Evaluación de aditivos químicos y biológicos en la vida de anaquel de la tortilla de nopal (opuntia ficus-indica)

La tortilla de maíz (Zea mays L.), es la base de la alimentación mexicana, por su alto valor nutricional, no obstante, dado el nivel calórico que presenta se buscan alternativas que disminuyan este contenido. Una opción es adicionarle nopal, lo que disminuye el nivel calórico y proporciona beneficios importantes tales como, buena fuente de fibra dietética, actividad antioxidante, efecto prebiótico y con ello, es una alternativa para prevención de enfermedades crónicas degenerativas. Sin embargo, dada la alta actividad acuosa del nopal disminuye considerablemente la vida de anaquel de la tortilla, ocasionando deterioro significativo en pocos días. Para revertir tal efecto existen conservadores químicos como: el benzoato de sodio y ácido cítrico y conservadores biológicos como: las gomas arábigas, guar, xantana y el quitosano, que favorecen la baja actividad acuosa y permiten estabilizar de manera importante un alimento. Aunado al interés de la población de una disminución del consumo calórico también existe la preocupación de consumir alimentos libres de patógenos y la menor cantidad de aditivos posibles. Por lo anterior, en este trabajo se analizan diferentes conservadores químicos y biológicos con la finalidad de alargar la vida de anaquel de la tortilla de nopal con la mínima dosis posible. Para ello, a 1 kg de masa se agregó el agente conservante en diferentes concentraciones, se homogeneizó y posteriormente se elaboraron las tortillas a partir de 30 g de la masa, se dejó alcanzar la temperatura ambiente, empacaron y almacenaron a 25 °C y 4 °C, se registró diariamente el estado de la tortilla hasta observar cambios desfavorables. Se obtuvieron resultados con una duración de 5 días a temperatura ambiente con aditivos diferentes y de 25 y 37 días a temperatura de 4°C. Corn tortilla (Zea mays L.) is the basis of Mexican food, due to its high nutritional value; however, given its high caloric content, alternatives are being sought to reduce this content. One option is to add nopal, which reduces the caloric level and provides important benefits such as a good source of dietary fiber, antioxidant activity, prebiotic effect and thus is an alternative for the prevention of chronic degenerative diseases. However, due to the high aqueous activity of nopal, the tortilla's shelf life decreases considerably, causing significant deterioration in a few days. To reverse this effect, there are chemical preservatives such as sodium benzoate and citric acid and biological preservatives such as gums arabic, guar, xanthan and chitosan, which favor the low water activity and can significantly stabilize a food. In addition to the population's interest in reducing caloric intake, there is also the concern of consuming food free of pathogens and the least amount of additives possible. Therefore, in this work, different chemical and biological preservatives are analyzed in order to extend the shelf life of nopal tortillas with the minimum possible dose. For this purpose, the preservative agent was added to 1 kg of dough in different concentrations, homogenized and then the tortillas were made from 30 g of dough, allowed to reach room temperature, packed and stored at 25 °C and 4 °C, and the tortilla condition was recorded daily until unfavorable changes were observed. Results were obtained with a shelf life of 5 days at room temperature with different additives and 25 and 37 days at 4°C.

Supplementation of corn tortilla with freeze-dried jumbo squid muscle flour: physicochemical properties and microbiological stability during storage

Corn tortilla is one of the most consumed foodstuffs in Latin America, representing a good nutrients source, although deficient in some essential amino acids. Jumbo squid (Dosdicus gigas) muscle possesses high-quality protein, useful for tortilla supplementation. Our objective was to elaborate corn tortillas supplemented with jumbo squid muscle flour (JSMF), using composite corn flours containing JSMF (2.5 and 5.0%), to improve their nutritional quality without affecting their physicochemical/sensory properties and storage stability. Supplementation with 5% JSMF increased (P<0.05) tortilla protein level, and the essential amino acids versus the control. The 2.5% JSMF tortillas were tasteful and acceptable (P≥0.05) as the control. JSMF addition showed an antimicrobial effect on mesophilic and psychrophilic bacteria; however, yeast and moulds grew beyond the permissible limit at day 5 of storage. JSMF addition did not affect (P≥0.05) the cutting force, with all tortillas tending to become harder to roll without cracking as storage elapsed. Tortilla storage stability (supplemented or not) was 3 days at 2–4 °C. Results suggest the feasibility of adding JSMF to corn tortilla, improving its nutritional characteristics without markedly affecting other parameters.

