Spanish scientists add lycopene to hamburgers

Scientists from the Complutense University of Madrid and from the Spanish Institute of Industrial Fermentation have found that adding dry tomato peel to hamburgers may be useful on two fronts.

According to ScienceDirect.com, the scientists found that adding the dry tomato peel enriched the hamburgers with lycopene and also provided a use for the by-product from the tomato industry.

Scientists in Spain may have found a way to make hamburgers more functional.

Finding the right amount

The scientists experimented by adding different amounts of dry tomato peel to raw and cooked hamburgers and the effects on the meat.

What they found was that adding 4.5 per cent of dry tomato peel results in a hamburger with about 4.9 mg of lycopene per 100 g of product. This amount, reports a story on FoodNavigator.com, comes closest to the recommended daily intake.

Merits of lycopene

According to an article on the Canadian Medical Association Journal’s website, lycopene is the most potent antioxidant among dietary carotenoids.

The article goes on to say that the “dietary intake of tomatoes and tomato products containing lycopene has been shown to be associated with a decreased risk of chronic diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.”