By Dennis O'Brien
A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) chemist in Florida has found a way to help tomato producers improve the taste of their tomatoes. The process is simple—just immerse them briefly in warm water to heat them.
Tomatoes are often picked green and then stored at low temperatures during and after transport to slow ripening. They are then ripened at about 68 °F before being placed on store shelves. That process makes them easier to ship and extends their shelf life. Jinhe Bai, who is with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Fort Pierce, wondered if the chilling was why “supermarket tomatoes” often taste bland. ARS is USDA’s chief intramural scientific research agency.
Bai and his colleagues harvested 120 standard “Florida 47” variety tomatoes and subjected 30 tomatoes each to one of four treatments: applying heat only, chilling (to the industry standard of 41 °F), heating prior to chilling, and keeping them at room temperature (controls). For the heat treatment, the tomatoes were placed in 125 °F water for 5 minutes. Like commercially produced tomatoes, tomatoes in the study were ripened at 68 °F after being exposed to the temperature treatments.
Read More at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2015/150507.htm
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