Machine and Deep Learning Applied to Predict Metabolic Syndrome Without a Blood Screening

The exponential increase of metabolic syndrome and its association with the risk impact of morbidity and mortality has propitiated the development of tools to diagnose this syndrome early. This work presents a model that is based on prognostic variables to classify Mexicans with metabolic syndrome without blood screening applying machine and deep learning. The data that were used in this study contain health parameters related to anthropometric measurements, dietary information, smoking habit, alcohol consumption, quality of sleep, and physical activity from 2289 participants of the Mexico City Tlalpan 2020 cohort. We use accuracy, balanced accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value criteria to evaluate the performance and validate different models. The models were separated by gender due to the shared features and different habits. Finally, the highest performance model in women found that the most relevant features were: waist circumference, age, body mass index, waist to height ratio, height, sleepy manner that is associated with snoring, dietary habits related with coffee, cola soda, whole milk, and Oaxaca cheese and diastolic and systolic blood pressure. Men’s features were similar to women’s; the variations were in dietary habits, especially in relation to coffee, cola soda, flavored sweetened water, and corn tortilla consumption. The positive predictive value obtained was 84.7% for women and 92.29% for men. With these models, we offer a tool that supports Mexicans to prevent metabolic syndrome by gender; it also lays the foundation for monitoring the patient and recommending change habits.

Female entrepreneurship as a survival strategy: women during the early mechanisation of corn tortilla production in Mexico City

Until the nineteenth -century tortilla production was carried out by women through rudimentary methods. New technology for corn milling spread during the 1910s, coinciding with the Mexican Revolution. The analysis of nixtamal corn mills and tortilla shops in Mexico City in 1924 shows that the mechanisation of milling led to masculinisation and an increase in the gender wage gap. However, since tortilla-making remained unmechanised, it allowed hundreds of women to establish tortilla shops that mostly hired women. Their entrepreneurship can be considered a survival strategy of women confronting a technological change in an era of political, social and economic turmoils.

Physicochemical Properties and Resistant Starch Content of Corn Tortilla Flours Refrigerated at Different Storage Times

The tortilla is a foodstuff that has a short shelf-life, causing great losses to the industry. The objective of this work was to evaluate, for the first time, the physicochemical properties and resistant starch (RS) content of flours. These were obtained from nixtamalized corn tortillas made with traditional and industrial (commercial) methods, stored at 4 °C for 7, 15, and 30 days. The flours were characterized by measuring particle size distribution, color, water absorption index (WAI), water solubility index (WSI), viscosity, calcium, and RS content. Additionally, chemical proximate analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and thermal analysis were conducted. Storage at 4 °C increased the friability of tortillas and shifted the particle size distribution toward a greater content of coarse particles in corn tortilla flours. The commercial corn tortilla flours showed higher WAI and WSI values than the traditional corn tortilla flours. On the other hand, the traditional corn tortilla flours exhibited higher RS content values than commercial corn tortilla flours as well as peak viscosity. X-ray diffractograms revealed the presence of amylose-lipid complexes (RS5) in experimental samples. The thermograms evidenced three endotherms corresponding to corn starch gelatinization and melting of type I and type II amylose–lipid complexes.

Manufacture of an automated prototype for corn tortilla cooking

In the present work of the manufacture of an automated prototype for cooking for corn tortillas, which is a food base mainly for Mexican cuisine, where the elaboration process is done manually by hand by people who press the dough to form the tortilla put on the griddle and during the cooking process they are turned manually and using an average of 3 times. Therefore, the objective was to make a prototype of three rotating comals for the cooking of handmade tortillas to automate the process of turning and cooking the tortilla for the transformation of the raw material (dough). with which the temperature can be programmed in a range of 240 ° C-260 ° C with LP gas, without people having to turn the tortilla and thus use less time and obtain more production and only one person operates the burners, but you also have great savings in gas consumption. To carry out manufacturing and automation, three important disciplines of the mechatronics career were used, which are: mechanical, electronic and computer science. Helping in its process.

Environmental Impact of Corn Tortilla Production: A Case Study

The research on the environmental impacts of corn-derived products has been mainly on cultivation techniques and the production of biofuels, so there is limited information on the impacts produced by the transformation of corn for human consumption. The tortilla is a millennial product derived from corn of which consumption is increasing in North America. The aim of this study is to identify the environmental hotspots of the tortilla using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. The process studied included only the corn–nixtamalisation–dough–tortillas production. The functional unit is one kg of tortillas packed in kraft paper. The impacts of the tortilla production process were evaluated using SimaPro 8.5.0 software, considering ReCiPe Midpoint. The production has the greatest impact in 15 of the 18 impact categories. The normalisation reveals that the most significant impacts concentrate in the categories terrestrial acidification (TA), particulate matter formation (PMF), marine ecotoxicity (MET) and fossil fuel depletion (FD). Improvements in the cultivation could mean more environmentally friendly tortilla production.