Foods scientist Raquel Gomez examines microorganisms that feed nutrients and keep tortillas for several days without refrigerators, a luxuries in impoverished Latino communities. Millions of people in Mexico consume the polite taco daily, from the deserts of the country’s north to the tropical southern forest, in tacos and other dishes. The majority of Mexicans purchase new corn tortillas from community shops. Probiotics are present in the grains flour type developed by Gomez and her staff, which can be found in cheese and various fermented foods. The tortilla is been kept for up to a fortnight without cooling, which is much longer than a homemade one, according to its makers, thanks to the spiced ingredients. According to Gomez, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico ( UNAM ), it was created” with the most vulnerable people in mind.” According to official statistics, Mexico has a chronic malnutrition rate of nearly 14 % for children under five. The percentage is roughly 27 percent in Indigenous areas. Unaffordable in storesThe tortillas created by Gomez is not yet available for purchase, but it might be of benefit to others like Teresa Sanchez. The 46-year-old wife uses a wood-burning range with metal roof and earthen walls to smoke meat inside. Sanchez uses the techniques her indigenous Tzeltal predecessors have passed down, as is typical of her companions in the Oxchuc, in the southwestern state of Chiapas. She told AFP,” My family taught me, and my parents always do it this way.” The lowest number of people in Mexico’s 32 states has a refrigerator, with less than two-thirds of them living in poverty-stricken Chiapas, a region with a huge Aboriginal population. Official estimates indicate that between 2014 and 2024, the average maximum temperatures in Chiapas increased from 30.1 % to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Its country is deemed to be resilient to climate change for the entire. Although Oxchuc is a rocky, temperate region, its residents must rely on traditional methods of food survival because of the lack of refrigerators. We consider the types of food we’ll be eating and how many of us will be there. We cook it, and if there is any leftover, we boil it once more, according to Sanchez. Often foods is salted and dried in the sun. Tortillas are kept in recycled trees wood storage containers. Sanchez just stores for the plain necessities because of this, even though her budget is constrained. She said,” I don’t have that much money to spend.” No preservativesGomez and her staff, according to her statement, supply bacterial cultures with bacteria, which are typically found in high-fiber foods, to make health-promoting compounds. No synthetic ingredients are required in the laboratory-created taco because of the spiced ingredients, Gomez said. Another benefit is that these chemicals have potentially dangerous effects, according to researcher Guillermo Arteaga from the University of Sonora. Calcium propionate, which is regarded as dangerous to the colon’s bacteria, is one of the most frequently added ingredients to processed wheat bread tortillas, according to Arteaga. Although Gomez uses wheat flour, a type of food most prevalent in northern Mexico, her taco is not intended to substitute corn tortillas, which are popular in Mexico but can quickly go negative in high temperatures. In 2023, the scientists granted their taco a patent. UNAM and a firm agreed to promote the food, but the deal was voided. Gomez, who was awarded a prize in December from the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, also searches for distributors for her tacos. Customers may still want to consume them, despite the fact that they were created in a lab.
