Cuisine in Mexico and Kenya have a major ingredient in common – maize – and a food preparation method used for thousands of years in the area around modern Mexico could expand dish options and add nutrients for Kenyans, while reducing aflatoxin contamination in the food.
The process – called nixtamalization – involves cooking and steeping dried maize grain in water and food-grade lime (calcium hydroxide), rinsing the maize to remove the outer kernel cover (pericarp) and milling it to produce dough, according to Natalia Palacios, maize quality specialist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). By removing the pericarp, nixtamalization helps reduce aflatoxin fungal contamination in maize by 30 to 60 percent and contributes calcium from the lime.
Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries recently toured nixtamalized maize mills in Nairobi as part of the official launch of a new project titled “Expanding maize utilization as food and enhancing nutrition improved health and development in Kenya through processing technologies from Mexico,” which will contribute to disseminating new technology across the country. The three-year project will be led by the Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organisation (KALRO).
The launch was followed by a week of training of 27 trainers from the public and private sectors led by CIMMYT and its collaborators from the tortilla industry in Mexico City and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The training focused on building the capacity of partners who will be the major drivers of the commercialization of nixtamalized products.