*White Maize Tortillas Fortified with Brown Algae* Macrocystis pyrifera *DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105162*


*standard deviation (mean ± SD). T10, T20, T30 = tortilla with 10, 20 or 30% of seaweed, T0 = control.*

#### **Table 1.**

*Chemical composition of tortillas with different concentrations of seaweed.*

(4.49%) was similar to the control sample from reference [28] (4.65%), the addition of seaweed resulted in lower protein values (4.75–5.27%.) than the addition of *J. curcas* flour (6.52–10.85%) [28]. In other, the protein content from hand-made white tortillas has been reported to be between 7.5 and 9.6% [35], the protein content of the tortillas from this study was lower. As seaweeds are not considered to have an elevated lipid content [33], it was not expected to observe a high increase in the lipid fraction. The lipid content in all tortillas from this study was lower than the one reported in other studies [28, 35], with lipid values ranging between 1.87 and 3.95%. The differences in the lipid content can be related to the variety of the used maize as well as to the nixtamalization conditions, as lipids from the kernel can be solubilized during the alkaline treatment or during the steeping time [35]. The fiber content of all samples was higher than the reported in [28] (0.8–1.98%) while the fiber content of T30 was similar to the one reported in Ref. [35] (15.72%).

With an increment in ash content, the increase in minerals would be expected, specially as seaweeds can contain between 10 and 20 times the mineral amount when compared to land plants since seaweeds gather them from the seawater [36]. All the analyzed minerals (Na, Ca, P, K, and Mg) increased significantly (p < 0.05) with an increment in seaweed (**Table 2**). The most notorious increase in minerals was Na, which increased almost 100 times when T0 and T30 were compared, followed by K, which augmented 16 times, Mg went from 85 to 380 mg/100 g, Ca was almost triplicated when comparing the same samples (T0 and T30), and P barely increased from 315 (T0) to 360 mg/100 g (T30), however it was also significant. The mineral composition of seaweeds is influenced by the environmental conditions, their age and their capability to absorb inorganic substances from the environment. Due to the polysaccharides in their cell walls, brown seaweeds (like *M. pyrifera*) present higher affinity to absorb calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium salts due to the presence of alginic acid, alginate, and alginic acid salt [36]. The Ca content of all samples was higher than the content of white maize tortillas (155.5 mg/100 g) [35]. The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for women and men between 18 and 50 years old for Ca is 1000 mg [37], amount that could be covered with 130 g of T30. The RDA of P is 700 mg [37] value that could be covered with 200 g of T30, with 50–70 g of T30 covers the RDA of K (2600–3400 mg [37]) while the RDA of Mg (310–420 mg [37]) could be covered with 80–110 g of T30. While the Chronic Disease Risk Reduction Level (CDRR) of Na is 2300 [37], dose that is not overpassed with 200 g of T30, which is the amount of tortilla needed to cover all the minerals.

The increase in seaweed concentration in *masa*s led to a significant increase in the differences (ΔE) between T0 and T10, T20, and T30. Additionally, the seaweed


*All results are expressed as mg/100 g. Different letters in the same row represents significant differences (p < 0.05). Results are expressed as mean (n = 3) and standard deviation (mean ± SD). T10, T20, T30 = tortilla with 10, 20 or 30% of seaweed. T0 = control.*

#### **Table 2.**

*Mineral content of tortillas with different concentrations of seaweed.*


*Different letters in the same row represents significant differences (p < 0.05). Results are expressed as mean (n = 3) and standard deviation (mean ± SD). M10, M20, M30 = masa with 10, 20 or 30% of seaweed. M0 = control.*

#### **Table 3.**

*Color of masas with different concentrations of seaweed.*

affected all the color parameters analyzed (**Table 3**) on *masa*s. The lightness (L\*) of T0 decreased to half its value in T30. The negative values of a\* are indicative of greener tonalities [6], it could be seen that the increase in seaweed concentration led to an increase of this tonalities. The b\* values also decreased when the concentration of algae was augmented, which means that the *masa* was less yellow and started to have more blue tonalities. On the contrary, the seaweed lead to a significant increase in hue values, changing from 90.5 to 99.7, while chroma was higher in the control sample and showed no differences between samples T10, T20 and T30. Similarly, the addition of muicle led to a variation in L\*, a\* and b\* parameters [6]. The authors reported a decrease in lightness and in b\* values, indicative that color tended to display increasingly blue tonalities, while an increase in a\*, related to an increase in red tonalities, was also observed [6]. While the addition of *J. curcas* flour to *masa* led to increase in L\* and a\*, while there were no changes in b\* [28].

