Rapeseed oil and wax mixture in maize tortillas
What it found
Adding a rapeseed oil and wax blend to maize tortillas made them softer, slowed staling and reduced starch breakdown in lab tests.
What they found
Animal and lab studies
Less starch broken down
Lab digestion tests showed tortillas with the oil blend had lower amounts of easily digested starch. They also had less slowly digested starch than plain tortillas.
Other findings
Softer, stronger tortillas
Lab tests showed the rapeseed oil blend made tortillas less hard. It also increased their tensile strength compared to plain tortillas.
Slower staling in lab tests
Infrared analysis showed that adding the oil blend slowed down the changes in starch chains that cause staling.
What the authors conclude
- They suggest the oil blend forms complexes with starch molecules.
- They say an oily layer around starch granules may explain why less starch was broken down in lab tests.
How it was done
Maize tortillas go stale quickly, which limits how well they sell. The authors wanted to test a new way to slow that staling process.
They mixed a blend of rapeseed oil and candelilla wax into basic tortilla dough at 0, 2, 4 and 6 g per 100 g. They cooked the tortillas on a hot plate at 200 °C. They then measured texture, staling and starch breakdown in lab tests.
What it can’t tell you
- We summarised it from the abstract only.
- These are lab tests on tortillas, not studies in people or animals. They cannot show what happens when someone eats these tortillas.
- The work only looked at short term texture and starch breakdown. It does not cover long term health effects.
Who paid
- Authors work at
- Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico; Jefatura de laboratorios de Química e Investigación. Departamento de Ingeniería Química, Mexico
The paper
- Title
- Canola oil/candelilla wax oleogel improves texture, retards staling and reduces in vitro starch digestibility of maize tortillas
- Type
- Study
- Evidence
- Animals and lab studies
- Summarised from
- Abstract only
- Cite
- Vernon-Carter EJ, Alvarez-Ramirez J, Meraz M, Bello-Perez LA, Garcia-Diaz S (2020). Canola oil/candelilla wax oleogel improves texture, retards staling and reduces in vitro starch digestibility of maize tortillas. Journal of the science of food and agriculture. doi:10.1002/jsfa.10135PubMed 31696519DOI
Summary written 1 Oct 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error