Lycopene found in Tomatoes increased with Vitamix?

[Sylvanring]

I was reading on Wiki-pedia how the strong anti-oxidant, Lycopene, was increased by four times through the process of cooking tomatoes.

If you want to read about Lycopene you can here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycopene

From reading it seems as if the main issue is that the Lycopene is so strongly attached to the vegetable fiber of the fruit that seperation takes a lot of processing for it to be assimilated by the body?

My thought process is that if you have Vitamix (which pretty much pulverizes anything that is put into it), couldn't it have the same levels of Lycopene that cooking would create?



Basically:

Does blending tomatoes create the same effect as cooking tomatoes to raise the level of Lycopene in the final product? Does anyone have any research or articles on the subject?

[sport]

I can not answer your question but I feel that if it takes heating for fifteen nimutes to release the lycopane from the tomatoes then nature did not mean us to get it that way.
Before I went raw I would encourage my husband to cook his tomatoes and now I encourage him to eat them raw. I have him all confused.

[pdx kris]

You can get the same amount of lycopene with any blender or food processor, not just a Vitamix! :)

[jiujitsugirl]

i think that eating watermelon gives us a greater amount of lycopene that one tomato anyway and obviously its eaten raw, like sport says maybe thats not the best source of lycopene

[Ginger]

Who says more is better? Why do we need more lycopene then nature presents us with? Is nature wrong? Did nature make a mistake in creating tomatos without enough lycopene?

[Sharon in Colorado]

I agree with the others - I don't think it was meant for us to take an unnatural amount of Lycopene in.

Think about this: if Lycopene is the only nutrient that becomes bioavailabe when cooking a tomato, yet there are 999 other nutrients that are destroyed from the cooking of the tomato, which would you rather do?

When we look at eating whole fresh food, we need to look past micro-managing every nutrient and try to remember that the nutrients are perfectly balanced as nature brings them to us.

It is really hard to get out of this mindset, I know, as "science" and nutritionists and studies will do this to us, telling us we need a certain nutrient in a certain amount, but really, what do they know?

I've heard there are thousands of undiscovered nutrients. Just wait a few weeks, months or years until there's another "discovery" of a necessary nutrient. You will see!

And hopefully by then you'll be getting all the benefits from eating your food fresh and whole and getting your nutrients in PERFECT amounts, and not giving a hoot what the experts say.

[vgloveforlife]

Who says more is better? Why do we need more lycopene then nature presents us with? Is nature wrong? Did nature make a mistake in creating tomatos without enough lycopene?

This is so true!

[RawMorgan]

I attended a David Wolfe seminar last week and he said the same thing: that the amount of lycopene definatley increases if you blend or puree tomatoes in their raw form. He recommended doing this for people looking to increase thier anti-oxidants. I like to blend the tomatoes with my greens for a Super V-8! Cheers!

[Bobbie]

I would have thought juicing or vitamixing tomatoes would equal cooking, and yet it doesn't turn them a deeper red the way cooking does - the redder, the more lycopene.
Blending definately increases the lycopene, whether it or not it matches cooking.
However studies showed that tomatoes cooked without olive oil = no absorption, and tomatoes cooked with oil = absorption, so make sure you blend with some fat, or stir coconut cream into juice.

[James Smith]

If two people eat the exact same foods in the exact same amounts, except one cooks them and the other eats them raw, then the person who cooks get more lycopene (although he gets less of many other nutrients, but that 's another issue that someone's covered already). While this is true, is this important? After all, a raw foodist does not eat the same amounts of the same foods. A cooked foods person might eat one tomato a day, while a raw foodist might eat 3. Now, the raw foodist would get less lycopene per tomato, but consider how much he gets per day / per week.

[Sweet Adeline]

http://www.healthbooksummaries.com/20_Things_You_Need_to_Know_About_Lycopene.html
http://www.totalwellnessconsulting.ca/lycopene-tomatoes2.htm


i'm interested in lycopene because of the sunburn protection it offers, but i like to get my nutrition from green smoothies, so i was also very curious to see if lycopene would be released from using a vitamix!

here's a great recipe to try :

Rosemary Tomato
3 cups cherry tomatoes (1 1/2 pints)
3 cups sprouts (5 oz.)
1 avocado
1 tsp oregano
1 tbsp rosemary
1 cup water

put in a vitamix or highspeed blender and puree til smooth!

[Raw Angel Mom]

http://www.healthbooksummaries.com/20_Things_You_Need_to_Know_About_Lycopene.html
http://www.totalwellnessconsulting.ca/lycopene-tomatoes2.htm


i'm interested in lycopene because of the sunburn protection it offers, but i like to get my nutrition from green smoothies, so i was also very curious to see if lycopene would be released from using a vitamix!

here's a great recipe to try :

Rosemary Tomato
3 cups cherry tomatoes (1 1/2 pints)
3 cups sprouts (5 oz.)
1 avocado
1 tsp oregano
1 tbsp rosemary
1 cup water

put in a vitamix or highspeed blender and puree til smooth!

((((Thank you)))))

I read the article and it is very informative.

All the best!

[Living Food]

Many good replies here, I'm just going to add that juicing is the best way to get the highest amount of nutrients from your food. Juicing tomatoes will allow you to absorb far more lycopene then even blending will, although as Bobbie mentioned it is absorbed far better with some fat (the vast majority of phytonutrients are). Cooking has so many detrimental effects, increasing the availability of one nutrient is nothing compared to all of the other vital nutrients you miss out on, especially the enzymes and life energy.