Heat Damage Evaluation during Tomato Products Processing

To evaluate the efficiency of furosine as a heat damage index in tomato products, its content was determined in each step of tomato pulp (9% dry matter) and tomato paste (31% dry matter) processing. Furosine levels (mg/100 g protein) increased linearly as a function of heat treatment severity, although the slopes of the two products differed because of the different dry matter contents. The standardization of furosine values on the basis of dry matter content [mg furosine/(g proteinâg dry matter)] highlighted an identical linear increase of furosine for both products. Hence, furosine appears to be a good heat damage index of tomato products, allowing the evaluation of both product quality and processing technology. Furosine was also determined on several tomato products collected from the Italian market, detecting values from 43 to 140 for tomato pulp, from 93 to 132 for tomato sauce, and from 220 to 468 mg/100 g protein for tomato paste.