Question 35

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
You may have heard that tomatoes and processed tomato product like tomato sauce and canned tomatoes protect (31)............ some types of cancer. The cancer-preventing properties of tomato products have been (32)............ to lycopene. It is a bright red pigment found in tomatoes and other red fruits and is the cause of their red color. Unlike other fruits and vegetables, where nutritional content such as vitamin C is diminished upon cooking, processing of tomatoes increases the concentration of lycopene. Lycopene in tomato paste is four times (33)............ in fresh tomatoes. This is because lycopene is insoluble in water and is tightly bound to vegetable fiber. Thus, (34)............ tomato products such as pasteurized tomato juice, so up, sauce, and ketchup contain the highest concentrations of lycopene. Cooking and crushing tomatoes as in the canning process and serving in oil-rich dishes such as spaghetti sauce or pizza (35)............ increase assimilation from the digestive tract into the bloodstream. Lycopene is a fat-soluble substance, so the oil is said to help absorption to a great extent.