In our final recipe from Melanie Brown, she looks at one of the most important nutrients for male fertility and gives us some tasty lunch inspiration at the same time! 

This soup is packed full of lycopene, one of the most important foods for male fertility. Numerous animal and human studies have shown how lycopene can reduce free radicals, molecules that damage sperm and promote inflammation. The best source of lycopene is from processed, concentrated tomatoes from passata and tomato puree, rather than fresh. Adding olive oil then speeds up the absorption of the lycopene. The red onion adds another antioxidant that is excellent for sperm called quercetin and the beans provide the protein in the soup, so it is really hearty and filling.

Ingredients

• 2 cans of tomatoes or one bottle of passata
• 2 tablespoons of tomato puree
• One medium sized red onion
• One can of white cannellini beans
• 2 fat cloves of chopped/crushed garlic
• A tablespoon of basil
• Half a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes
• A tablespoon of olive oil for cooking, and another for drizzling
• 200-300mls of water with some vegetable stock powder/stock pot (according to taste and what texture you like)
• Black pepper

You can add all sorts of things to the cooked soup: chopped hard-boiled egg, anchovies, roasted red pepper, pumpkin seeds, or yoghurt. It’s a very flexible soup!

What to do

• Gently fry the onion and garlic in olive oil for about five minutes
• Add the tomatoes, tomato puree, chilli flakes and black pepper and simmer.
• Add the cannellini beans, stock and basil, bring to a gentle simmer and heat through
• Blend, drizzle the rest of the olive oil over and add your extras.

Don’t forget, you can hear directly from Melanie Brown on the importance of diet and lifestyle to support male fertility in our webinar – register now!

REFERENCES

• Yamamoto Y, Aizawa K, Mieno M, Karamatsu M, Hirano Y, Furui K, Miyashita T, Yamazaki K, Inakuma T, Sato I, Suganuma H, Iwamoto T. The effects of tomato juice on male infertility. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr 2017; 26: 65-71. 62)
• Liang ZW, Guo KM, Dai XF, Liu LY, Xu SQ, Zhao LJ, Li FB, Wang HL. Protective effect of lycopene on human spermatozoa during cryopreservation and its mechanism. Zhonghua Nan Ke Xue 2015; 21: 521-526. 63)
• Zini A, San Gabriel M, Libman J. Lycopene supplementation in vitro can protect human sperm deoxyribonucleic acid from oxidative damage. Fertil Steril 2010; 94: 1033-1036. 64)
• Filipcikova R, Oborna I, Brezinova J, Novotny J, Wojewodka G, De Sanctis JB, Radova L, Hajduch M, Radzioch D. Lycopene improves the distorted ratio between AA/DHA in the seminal plasma of infertile males and increases the likelihood of successful pregnancy. Biomed Pap Med Fac Univ Palacky Olomouc Czech Repub 2015; 159: 77-82.