Ketchup and healthy eating

Edited by Dr. Loreto Nemi

Ketchup: Nutritional Properties

So the use of good tomatoes must be basic, then adding spices such as chilli, cinnamon, pepper, cloves, wine vinegar, beets, sugar, etc., as long as in a small percentage, and in such a way that they enhance the taste of the tomato sauce, which must be excellent, and in any case hero of taste, albeit enriched.

The use of spices must serve to enhance the tomato sauce, not to confuse its taste in order to mask low quality ingredients.

From a dietary point of view, a ketchup worthy of the name, produced with fresh, genuine ingredients, well proportioned to each other, is able to be easily digested and enhance the food to which the sauce is combined.

Among the advantages of this food, as well as of all products based on cooked tomatoes such as juices or purées, it should be noted that it provides quantities of lycopene6 that are more easily assimilated by the body, precisely because cooking facilitates its digestion, improving its substantially the nutritional value. Organic ketchup seems to have 3 times more lycopene than one from conventional agriculture. It has also been seen that in cooked tomatoes lycopene is much more bioavailable.

Furthermore, the peculiar characteristic of ketchup is the almost complete absence of fat which differentiates this sauce from white ones such as mayonnaise. From the caloric point of view, ketchup does not appear as a heavy food also because the only substances that determine a certain increase in energy terms are sugar or glucose, generally used in very low doses to slightly sweeten the sauce. It is also consumed in quantities that are certainly not high, but attention must be paid more than anything else to the foods to which it is combined (fries, hamburgers, etc.).

A curiosity: the Salsa Rubra

Forerunner of modern ketchup, salsa rubra is none other than the descendant of the famous ketchup.

In Italy it was called rubra (Latin name) because of the then duce Mussolini, who did not like foreign words.
The red sauce or rubra in Italy, is a typical Piedmontese preparation that goes well with Piedmontese boiled meat, consisting of at least seven cuts of beef and five accompanying cuts, and served with no less than four different sauces, one of which it is precisely the red or rubra sauce
In order not to upset the Duce, who was not very fond of foreign words, Cirio held a competition to find an Italian name for ketchup: Rubra and Vesuvius arrived in the final. The very Latin Rubra won, a word with which the red sauce is still called today.

The technological process

Ketchup uses only fresh or concentrated tomato pulp. The best quality ketchups, with a high solids content, obtain their viscosity from a combination of water retention of the pulp filaments and the gelling effect of naturally occurring pectins in tomatoes. High pressure homogenization is also used. to obtain the desired viscosity. This also applies to ketchup sauces with lower solid content, which may contain starch-based thickening agents.

The formulation, viscosity and solids content in sauces and ketchups can vary greatly depending on the type of product. Generally, the following requirements apply during production:

The mixing system must be able to disperse the powdered ingredients in water, to obtain a finished product free of lumps.
If the finished product is made with peeled tomatoes, these must be chopped and pulped before being added to the mixture.
The insoluble particles in tomatoes must be completely dispersed and "ground" to obtain a homogeneous composition and a uniform dispersion of the pigment to give consistency to the color.
The fibrous filaments of the tomato must be frayed to increase the water retention capacity, which increases the viscosity.
Once mixed, the product can be passed through a high pressure homogenizer or colloidal mill to achieve the desired consistency.

6Of the more than 600 carotenoids identified in the plant kingdom, about forty are present in our foods, of which a small part passes the intestinal barrier. The most represented are α and β carotene, lutein, and in particular lycopene. In recent years, numerous studies have been carried out on lycopene which have led to a significant advancement of knowledge about the role and mechanisms of action of this carotenoid.
Lycopene is a natural pigment synthesized by some plants, which works by absorbing light in photosynthesis, protecting them from photosensitization.
It is responsible for the red color of ripe tomatoes, it is a linear acyclic carotenoid characterized by 11 conjugated double bonds and has no provitamin A activity
Lycopene is mainly present in tomatoes and its products, which provide about 85% of its total consumption. The lycopene content varies according to the various types of tomatoes and vegetables considered (apricots, papaya, watermelon, grapefruit).
Loss during food preparation, eg. cooking was minimal, its bioavailability can even be improved by heating and adding some fats, in fact lycopene is more easily absorbed in the presence of lipids, thanks to the stimulation on the production of bile salts.

Bibliography

Cappelli P, Vannucchi V, Food Chemistry. Conservation and transformation. Zanichelli 1998.

Coussot P, Gaulard F., Gravity flow instability of viscoplastic materials: the ketchup drip. Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2005 Sep; 72 (3 Pt 1): 031409. Epub 2005 Sep 28. Flandrin JL, Montanari M. edited by, Storia dell "Alimentation, Editori Laterza 2007.

Ishida B, Chapman M. "A comparison of carotenoid content and total antioxidant activity in catsup from several commercial sources in the United States.". J Agric Food Chem 52 : 8017-20.
Rao AV, Processed tomato products as a source of dietary lycopene: bioavailability and antioxidant properties. Can J Diet Pract Res. 2004 Winter; 65: 161-5

Silaste ML et al, Tomato juice decreases LDL cholesterol levels and increases LDL resistance to oxidation. Br J Nutr. 2007 Dec; 98: 1251-8. Epub 2007 Jul 9
WEB SITES:

www.heinz.it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup

http://www.guida-acquisti.com/guida/alimentari/ketchup.html