For people looking for lycopene foods trying to work your way past tomatoes can be difficult to say the least. These phytochemical rich foods give you what you need for antiaging. That's lycopene food.
What is lycopene?
Lycopene is an antioxidant primarily found in tomatoes and other foods of similar pigmentation and color. Unlike carotenoids found in carrots, lycopene doesn't get converted into vitamin A.
Role in health
Diets rich in lycopene are said to prevent heart disease potentially lower bad cholesterol.
In addition, it gives you anti-aging slowing down degenerative disease.
People who eat diet rich in lycopene have lower cancer risk than those who don't.
How much is enough?
The dosage used for medical used is not yet decided on; however, medical practitioners go by the following.
According to Mayoclinic.com, adults over the age of 18 should get between 2 and 30 milligrams of lycopene.
What does 2-30 mg of lycopene look like?
In simple English, getting the daily recommended intake of lycopene is as easy as eating a tomato a day, having a slice of watermelon, or enjoying a bowl of clam chowder. Lucky for you there are a lot of natural sources of lycopene, which means no need to take dietary supplements.
Foods with lycopene
Lycopene rich foods include tomatoes, watermelon, salad dressing, and many more unlikely natural sources of dietary lycopene. Foods rich in lycopene are either high in lycopene or not. A prime example of foods high in lycopene is tomatoes.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes are the richest source of natural dietary lycopene. A single tomato gives you more than the daily recommended intake for lycopene.
Tomatoes calories and nutrition facts
Foods rich in lycopene: tomato products
Within tomato products, the most potent food is sun dried tomatoes with almost 20 times the lycopene content of raw tomatoes.
| Food Name |
Common Measure | Standard Measure per 100g | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight (g) | Amount | Unit | Lycopene Content (μg) | Lycopene Content (μg) | ||
| Sun dried tomatoes | 2 | 1 | piece | 918 | 45900 | |
| Tomato paste | 262 | 1 | cup | 75362 | 28764 | |
| Tomato puree | 250 | 1 | cup | 54385 | 21754 | |
| Ketchup | 6 | 1 | packet | 1003 | 16716 | |
| Tomato sauce | 245 | 1 | cup | 34249 | 13979 | |
| Tomato juice | 243 | 1 | cup | 21960 | 9037 | |
| Tomato soup | 244 | 1 | cup | 13042 | 5345 | |
| Minestrone | 241 | 1 | cup | 15325 | 6358 | |
| Canned whole tomatoes | 255 | 1 | cup | 10424 | 4087 | |
| Tomatoes | 123 | 1 | tomato | 3165 | 2573 | |
Watermelon
Watermelons are an exception natural source of lycopene. Eating only 1 wedge of water melon gives you your daily amount of lycopene.
Watermelon calories and nutrition facts
Foods containing lycopene: watermelon
Watermelon has more lycopene content than tomatoes when looked at in terms of the content per 100g serving size.
| Food Name |
Common Measure | Standard Measure per 100g | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight (g) | Amount | Unit | Lycopene Content (μg) | Lycopene Content (μg) | |
| Watermelon | 286 | 1 | wedge | 12962 | 4532 |
| 152 | 1 | cup | 6889 | ||
Soups
Soups contain a vast variety of ingredients make them balance in nutrition. Most soups act as a good source of natural lycopene.
Foods that contain lycopene: soup
Beef noodle soup is said to contain the most lycopene due to the fact that it may contain tomatoes. Similarly, clam chowder can be thought as a source of lycopene as well.
| Food Name |
Common Measure | Standard Measure per 100g | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight (g) | Amount | Unit | Lycopene Content (μg) | Lycopene Content (μg) | |
| Beef noodle soup | 244 | 1 | cup | 10377 | 4252 |
| Clam chowder | 244 | 1 | cup | 7679 | 3147 |
| Chunky vegetable soup | 240 | 1 | cup | 7087 | 2952 |
| Pork and beans | 253 | 1 | cup | 7362 | 2909 |
| Vegetable soup | 241 | 1 | cup | 2326 | 965 |
| Vegetable beef soup | 244 | 1 | cup | 444 | 181 |
Salad Dressings
Don't get all down when you salad doesn't have tomatoes. There are other options. Salad dressing can be the lycopene in your salad.
