Tomato seed oil for edible use:cold break, hot break and harvest year effects

In the tomato juice and sauce industries, tomatoes are submitted to a hot break or a cold break thermal treatment. Tomato seed is considered waste but could become an important source ofedible oil. A 3-year study was conducted. The studied properties were free acidity (max 1.26%), peroxide value (max 6.14 meq O2/kg oil), p-anisidine value (0.40–13.45), Totox (3.85–24.68),saponification value (187.84–198.90), total phenols (212–532 mg/kg), and refractive index(1.4707–1.4723). DPPH was always higher than 70%. Essential fatty acids were higher than 56% of the total fatty acid methyl ester composition content. Total sterols ranged from 1,546 to2,077 mg/kg. Policosanol were higher on 2014 harvest year. The low free acidity, peroxide value, spectrophotometric characteristics, the high phenol content, and radical scavenging activity valuessuggest that tomato seed oil is potentially edible. Hot break and cold break treatments did not significantly influence the physicochemical properties and the cold break is recommended because cheaper.