature and is a perfect amount, no fiddling with levels required. if you want more, eat more tomatoes! or watermelon. or Both!

elements work together, not alone. how does that cooked lycopene react with the rest of the cooked nutrients or the lack of them due to destruction from high heat? hasn't been studied i'm sure so why not trust nature?
that particular cooked arguement is weak but there's no convincing some people. there are thousands of things going for the raw diet, thousands of things against cooked. this one teensy little thing that appears on the surface to be in favour of cooking hardly tips the balance. your friend isn't interested in the truth, arguing with him or her is like hitting your head against a brick wall. perhaps seeing your example of glowing great health will be more convincing in the end.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2007 05:24PM by coco.

Thank you so much the responses. All are very clever and funny. Now I have some good point (not to fight) just to reason and defend my favorite raw tomato )

A lot of good points have been made here already. A few additional thoughts:

(1) ALL plants have protective substances in them, that help keep them from being oxidized. These are called "anti-oxidants". To single out one in particular and over-emphasize it, is foolish; they tend to work in combinations, anyway, and different anti-oxidants work under different conditions, so eating a variety of them is important.

(2) Some plants have toxins against insects and other things (sometimes mammals!) that might eat them. That is why MOST plants in the wild are actually poisonous for us, and will make us ill or even kill us if we eat them (especially raw!). We eat a relatively small percentage of "food plants" as our natural diet. Some plant toxins break down under heat, so there are some plants that are toxic to eat when raw, but edible after cooking. This raises the significant question of whether these plants are a part of our natural diet in the first place, and whether we should eat them or not.

(3) Any time you cook something, you drive water content out of it, and partially dehydrate it. What is left, is more concentrated, by definition, even though there is the same amount there. Milk companies use a similar reasoning to claim "hi calcium" milk after they have skimmed off some of the fat. There is no actual calcium added, it's just that as a percentage of the total volume, there is now more calcium per unit. Part of the increased lycopene being claimed is simply a result of this process. Another part of the claim is based upon the separation of lycopene from fibrous parts of the plant. A good Vita-mix will accomplish some of this mechanically. Do you really need any more than that?

(4) It is true that some individual substances may become more easily digested or absorbed or utilized -- i.e., more "bio-available" -- after cooking. BUT! There are many, many more substances (including ALL enzymes!) that will be destroyed by cooking. Having an increased availability of ONE substance, while having a much reduced availability of most (possibly all) of the other substances which occur with it in proper proportions in the natural, functioning state of the plant cells and tissues, is foolish.

Effectively, you are taking a mixture that nature already assembled as a properly balanced inter-active mix, and increasing one small part of it while decreasing most of the rest, claiming it will be better because you have proven that that one small part is a good thing. WELL, AREN'T THE REST OF THE COMPONENTS GOOD THINGS, TOO? (Except maybe for a few toxins, mentioned above.) Chemicals work synergistically inside of cells, in long sequences of reactions that are often very complicated, usually mediated by enzymes. When you take out half of the substances needed and all the enzymes (by cooking), you can no longer get those complex chain reactions to function properly from what is left. The result of consuming a diet of this altered mix is a cell, and thus a tissue and an organ and an organism, which doesn't function as well as it should.

(5) Some people have sensitivities (allergies) to tomatoes, and they are one of the small group of foods (also including eggplant and potato) which may cause arthritis in sensitive people. Some North American Indian (Native American) tribes would not eat them, considering them poisonous. They are one of the only red-colored foods in nature that is not (very) poisonous for people. So while tomatoes are good food for most of us, they are actually not for everyone. Each person should test themselves through careful observation, to (be sure they can eat tomatoes safely.

(6) Raw tomatoes are alkalizing to the body. Cooked tomatoes are highly acidifying to the body. This reason alone is enough for me to prefer raw to cooked!

(7) As noted already, these studies and claims come from people who are trying to SELL these cooked-tomato products. This doesn't mean that what they say is untrue, just that it will be carefully chosen to make their products sound appealing. Sometimes the claims made are not untrue, just highly misleading. Some similar examples:

Milk product sellers claim, "Milk contains calcium. Calcium builds strong bones." Both statements are true. They are telling the truth. However, there is so much acid in pasteurized (cooked!) milk --and it is now illegal for them to sell un-pasteurized milk-- that the body needs to neutralize that acid by removing calcium from bones. (Calcium is the most abundant alkalizer in the body, and taking a little to meet a short-term need shouldn't really hurt. The problem today is that those short-term needs are an every-single-day thing under modern (SAD) diets.) The net and end effect of drinking a lot of supermarket milk is... osteoporosis (=weak bones)!

I recently saw an "ORGANIC!" product in a health-food store, trumpeting in bold print on the front all the healthful, organic ingredients it was made from. I checked the actual ingredients list in the small print on the back. The third ingredient was "Propylene Glycol," which we know better as... anti-freeze! There are organic cookies out there made with organic cane sugar, organic cooked fats, and little else. Yet people think that because they say "organic" these things must be good health food!

Wine sellers love to trumpet how a glass of red wine a day may help reduce the odds of heart attacks. They neglect to say that it simultaneously INCREASES the chances of strokes, and several other diseases. You can get a little less protection, but the same type of anti-oxidants and many more beneficial substances without the side-effects and increased chances of other illnesses, by simply consuming raw grapes or grape juice.

There is always something that a seller can choose to focus on when they wish to make a food seem desireable to health-conscious consumers. Carried to an extreme, it is useful to remember that amanita mushrooms, due to certain alkaloids they contain, are one of the most deadly-poisonous things on Earth (to humans and most mammals), yet they are 100% ORGANIC, CHOLESTEROL-FREE, ADDITIVE-FREE, TRANS-FAT FREE, SUGAR-FREE, COMPLETELY RAW AND ALL-NATURAL!

