Table Tortillas: A Narrative Analysis

Maize tortillas are the staple food for most of the inhabitants of Mexico and Central America. Table tortillas are relatively inexpensive and are obtained after a thermal alkaline treatment commonly known as nixtamalization of corn kernels (de la Parra et al. 2007; Rojas-Molina et al., 2009). Tortillas are the most important sources of protein, calcium, dietary fiber (DF) and carbohydrates (Palacios-Fonseca, Vazquez-Ramos, & Rodríguez-García, 2009). During traditional nixtamalization process (TN), maize grains are cooked to elevated temperatures with water and calcium hydroxide. Alkali treatment the corn kernels suffers conformational transformation in starch granules, pericarp and part of the germ and aleurone [1]. Furthermore, during milling,

Before being used as food, sorghum grain generally undergoes abrasive decortication, also known as dehulling or pearling (Taylor & Dewar, 2001). The bran fraction is easily separated by abrasive decortication (Awika et al., 2004), a process aimed towards the gradual removal by friction of the outer layers of the grain (Beta et al., 2000). The decortication process can be effectively used to separate the grain anatomical parts: pericarp, endosperm and germ (Rooney & Miller, 1982) with minimal removal of starch (Awika et al., 2005). Furthermore, the process can be used to concentrate fractions rich in nutrients such as lipids, minerals, protein, and dietary fibre (DF), which may be employed for produce cereal-based foods with acceptable color and flavor attributes (Awika et al., 2004; Awika et al., 2005; Buitimea-Cantúa et al., 2013). The sorghum bran has from three to four times higher concentration of dietary fibre compared with the whole caryopsis (Buitimea-Cantúa et al.,

2012). Furthermore, the texture parameters clearly indicated that tortillas produced extruded nixtamalized corn flour with sorghum bran had good textural characteristics, likely because of the lower total and gelatinized starch as well as the presence of higher amounts of SB (Buitimea-Cantúa et al., 2017). Awika and Rooney (2004) confirmed that SB contains natural gums that promoted higher water retention by the dough or masa and improved the textural properties of the composite