Since the time between fruit harvesting and consumption might be up to several weeks and during this period biochemical changes could happen that affect the nutritional
value added of fruit or vegetables, an experiment was designed to study the possible variations in lycopene content, total antioxidant activity, total soluble solids and weight loss of tomato as a model plant from the time of harvest to consumption.
The results could be applicable for human subject feeding studies that focus on nutritional values of tomato.