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Tortillas are usually used to hold chopped pieces of carne asada or to be filled with gooey, melted cheese, but for Mayra Esquivel, tortillas are so much more.
She uses tortillas to improve her mother’s health.
When her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Esquivel took matters into her own hands and researched which foods would help with her mother’s condition. After learning that nuts and seeds are good for the brain, her family started implementing more of those nutrients into her diet.
Soon, Esquivel’s father expressed concerns about her diet. While she ate more nuts and seeds, she didn’t feel hungry for her meals.
At that moment, a light bulb went off: What if Esquivel could create something that complemented her mother’s meals but also contained all the necessary nutrients?
With the help of Startup Tucson, Esquivel is working to create her own tortilla shop called Y Las Tortillas, which is dedicated to making tortillas that not only taste good, but are also good for you.
“My goal is to benefit someone’s health or improve someone’s health,” Esquivel said.
Esquivel was originally from Mexico and moved to Tucson in 2009 for school. When she moved here, she didn’t know how to cook because her mother prepared all the meals.
When she started studying English in school, she became interested in the culinary program and eventually enrolled. When she joined the program, she noticed that the recipes were not the healthiest. The chefs told her that if you want to sell food, it has to taste good.
That belief stuck with Esquivel when it came time to create her own product.
Years later, when Esquivel had the idea to make something to help her mother, she decided tortillas were the best way to go, since her parents ate them often.
She started playing with different recipes and ingredients to make the tastiest tortillas. She also did a lot of research into nutrition and which foods are good for specific diseases. She read research papers from the Mayo Clinic and used her uncle, who is a professor in the food department at a university in Mexico, as a resource.
She even researched cooking techniques to ensure she retained as many nutrients as possible in her tortillas.
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