Rosy Fruits The Best Lycopene Source

The word lycopene is probably quite familiar enough in our ears. I my self often find this word in commercial break for some beauty and health products, like how lycopene can help us out to have a brighter complexion and how lycopene support the detoxification process in human body.

But what is lycopene anyway, how can lycopene do all those things and where can we find lycopene ? well, I found the answers in some articles I read, and already make some short summary of it. Lycopene is a red pigment, and this red pigment is abundantly found in rosy fruits. Some examples of those rosy fruits are tomatoes, watermelon, red guava, papaya and red bell paper.

A research by Havard Medical School has found that consuming lycopene will lowering the risk of cancer and heart attack. Lycopene contributes a stronger antioxidant compared to vitamin C (Rui Hai Liu, Professor of Food Science, Cornell University).

A study which was revealed in 2002 also mentioned that the lycopene in tomatoes will have an increasing level by cooking. Read more

Steaming and Boiling Will Boost Antioxidant

Cooked vegetables not only results to a great taste and ease us to consume and digest them. The fact is, according to a report (the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, Cornell University) which was published last year, cooked vegetables such as carrots, spinach, mushrooms, etc, has had a higher antioxidant level that than the raw ones.

Carrotenoid in carrots, zucchini and broccoli seize the best by steaming. Cooked carrots have a higher beta-carotene. Beta-carotene plays an important contribution to human’s vision, reproduction, growing of bone and smoothing the human body’s immune system.

Beta-carotene is a part of Carrotenoid. Carotenoid it self is considered as an antioxidant substance. Carrotenoids is the one which contributes the color red, yellow and orange in fruits and vegetables.