Ascorbic Acid Content of Fresh and Processed Purees from Twelve Tomato Cultivars

Abstract Fresh and processed purees of 12 tomato cultivars were analyzed for ascorbic acid content. Five of 11 tomato cultivars were low in ascorbic acid compared to ‘VF145B-7879’. Four other cultivars were not significantly different from ‘VF145B-7879’ in ascorbic acid content. These 9 cultivars were characterized equally well irrespective of whether analyses were done on fresh or processed purees. The average ascorbic acid content of processed purees of ‘VF109’ was significantly greater than ‘VF145B-7879’, but no difference occurred between fresh purees of these 2 cultivars. ‘VF145B-7879’ had a mean ascorbic acid loss of 3.01 mg/100 ml of puree upon processing. None of the other cultivars had significantly greater losses. ‘Rowpac’ and ‘VF109’ had average losses that were less than ‘VF145B-7879’ when their purees were processed.