Hope some of this helps. Good luck convincing your friend. [In spite of all the above, cooked tomatoes are probably one of the better, least-offensive cooked foods he could choose to consume, if he isn't all-raw. I would be far more worried about him eating things like "fake" potato chips, twinkies, McDonald's 'food', etc...]

with tomatoes, does anyone know where sundried tomatoes fit in with the lycopene argument i.e In a way, they've been 'cooked' by the sun- what are their levels like compared to cooked tomatoes?

i was just thinking that. what about dehydrated or sundried tomatoes?

Arkay, you made great points and summed it all up very well. Thanks!

Cooking can't increase vitamin content, it must be because liquid boiled off during cooking and the paste is more concentrated. The sundried has more than the paste and raw watermelon has twice as much as raw tomato!

Lycopene in 100 gram samples

2,573 mcg - Tomatoes, red, ripe, raw, year round average
45,902 mcg - Tomatoes, sun-dried
28,764 mcg - Tomato products, canned, paste, without salt added

4,532 mcg - Watermelon, raw

From:
[www.nal.usda.gov]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2007 06:15PM by tropical.

Here's the science of cooked tomatoes and lycopene:

Lycopene is actually the name for a set of molecules all with the same atoms, but with slightly different arrangements of those atoms. Those different arrangements are called isomers.

It turns out that research in the last five years has shown that the "trans isomer" or trans form of lycopene is not very bioavailable, while the "cis isomer" or cis form of lycopene is much more bioavailable. Also, most of the lycopene in the human body is in the cis form.

Most of the lycopene in tomatoes is in the trans form, so it's not very bioavailable. However, most of the lycopene in watermelon is in the cis form, which is very bioavailable.

It turns out that cooking tomatoes makes the lycopene more bioavailable mostly because it converts it to the cis form! (And there are secondary effects from breaking down cell walls and from the presence of fat.) AND, interestingly enough, cooking only significantly increases lycopene bioavailability in tomatoes and one other plant/fruit (I forget which one). It does not increase the bioavailability of the lycopene in watermelon or most other foods tested. So cooked tomatoes increasing lycopene content is the EXCEPTION, not the rule that everyone seems to imply is the case.

So the whole lycopene in cooked tomatoes being more bioavailable has been overhyped. It's like saying that sprouting increases the vitamin C content of legumes, when we know that legumes have such a small amount of vitamin C anyways, that we should be getting our vitamin C elsewhere, like from oranges, fruits, and green leafy vegetables. Watermelon has way more lycopene on a gram-by-gram basis, it's far easier to eat a pound of watermelon than a pound of tomatoes (for most people), and the lycopene is way more bioavailable (the difference is night and day).

Also, almost everyone who says that cooking increases the bioavailability of foods cites the lycopene from cooked tomatoes example; the only other example, which I've rarely heard, is that sometimes cooking increases the bioavailability of vitamin A.

What's so ironic and a bit funny at the same time is that the reason that cooking increases the bioavailability of lycopene is because COOKING CHANGES THE CHEMICAL FORM OF LYCOPENE. Yet these same people would claim that cooking has a negligible chemical effect on food....lol Hugely ironic, eh???

Anyhow, what I trying to convey is that everyone who says that cooking increases the bioavaibility of nutrients is relying on a HANDFUL of examples of a SINGLE individual compound being made more bioavailable from cooking. Yet, there are a myriad examples of cooking decreasing nutrient content. PLUS, LYCOPENE ISN'T AN ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT, WHILE COOKING DECREASES THE BIOAVAILABILITY OF MANY ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS AND OXIDIZES FATS. What's the point of taking a little more anti-oxidant, if you're taking a lot more oxidized fats--clearly not smart. Even famous doctors like Dr. Andrew Weil make such careless arguments, but what matters is the net result--that is, the sum total of what nutrients are less bioavailable and what nutrients are more bioavailable. Their bait-and-switch is unfortunately very effective.

I hope this helps!

Best Wishes.

I also have a hunch that these lycopene tests were done on regular store-bought tomatoes, some of which are picked green and then gas-ripened (like those flavorless conventional beefsteak tomatoes). Garden-grown tomatoes that you pick yourself are ideally picked at their reddest, juiciest moment on the vine and when you eat them, they're warm from the sun. I wonder when tomatoes are fully ripe like this (naturally), whether the lycopene then becomes more bioavailable?

omg sunshine those horrible tomatoes at the store lol .. i just had a half dozen tomatoes that my boss had growing on a new house he just bought .. they are heirloom organic tomatoes and the taste was out of this world i mean THATS what a tomato should taste like lol

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

My garden tomatoes just finished. The local farmer`s market also. Till springtime I need to drive 20 miles to the nearest organic store but it could be worse, at least they have organic tomatoes.Yum.

Anyways, I like to thank again the very scientific answers
Now I know most of everything there is to know about lycopene. Awesome!

You don't need to cook it to loosen it from the fibrous matrix. You can simply put it in the blender.

But even that is not necessary. Don't you think it would be better to incorporate a wide variety of unprocessed f+v rather than to fixate on the metabolic fate of one carotenoid?

Dietary Botanical Diversity Affects the Reduction of Oxidative Biomarkers in Women due to High Vegetable and Fruit Intake
[jn.nutrition.org]

I just spotted this on WikiPedia [en.wikipedia.org]

"Some antioxidants such as lycopene and ascorbic acid can be destroyed by long-term storage or prolonged cooking."

It gives two PubMed articles as references (which I haven't checked):
[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

In rawfood, less food and clean digestion is better than more.