Researchers say cooked tomato sauce boost healthy bacteria in the gut

Researchers have found tomato cooked into a sauce helps promote healthy bacteria in the gut.

The tomatoes have a probiotic effect in the gut but only when cooked, not eaten raw.

The cooking process preserves the chemical, which gives tomatoes their colour.

Learning more about how cooking and digestion impact our health can help create health-boosting foods.

"We worked with raw and fried tomato to determine the impact of processing," researcher Ana Belén Heredia told the Daily Mail.

Adding, "And among the results, we found that serving meals rich in probiotics with fried tomato sauce boosts its probiotic effect."

The study was originally published in the Journal of Functional Foods.