AreProcessedTomatoProductsasNutritiousas FreshTomatoes?ScopingReviewontheEffectsof IndustrialProcessingonNutrientsandBioactive CompoundsinTomatoes

Abstract

Tomatoes are the second most consumed vegetable in the United States. In 2017, American people consumed 9.2 kg of tomatoes from a fresh market and 33.2 kg of processed tomato products per capita. One commonly asked question by consumers and the nutrition community is “Are processed tomato products as nutritious as fresh tomatoes?”This review addresses this question by summarizing the current understandings on the effects of industrial processing on the nutrients and bioactive compounds of tomatoes. Twelve original research papers were found to study the effects of different industrial processing methods on the nutrients and/or bioactive compounds in tomato products. The data suggested that differentprocessingmethodshaddifferenteffectsondifferentcompoundsintomatoes.However,currentlyavailabledataarestilllimited,andthe existingdataareofteninconsistent.TheUSDANationalNutrientDatabaseforStandardReferenceLegacywasutilizedtoestimatenutrientcontents from raw tomatoes and processed tomato products. In addition, several other important factors specifically related to the industrial processing of tomatoeswerealsodiscussed.Toconclude,thereisnosimple“yes”or“no”answertothequestion“Areprocessedtomatoproductsasnutritiousas freshtomatoes?”Manyfactorsmustbeconsideredwhencomparingthenutritiousvaluebetweenfreshtomatoesandprocessedtomatoproducts. Atthispoint,wedonothavesufficientdatatofullyunderstandallofthefactorsandtheirimpacts