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Tortillas are an important food for Mexicans and their neighbors, but maize lacks vital proteins.\u00a0Looking for natural ways of fortifying the grain, researchers chose flour made from\u00a0nontoxic\u00a0Jatropha curcas<\/em> (J. curcas<\/em>) plants. The resulting fortified maize tortillas looked, felt, and tasted like ordinary ones while also packing more proteins.<\/p>\n Maize is rich in calories, but it\u00a0lacks\u00a0lysine and trytophan. It also lacks micronutrients like iron, zinc, and various important vitamins.<\/p>\n The combination of poverty and burgeoning population forced many Mexicans to adopt less healthy diets that rely on tortillas. To fix this, maize dough was fortified with flours from more nutritious crops.<\/p>\n Jatropha curcas<\/em> is a widespread plant that originated in Central America. Its seeds are rich in protein and oil that\u00a0are used for biofuels. (Related: Adding ginger powder to wheat pasta found to boost nutrition.)<\/p>\n The production process leaves behind\u00a0cake residues that retain more than half of its protein. The cake from the nontoxic ecotype\u00a0is safe for use by humans and is easily digested.<\/p>\n Furthermore, J. curcas<\/i>\u00a0meal\u00a0contains all the essential amino acids except for lysine. Its amino acid levels are close to the Food and Agriculture Organization<\/em> (FAO)\/ World Health Organization<\/em> (WHO) requirements.<\/p>\n Earlier studies have looked at soybean and amaranth flours to fortify maize flour and improve the protein content and quality of tortillas. But there are no earlier studies about the use of J. curcas<\/em> flour in fortified foods.<\/p>\n The researchers acquired the seeds of nontoxic Jatropha curcas<\/em> plants, milled them into flour, and removed the oil through a defattening process. The maize flour was a commercial brand. The two flours were mixed with J. curcas<\/em> flour constituting\u00a0five percent, 10 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent of the total amount. Pure maize flour was set aside as a control.<\/p>\n Mother Nature’s micronutrient secret: Organic Broccoli Sprout Capsules now available, delivering 280mg of high-density nutrition, including the extraordinary “sulforaphane” and “glucosinolate” nutrients found only in cruciferous healing foods. Every lot laboratory tested. See availability here.<\/em><\/p>\n The research team measured the protein, ash, moisture, and fiber in all flours\u00a0and tortillas. The team also analyzed the\u00a0dough textures and the quality, characteristics, color, and taste of the tortillas.<\/p>\n They reported that maize flour contained more moisture than either J. curcas<\/em> flours. The former also had far fewer proteins, especially when compared to defatted J. curcas<\/em> flour.<\/p>\n Fortified tortillas have slightly more lipids than pure maize ones,\u00a0looked smoother, and lasted longer.\u00a0Defatted J. curcas<\/em> meal contained high levels of ash rich in minerals like calcium, phosphorus, and iron.<\/p>\n The dough made from the different flour mixtures showed altered properties.\u00a0Adding\u00a0J. curcas<\/em> flour made the dough softer, less sticky, and stretchier.<\/p>\n The higher protein levels may have increased moisture content. However, the levels are acceptable and in the same range as tortillas fortified with white beans in earlier studies.<\/p>\n The mixture with 20 percent J. curcas<\/em> flour showed the best protein increase. It matched mixtures with\u00a0four percent soybean or five-20 percent whole chia seeds.\u00a0Increases in ash and minerals are comparable to 20 percent amaranth flour.<\/p>\n Fiber\u00a0went down\u00a0with\u00a0defatted J. curcas<\/em>. However, it still matched mixtures with\u00a0four percent soybean flour.\u00a0The researchers concluded that the best percentage for boosting the nutritional value of tortillas is 20 percent.<\/p>\n Tortillas made from flour with 15 percent J. curcas<\/em> flour are softer, easier to roll, inflate less, and break more often. While amaranth and bean flour-fortified tortillas have darker colors, J. curcas<\/em> flour tortillas are only slightly more yellow.<\/p>\n People who inspected and tasted the tortillas could barely tell the difference\u00a0between fortified ones and pure maize ones. They looked at the color and smell and didn’t notice any change in taste.<\/p>\n In sum, fortifying maize flour with nontoxic\u00a0Jatropha curcas<\/em> flour made the tortillas much healthier while barely affecting the food’s appearance or taste.<\/p>\n Sources include:<\/p>\n Science<\/p>\n TAndFOnline<\/p>\n PDFs.SemanticScholar.org\u00a0[PDF]<\/sup><\/p>\n AgricultureJournals.cz\u00a0[PDF]<\/sup><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tortillas are an important food for Mexicans and their neighbors, but maize lacks vital proteins.\u00a0Looking for natural ways of fortifying the grain, researchers chose flour made from\u00a0nontoxic\u00a0Jatropha curcas (J. curcas) plants. The resulting fortified maize tortillas looked, felt, and tasted like ordinary ones while also packing more proteins. Maize is rich in calories, but it\u00a0lacks\u00a0lysine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[783],"tags":[806,240,752,842],"class_list":{"0":"post-6036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editors-picks","8":"tag-boost","9":"tag-find","10":"tag-nutritional","11":"tag-nutritionists"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Jatropha curcas<\/em> flour improves most characteristics of maize flour<\/h2>\n
Adding J. curcas<\/em> flour makes tortillas healthier without changing taste, looks<\/h2>\n