Lycopene rich foods: salad dressing
Russian, thousand island, and French dressing contain ample amounts of lycopene which can be added to a salad to quickly get you daily lycopene.
| Food Name |
Common Measure | Standard Measure per 100g | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight (g) | Amount | Unit | Lycopene Content (μg) | Lycopene Content (μg) | |
| Russian dressing | 15.3 | 1 | tbsp | 547 | 3575 |
| Low-fat thousand island | 15.3 | 1 | tbsp | 474 | 3098 |
| Thousand island dressing | 15.6 | 1 | tbsp | 405 | 2596 |
| Low-fat French dressing | 16.3 | 1 | tbsp | 412 | 2527 |
| Low-cal Russian dressing | 16.3 | 1 | tbsp | 102 | 625 |
| French dressing | 15.6 | 1 | tbsp | 58 | 371 |
Papayas
Papayas are packed full of lycopene. Eating 1 cup of papaya a day give you all the lycopene you need to balance your diet. It's that easy. All you need to figure out now is where to get the papayas.
papayas calories and nutrition facts
Foods high in lycopene: papaya
Papaya may not be a mainstream fruit but it sure does well with itself in terms of lycopene content. Need lycopene, have a papaya.
| Food Name |
Common Measure | Standard Measure per 100g | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight (g) | Amount | Unit | Lycopene Content (μg) | Lycopene Content (μg) | |
| Papaya | 304 | 1 | papaya | 5557 | 1827 |
| 140 | 1 | cup | 2559 | ||
Grapefruit
Grapefruit and a spoon are your best friends to get you daily lycopene. Eating only a half of a grapefruit gets you skinny close to maxing out on lycopene. Something tells me that you aren't going to stop there.
Grapefruit calories and nutrition facts
Lycopene content of foods: grapefruits
Grapefruits are mainstream and better yet high in lycopene. Don't forget about this citrus fruit when floundering around trying to figure out how to get lycopene into your diet.
| Food Name |
Common Measure | Standard Measure per 100g | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight (g) | Amount | Unit | Lycopene Content (μg) | Lycopene Content (μg) | |
| Grapefruit | 123 | 1/2 | grapefruit | 1745 | 1418 |
Asparagus
Eat like a beast!
These green monster bean stalks may not give you the lycopene you need in on shot.
You will need everything you can get to get that lycopene in. Adding a little asparagus to your meals adds up to full lycopene intake.
Asparagus calories and nutrition facts
Foods with lycopene: asparagus
It's going to take a lot of asparagus to get you daily intake in. Just remember that every little bit counts and that fresh asparagus is what you need for lycopene.
| Food Name |
Common Measure | Standard Measure per 100g | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight (g) | Amount | Unit | Lycopene Content (μg) | Lycopene Content (μg) | |
| Asparagus | 60 | 4 | spears | 18 | 30 |
| Frozen asparagus spears |
180 | 1 | cup | 43 | 23 |
| 60 | 4 | spears | 14 | ||
| Canned asparagus | 72 | 4 | spears | 17 | |
Mango
Mangos may not have that much lycopene but as you know, it's the thought that counts.
Mango calories and nutrition facts
Foods with lycopene: mangos
Eating only mangos to get you daily lycopene in is not feasible. Either you look for a better source of lycopene or start eating a thousand mangos.
| Food Name |
Common Measure | SLycopene content in mangotandard Measure per 100g | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight (g) | Amount | Unit | Lycopene Content (μg) | Lycopene Content (μg) | |
| Mangos | 165 | 1 | cup | 5 | 3 |
| 207 | 1 | mango | 6 | ||
Carrots
Carrots are for carotene not lycopene. Nevertheless, it has lycopene if only a little.
Carrots calories and nutrition facts
Foods with lycopene: carrots
Eating 2000 carrots has got to be bad for your complexion.
| Food Name |
Common Measure | Standard Measure per 100g | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight (g) | Amount | Unit | Lycopene Content (μg) | Lycopene Content (μg) | |
| Carrots | 72 | 1 | carrot | 1 | 1 |
References
- Cancer.org; Lycopene; May. 13, 2010
- MayoClinic.com; Lycopene; Sept. 1, 2012
- USDA. Lycopene content of selected foods
