The predominant color of Italian food may someday change from red – to purple.

For years, tomato growers developed strains of tomatoes that held up better in shipping, kept from spoiling too quickly, were more productive, or had better flavor. Now, scientists are developing tomatoes to improve our health.

These new tomatoes, which happen to be purple, have more anthocyanins than regular tomatoes. Anthocyanins are natural pigments and a type of flavonoid that help protect us from some cancers, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases.

“Most people do not eat five portions of fruits and veg[etables] a day, but they can get more benefit from those they do eat if common fruit and vegetables can be developed that are higher in bioactive compounds,” said Professor Cathie Martin of England’s John Innes Center, which worked with several other European centers to develop the new tomato.

To create the purple tomatoes, scientists introduced two genes responsible for pigmentation from the snapdragon flower into the tomato plant. The results were impressive.

“At a closer chemical analysis, it comes out that our purple tomato has a very high antioxidant activity, almost tripled in comparison to the natural fruit,” said Eugenio Butelli, the lead author of the research that was published in Nature Biotechnology on October 26. “Thus, it is very useful to study the effect of anthocyanins.”

When the diet of cancer-susceptible mice was supplemented with the tomatoes, researchers found that the life spans of the mice were “significantly extended.”

“This is one of the first examples of metabolic engineering that offers the potential to promote health through diet by reducing the impact of chronic disease,” explained Martin. “The next step will be to take the preclinical data forward to human studies with volunteers to see if we can promote health through dietary preventive medicine strategies.”