Tortilla chip production

Texturization enables the creation of more expanded products with boosted protein levels, which are texturally firmer and crispier products, easier to break than the t)q)ical commeal or cornmeal without TWPI. For example, we developed several directly expanded high-protein com meal products containing 30 g/100 g WPC (WPC80) and WPI. The protot)q5e products were pretzels, com chips, and tortilla chips (Onwulata, 2010). 

Most manufacturing processes do not detoxify aflatoxin and therefore if the aflatoxins are not detected, products will be marketed. One of the processes used for reducing aflatoxin levels is nixtamalization (alkaline cooking), which is used during the making of corn tortillas, tortilla chips, and corn chips, and gives a 51 to 78% reduction in aflatoxin levels (Torres et al., 2001). 

Synthetic, fat-tike substances Lhat arc resistant to hydrolysis by digestive enzymes. One type is a mixture of the hexa-to-octaesters of sucrose others are esterified propoxylated glycerols and dialkyl dihexadecylmalonate (DDM), which has been used in potato and tortilla chips trialkoxytricarbaliate-tricarballic acid esterified with fatty alcohols, currently under trial for use in margarine- and mayonnaise-type products. 

Industrial frying is one of the major segments in the frying industry. Fried food in the United States and other countries are prepared and marketed in various forms. The most popular of these products is the salty snack food segment. This segment consists of a wide variety of products such as potato chips, tortilla chips, com chips, extmded products, pretzels, fried or roasted nuts, and so on. Out of all these products, potato chips has been known to the people for a long time. 

Potato chips and tortilla chips have become household names in North America. Com products are not as common in Europe. Fabricated products can be produced from pellets or from sheeted material made from a preprocessed and formulated mixture of ingredients. The most commonly known products of this category are Pringles made by Procter Gamble co. and Lay s Stax introduced recently by Frito-Lay. Products made from formulated sheets as well as from the pellets are sold as salted as well as seasoned with various seasonings. These products are now popular in most countries. 

Potato chips sales are the highest in the snack food industry. The next big seller is the tortilla chip. Table 5 lists the sales figures for the major snack food products in the United States (5). 

Special Challenges in Frying Coated Products Several products are easy to handle such as potato chips, tortilla chips, com chips, and so on. On the other hand, the coated products are different and require more involved handling before and during frying. 

This is an important consideration for designing the fryer. For example, tortilla chips show some increase in specific volume after frying. However, the pellets expand tremendously in volume during frying. The internal design of the fryer must accommodate for this increase in volume. Product bulk density also impacts the size of packaging. 

Interestingly, fumonisin Bl, a liver-targeting mycotoxin found in com, is detoxified during manufacturing of tortilla chips, partially through its interaction with glucose and formation of the respective Amadori compound and products of its degradation. ... 

Another parameter consideied as constant in most models is thermal omductivity. In lact thmnal conductivity deaeases with frying time, as water is ronoved from the product and oil, which has a Iowct thermal conductivity than water, is absorbed. Thermal conductivity is also affected by other changes that may occur in the food, e.g., starch gelatinization. Results for tortilla chips fried in soybean oil at showed that the thermal conductivity deaeased from 0.23 to 0.09 W m [47]. Most... 

Kawas, M.L. and Moreira, R.M. 2001. Characterization of product quality attributes of tortilla chips during the frying process, J. Food Eng., 47 97-107. 

The purity and dosage requirements of most of the nutraceuticals are not clear. They do not have the scientific basis of dose recommendation [52]. Cost is another main factor in the production of nutraceuticals. The raw materials are often very costly. Most commercially available nutraceuticals contain a mixture of compounds. Often, the non-declared and unhealthy ingredients that are non-herbal in nature and origin are present (e.g., high content of saturated fat in tortilla chips). Thus, an unhealthy food product can be marketed with the implication of a health benefit. Interferences between compounds during uptake are also not known [52, 79]. 

Potato chips are fried to a final moisture level of 3% or less, which accounts to an of about 0.2. Tortilla chips, corn chips, and other snacks have a final moisture content of <3%. From a study on potato chips a moisture content of 3.57% was the point at which a taste panel rejected the chips because of their texture deterioration [39]. Moisture absorption and the consequent deteriorative changes can be prevented by the use of packaging materials with appropriate moisture barrier properties. In this case the shelf life of the products can be extended to several months. If the packaging material is not transmitted by light and if the air inside the packaging is replaced by an inert gas, e.g., nitrogen, a considerably longer shelf life can be obtained. 

The milling of maize into masa and its derived products is gaining popularity worldwide because this process yields tortillas, considered as the main staple for Mexicans and Central Americans, and fried snacks such as corn and tortilla chips widely consumed all over the world (see Chapter 9). 

Tortillas represent 30% of aU baked product sales in the United States and continue to be the most popular food in Mexico and Central America. Approximately, 120 million tortillas are consumed yearly in the United States, making these the second most popular baked product after white bread. An average Mexican consumes more than 80 kg of maize tortillas annually. Today, derived products such as flat tostadas and tortilla chips are extensively sold as snacks and in the preparation of fast foods (Chapter 12). Tostadas are the base for the preparation of a wide array of meals. Taco shells are the American version of tostadas, the only difference being that they are usually fried bent (U form) and rarely colored. Regular and low-fat tostadas and taco shells are available in grocery stores in Mexico and the United States. 

Masa flours designed especially for production of white and yellow table tortillas, restaurant-style tortilla chips, tortilla chips, com chips, and tamales (Chapter 16) are available. Some companies offer more than 25 different masa flours formulated to meet certain color, pH, particle-size distribution, water absorption, and viscosity requirements. In terms of particle-size distribution, three major classes of dry masa flours are recognized for table tortillas, for com chips, and for tortilla chips. Table tortillas are nsnally manufactured from fine flonrs, whereas com and tortilla chips... 

De la Parra, C., Sema-Saldivar, S.O., and Liu, R.H. 2007. Effect of processing on the phytochemical profile and antioxidant activity of corn for production of masa, tortillas and tortilla chips. J. Agric. Food Chem. 55(10) 4177-4183. 

Salt and flavorings are added as powders or liquids to extruded com and tortilla chips to enhance the organoleptic properties and appearance of the finished products. Salt is a nonaromatic ingredient, while flavoring agents include cheese, barbecue, lemon-salt, powdered chili, chipotle, jalapeno, and others (Serna-Saldivar 2008). 

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