Nutritional potential of warm season Lycopersicon esculentum (tomato) in Chókwè district

Tomato is generally seen as a functional food because it is an excellent source of nutrients and bioactive compounds important for human health, including minerals such as phosphorus and potassium, vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, flavonoids, organic acids, phenolics, chlorophyll, fibers. The present study evaluated the quality of tomatoes produced in the warm season in Chókwè district. With aid of simple random sampling, tomato samples were collected from 3 classes of producers in Chókwè: (A), large, (B), medium and (C), small, subsequently taken to the laboratory of the Higher Polytechnic Institute of Gaza (ISPG) for the purpose of evaluating nutritional parameters such as total titratable acidity, determined by titration with 0.1 molar NaOH; protein, using the Biuret method; lycopene and vitamin C by spectrophotometry, moisture content by oven dissection; lipid content by soxhlet extraction method and pH by potentiometry. The analysis of variance of the data was carried out using the statistical software SAS 9.3. The results showed a variation of 91.0 to 96.8% for humidity, 4.37 to 4.6 for pH, 0.6% to 1.7% for acidity, 1.3% to 2.0% for lipids, 0.75μg/g to 1.25μg/g of lycopene and protein around 0.01%. It was concluded that tomato production in the warm season results in reduced levels of nutritional components and also increases food availability during this season.