Abstract:
The main goals of this research were to study the chemical composition and minerals content of tomato fruits to evaluate their Nutritive and caloric value, evaluate the optimum extraction conditions and production of natural juice from tomato fruits.
The cold extraction method has been selected to prepare the tomato fruits for production of the juice, because the tomato fruits have high content of anti-oxidants such as lycopene, vitamin C and A which they are very sensitive for the high temperature.
The results obtained in this research were indicated that, the tomato fruits dry matter (6.17%), protein (18.80%), fat (3.24%), total carbohydrates (69.30%), crude fibers (20.58%), ash (8.59%) and energy (385.39 K. Calorie. Also the study revealed that, the tomato fruits containing high percentage of Mg (147.0), K (52.5), Ca (33.15) and Na (20.74) as Mg/ 100 g
On the other hand, the results obtained from the extraction conditions revealed that, the best extraction ratio was 1:6 determined from its high yield. The TA, T.S.S., and PH of the produced juice were 0.32, 15 and 3.20 respectively, which they well agree with Standard specifications CODEX- STAN247-2005.
Finally, the products with or without strawberry and orange flavor were highly accepted by the panelists, but tomato juice with orange flavor was found to be the best among the different juice samples with respect to its color, taste, flavor and overall quality.
