Heat Brings Out Antioxidants, Increases Red in Tomatoes

Turn up the heat, and get more nutrition from your tomato, University of Florida researchers say. Furthermore, when you buy a tomato, it will be about as red as it can be, thanks to the UF/IFAS methods deployed for the study.

The findings are crucial to an industry in which Florida ranks second to California in tomato production in the United States.

In new research led by horticultural sciences Professor Jeffrey Brecht, UF/IFAS scientists put tomatoes in hot water and found it increased the red ripe look we love in tomatoes. By doing this, they also increased phenolics and carotenoids. To be clear, packinghouses in many states already treat tomatoes with hot water before shipping them to supermarkets – to clean them and prevent possible diseases — but the heat treatment for this study was a bit more extreme.

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