Tomatoes, This Complete Nutritious Fruit

This one fruit is very rich in nutrients. In the outer layers there is lycopene, an antioxidant that can prevent various types of cancer. Can also be processed into a variety of fresh drinks and food that could shake up the tongue.

Tomatoes, which the botanist called Lycopersicum esculentum Mill, is a plant of the Solanaceae family, which is blooming like a trumpet.

Shape, color, taste, and texture of tomatoes is very diverse. There is a round, flat round, curly, or like a light bulb. Mature fruit colors vary from yellow, orange, to red, depending on the type of the dominant pigment. It was also varied, from sour to sweet. Fruit-bunches are arranged in bunches. Fleshy fruit and a whole contains a lot of water.

Various Varieties
Some of the basis used to distinguish among varieties of tomatoes are the shape, bunches, the thickness of the meat, and water content. Based on the shape or appearance, tomatoes are classified as follows:

1. Ordinary tomatoes (Lycopersicum commune)
Form of flat round fruit, soft, irregular, and slightly grooved near the stem.

2. Apples Tomato (Lycopersicum pyriforme)
Round fruit shape, compact, a little hard to resemble an apple.

3. Potato Tomato (Lycopersicum grandifolium)
Fruits are round, large, compact, with sizes smaller than apple tomato.

4. Curly tomato (Lycopersicum validum)
Slightly oval-shaped fruit, hard. The leaves are lush and green curly dark.

Must be Cleaned
Newly harvested fruits are usually separated by size and quality (grading). Determination of fruit quality based on health, toughness, cleanliness of the size, weight, color, shape, maturity, freedom from foreign substances and disease, as well as damage by insects and mechanical injuries. Category of quality that is commonly used is an extra class, class 1 and class 2.

Once sorted, tomatoes must be cleaned and washed to remove dirt on the fruit. Manure is usually a sprinkling of soil, dust and chemical substances (drugs and fertilizer spray). Apart from giving an impression of dirty, splashing soil can also carry diseases and some harmful microbes. Chemical substances that attach to the fruit, especially pesticides, if present in excessive amount can cause poisoning.

Storage of tomatoes must be done at temperatures not too high, usually carried out at room temperature. However, it would be much better if the tomatoes are stored at a lower temperature, namely in the refrigerator. High temperatures can damage the quality of stored tomatoes. Cold storage may slow the process of maturity, reduce susceptibility to microbial attack, reduce water losses, and maintain levels of vitamin C.[from kompas.com]