Studies on lycopene extraction and its availability in tomato products

Lycopene is a natural pigment that imparts red color to tomato, guava, watermelon, and pink grapefruit. Lycopene acts by various mechanisms to protect body cells against oxidative damage, and thus, lycopene may play a preventive role in different kinds of chronic cancers and cardiovascular diseases. Tomatoes (especially deep-red fresh tomato fruits) and tomato products are considered the most important source of lycopene in many human diets . Therefore most of the research on lycopene focus on tomato and tomato products. The present study is to estimate the lycopene content from the fresh tomato fruit and processed tomato products .It is aimed at the comparison of lycopene content before and after processing of the tomatoes.