. Conclusion
Fresh and dried-processed tomato products have
multifunctional properties, which could address the prevention
of oxidative degradations both in foods and
in vivo. Table 1 listed both the antioxidant compounds
and antioxidant activity of different dried-processing
tomatoes. In Table 1, the increase of both FICA and
DPPH radical scavenging activity was closely related
to the increase of the amounts of both TPs and TFs in
dried-processing tomatoes. The synergistic effects of
TPs and TFs compounds are possibly the reasons raising
the antioxidant activity of the MEs in AD and FD
tomato samples. Furthermore, the amount of lycopene
was highest in two varieties of tomatoes with AD processing.
Shi and Le Maguer (2000) mentioned that
although lycopene contains no provitamin A activity,
lycopene does exhibit a physical quenching rate constant
with singlet oxygen almost twice as high as that of b-carotene.
Thus, the increase in lycopene content might
probably enhance the antioxidant activity of tomato.
Our results indicated the drying process could enhance
the nutritional value of tomatoes by increasing parts
of the total flavonoids, total phenolics, lycopene contents,
this is against the notion that processed fruits have
lower nutritional value than fresh ones. A proper processing
to develop a new type of product could somehow
be considered helpful to promote the nutritional value
and extend the utilization of tomato. This study also
demonstrated that different drying processes could enhance
certain levels of antioxidant activity through the
increase of antioxidant components. Therefore, tomato
can be regarded as source of food additives for fortification
and stabilization, even if it is submitted to technological
processes that can cause the loss of the more
labile hydrophilic antioxidants. From the economic
viewpoint, the extract products from dried tomato could