Effects of Different Home Storage Conditions and Preservation on Some Chemical Constituents of Tomato (Lycopersicon Esculentum)

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of different home storage conditions and preservation on some chemical constituents of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum). The experiment involved three post-harvest treatments comprising of fruits without preservative used as the control, fruits preserved with groundnut oil and fruits preserved with salt. All these were further divided into sub samples and subjected to different home storage conditions for the period of 8 weeks. The tomato samples were evaluated for changes in total solid, insoluble solid, pH, sugar, salt content, ascorbic acid and ash contents. Results obtained indicated that total soluble solid, insoluble solid, pH, sugar, salt, ascorbic acid and ash contents of fresh and dehydrated samples decreased with different storage conditions while their acidity showed an increase. Powdered tomato samples were found to withstand long term storage and their chemical constituents showed minimal change over the period of the study. The results revealed that preservation by powdering technique proved to be a better technique and worthy of further industrial investigation.