부산대학교 도서관

Currently many efforts are being invested in the detection of bioactive components of nutrients in fruits and vegetables, such as polyphenols, and their possible role in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. Total dietary polyphenol levels are approximately 1 g/day, a much larger amount than any other antioxidant that comes from the diet. In fact, it is about 10 times the dietary vitamin C and 100 times higher than vitamin E and carotene intake. Moreover, some epidemiological data have shown an inverse association between the risk of mortality or cardiovascular disease and consumption of foods rich in polyphenols, such as fruits and vegetables, tea, olive oil and wine. The tomato is the most consumed vegetable in Spain (14.5 kg/year per person) and makes a significant economic impact. In the last 5 years, the consumption of tomatoes has grown by 2.8% annually. In the field of fruit/vegetables, tomatoes also rank first with the consumption of fried tomatoes at an intake of 4.1 kg/year and that of raw tomatoes at 3 kg/year per person. Spanish tomatoes are known for their high content of flavonoids, although there is a lack of studies focused on how the industrial processing of sauces affects the content of polyphenols, and also the evolution of these compounds during their shelf life. The tomato and its derivatives contain other valuable phytochemicals such as carotenoids. trans-Lycopene is the most important carotene of tomato and it is an excellent free-radical scavenger; its capacity is more than twice that of beta-carotene. In addition to trans-lycopene, tomatoes also contain other carotenoids such as cis-isomers of lycopene and α- and beta-carotene and lutein. The importance of cis-isomers lies in their high bioavailability in the human body. Therefore, methods are needed to identify these carotenoids. Some studies have studied the effect of heat treatment on carotenoids in tomato sauces, and an increase has been observed during processing. However, no studies have been focused on evaluating the influence of the origin, processing and storage of tomatoes, sauces, ketchups, tomato juices and gazpachos on the level of polyphenols.