photo: iStockphoto.com/Juanmonino
DCL
I don't know about you, but I find fresh corn tortillas to be one of the true culinary pleasures in life, far better than the more-common-amongst-gringos wheat version. But as currently made in Mexico, when the maize is prepared at mills, prior to cooking, it consumes a lot of energy and contaminates a whole bunch of water. Now scientists at the Autonomous Metropolitan University are doing something about it.
Tierramérica explains that the normal method of maize preparation, cooking it in limewater (a calcium hydroxide solution), results in a small mill contaminating 1,000 liters of water each day. And there are some 20,000 mills of this size in Mexico.
These mills also consume some $2,300 worth of energy each month--the second largest expense, after the maize itself--in the form of natural gas for cooking the tortillas.
But what the scientists have managed to do, after only three months of research no less, is reduce water contamination by 80%--simply by removing the solids from the limewater mixture and producing more dough with them.
They've also tackled the energy issue but using solar-heated water. They still have to use some natural gas, as the solar hot water only heats to 50°C and it needs to be at 90°C for the maize to cook, but nevertheless, using the power of the sun to pre-heat the water reduces their natural gas usage by 40%.
Read more: Tierramérica
