Mahmoud Sheikh Muhammad^(1)*, Omar Al-Naser ⁽¹⁾and Mohammed Al-Azem ⁽²⁾

(1). Dept. of Food Science, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Aleppo University, Aleppo, Syria.

(2). Dept. of Food Engineering Technologies, Faculty of Technical Engineering, Aleppo University, Aleppo, Syria.

 (*Corresponding author: Eng. Mahmoud Sheikh Muhammad. E-Mail: mahmoud.sh.m@alepuniv.edu.sy).

Received: 26/12/2019                                Accepted: 17/2/2019

Abstract

This study was investigated at the laboratories of the Department of Food Sciences at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Aleppo in 2019, with the aim of knowing the best way to preserve and store the fruits of whole tomatoes, in terms of initial treatment and adding solutions with known concentrations in the preservation process, by studying the changes in some Chemical traits of fresh tomato fruits (such as lycopene, vitamin C, and reducing sugars) and stored for three months. Peeled and unpeeled tomato samples were preserved in two solutions: the first is a 6% saline solution and the second is a 6% saline solution with citric acid 0.3%, the peeled tomato samples were significantly superior (P˃0.01) to their peeled counterparts by retaining lycopene and vitamin С, the results also showed that preserving and storing the fruits of tomatoes, whether (peeled or unpeeled), is better in saline solution than in saline solution with citric acid, in order to preserve their generally studied chemical components.

Keywords: Storage, Peeling, Tomato, Lycopene, Vitamin C, Saline solution, Citric acid

Full paper in Arabic: PDF