Weight Loss Of Tomato Essay

Tomato is one of the most common crop vegetable consumed in large amounts across the globe. This is because, this commodity is perceived to have excellent functional and nutritional properties as well as palatable characteristic. Soto-Zamora et al. (2005) claimed that tomato contains high amount of phenolic compounds and bioactive compounds for instance ascorbic acid and tocopherol which contribute to Vitamin C and Vitamin E, respectively as well as carateroid which composed of β-carotene and lycopene act as precursors for Vitamin A. The aforementioned benefits of tomato placed tomato as the most widely grown vegetable commodity behind white potato as described by Mutari & Debbie (2011). Furthermore, an epidemiological study conducted by Rao & Rao (2003) revealed that carotenoid content in tomatoes plays a major role in preventing chronic diseases such as cardiovascular and cancer.

Nevertheless, as tomato are one of highly perishable vegetable crop, therefore it is a challenge to keep the fresh

In this method, the tomatoes will either be stored in a refrigerator (4oC) or at room temperature (24 – 25oC). On the other hand, weight loss of tomato is defined as physiological process attributed with dehydration during post-harvest process which then results in turgor loss. As mentioned earlier, storage temperatures could affect the tomato weight loss. (Alia-Tejacal et al. 2007). Therefore, this parameter is used in this experiment to determine the tomato decay. This is due to the impact of weight loss to tomato in which is causes the tomato’s tissues to become mushy and dull. Thus, the hypothesis was proposed as the following:

Ho: The average weight loss of tomatoes stored at room temperature or in a refrigerator are not the same.

Ha: The average weight loss of tomatoes stored at room temperature or in a refrigerator are the