Lycopene actually i present in COOKED tomatoes not raw. So cooked sauces are actually healthier although cooking lowers the vitamn C.

Spaghetti Sauce (1/2 cup) = 20 mg of Lycopene-cancer fighter

Men who eat ten or more servings of tomatoes a week cut their risk of prostate cancer by 45 percent. This was the finding of a six-year Harvard study of 47,000 middle-aged men.

Most of the protection came from eating spaghetti sauce, said Dr. Edward Giovannucci of the Harvard School of Public Health. Pizza helped too. "We found that more was better,'' said Giovannucci. Men who usually ate only four to seven servings of the tomato-based food had only a 20 percent reduction in the rate of prostate cancer. The result for tomatoes was clear, Dr. Giovannucci said, because the benefit was shown in four forms of the food.

Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, which gives them their distinctive red color. Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant, more potent than beta-carotene. The lycopene molecule may act to block the initiation of the cancerous process.

Prostate cancer is less common in southern Mediterranean countries, such as Italy and Greece, where tomato sauce is a staple in everyday cooking. According to the Harvard study, cooked tomato seemed to be more protective than juice or raw tomatoes.

Lycopene is fat-soluble. This means we need to eat tomatoes that have been cooked or canned using a small amount of oil. Vine-ripened summer tomatoes are richer in lycopene than those ripened after picking. Eat them sliced or diced and sprinkled with oil and vinegar. Year round, eat tomato sauce, tomato paste, tomato soup -and ketchup.

Shanti/Mary-Anne