Assessment of the impact of gamma irradiation on the shelf-life and quality of tomatoes

Abstract

Food samples like tomatoes are seasonal and very essential food product that are subjected to great loss every year as a result of lack of proper preservation. Food irradiation is another way of increasing the shelf-life of tomatoes other than freezing. The aim of the work was to determine the shelf-life extension of local tomatoes while maintaining the nutritional value. The best specie of tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum) from northern part of Nigeria was irradiated to determine the shelf-life extension using a Cobalt-60 Gamma BeamX200. The samples were irradiated with different gamma doses ranging from 100 to 300 Gy. Proximate analyses of the samples were also done to determine if the nutritional content was maintained after irradiation. The 300 Gy extended the shelf-life of irradiated tomatoes to 52 days at room temperature. The proximate analysis showed that there was no significant difference between the proximate composition of irradiated and non irradiated tomatoes. The optimal dose for shelf-life extension of the studied tomato was 300 Gy. The irradiation of these food composites has clearly revealed the merits of food preservation by irradiation through considerable shelf-life extension without degrading the quality of the food irradiated.