The analyzed color parameters of tortillas were also significantly modified with the incorporation of seaweed (**Table 4**). Similarly, to the *masa*s, there was a bigger difference (ΔE) between T0 and T30. Additionally, the lightness (L\*) presented a similar behavior to the one observed in *masa*s, with the value from T0 decreasing to almost half its value in T30. With the progressive incorporation of seaweed, the a\* changed from positive values to negative ones, meaning that the samples became greener as a result of incorporation the algae. Despite the addition of seaweed, the values of b\* remained positive, and while there was no significant difference between T20 and T30, this values were significantly smaller that T0 and T10. Chroma decreased with the increase of seaweed and went from 23.8 (T0) to 18.2 (T30), while T30 presented the highest hue values (95.4), followed by T20, and T0 showed the lowest values (84.3).

*White Maize Tortillas Fortified with Brown Algae* Macrocystis pyrifera *DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105162*


*Different letters in the same row represents significant differences (p < 0.05). Results are expressed as mean (n = 3) and standard deviation (SD = ±). T10, 20, 30 = tortilla with 10, 20 or 30% of seaweed. TC = control.*

#### **Table 4.**

*Color of tortillas with different concentrations of seaweed.*

However all the hue values could be described as yellowish-green. Tortillas fortified with white bean flour showed reddish color, with the value of a\* in the positive range, while b \* values had a clear tendency to yellow [14].

The antioxidant capacity and TPC of *masa*s were significantly affected by the seaweed concentration (**Figures 1** and **2**). M0 presented the lowest values in the three assays, similarly to the effect of incorporating muicle extracts [6]. The highest values of both FRAP and TPC were obtained for M30. The TPC showed a linear trend with higher concentrations of seaweed. The TPC increased 5 times between M0 and M30, while the FRAP value from M30 increased more than twice when compared with M0. The TPC of all samples was higher than the value reported for hand-made tortillas from white maize (~75 mg GAE/100 g) [35]; while the TPC of T0 was similar to the one reported in [38] (~160 mg GAE/100 g). The highest percentage of inhibition of ABTS was obtained for M20 (90%), while the lowest value was 70% for M0. The incorporation of different varieties of beans to wheat tortillas also led to the increase in antioxidant capacity when compared to their control samples [39].

The texture of *masa*s and tortillas was significantly affected by the incorporation of seaweed (**Figures 3** and **4**, respectively). M0 showed the lowest values for hardness and adhesiveness when compared to M10, M20 and M30. The adhesiveness and hardness of the *masa* showed a similar trend, the highest value was obtained for M10,

#### **Figure 1.**

*Total phenolic content of masas with different concentrations of seaweed. Each value represent the results from mean and standard deviation. Different letters indicate significant differences.*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Antioxidant capacity (FRAP and ABTS) of masas with different concentrations of seaweed. Each value represent the results from mean and standard deviation. Different letters indicate significant differences.*

#### **Figure 3.**

*Texture profile analysis (TPA) of masas with different concentrations of seaweed. Each value represent the results from mean and standard deviation. Different letters indicate significant differences.*

and decreased with a higher concentration of seaweed. There was not a linear trend depending on the concentration of seaweed, which was similar to the effect of incorporating grasshopper (*S. purpuracens)* flour. However, the adhesiveness of tortillas with seaweed was higher than the ones with grasshopper flour (~0.10 - ~0.20 N) [18]. In the same study, the control sample showed higher hardness than *masa* with grasshopper flour [18], while in this study M0 showed the lowest values for both adhesiveness and hardness. The opposite behavior was observed in tortillas, were T0 required more applied force to puncture the tortilla. In the tortillas this trend was not observed, as T10 required the lowest force to get punctured while T20 and T30 showed no significant difference among them. Different concentrations of muicle did not affect the hardness of tortillas, which was lower (2.48–2.81 N) [6] than the one reported in this study (3.5–7.5 N).

*White Maize Tortillas Fortified with Brown Algae* Macrocystis pyrifera *DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105162*

**Figure 4.**

*Texture of tortillas with different concentrations of seaweed. Each value represent the results from mean and standard deviation. Different letters indicate significant differences.*
