D46—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 8,1983
MEXICO CITY, Mexico - A
small army of "Missionaries” is
hard at work in Mexico spreading
the “gospel” of soybeans. Their
message-soybeans offer a good
quality low cost protein sup
plement to the Mexican diet at a
time when both money and meat
are scarce.
The “missionaries” are the staff
at the American Soybean
Association Human Nutrition
Center in Mexico City. Their
knowledge, in demand right now,
is helping expand markets for U.S.
soybeans. The HNC, established in
1960, conducts its work with the
help of checkoff investments of
U.S. soybean farmers.
“People in Mexico are interested
in nutrition education,” says HNC
director Ruth Orellana. “And
when nutrition education is offered
in a program of soybean nutrition,
it seems to have a double value to
people.”
Orellana says soybean nutrition
information is in demand by all
kinds of people. Her staff found
food manufacturers who were
interested in improving the
nutritional qualities of their
products, such as tortillas, but
didn’t know the techniques for
adding soy-protein. They also
found health care professionals
who wanted to learn more about
soybean nutrition, but didn’t have
access to such information.
Reflecting on the extremely
successful and immensely popular
lectures and workshops given by
the HNC, Orellana decided to put
together a 15-hour short course
lecture package and offer it to
universities and technical schools.
Soon the requests started pouring
in.
“We offered them free of
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Soybeans fortify Mexican tortillas
charge,” says Orellana. “Some
people say that free offers aren’t
appreciated, but I don’t believe
that philosophy. In fact, we’re
finding now that universities are
more selective in who can attend
our courses. One university has
found it necessary to hold a lottery
to select qualified individuals when
space is limited.”
The HNC staff has presented 15
courses since the program began
in January. Almost 500 people took
the courses during the first half of
the year. The courses are designed
for university-level students in
nutrition, food technology and
other areas of health care, as well
as for doctors, nurses, and social
service workers. But the HNC staff
has an ulterior motive, albeit a
beneficial one.
Each time the course is
presented the soybean message
reaches many people who make
decisions affecting nutrition in
Mexico. According to Ed Quinones,
ASA Division Manager for South
America, government and private
projects offer the greatest
potential for increased use of U.S.
soybeans.
“The nutrition education
programs of the Human Nutrition
Center are an excellent op
portunity for us to show the
benefits of using soybeans in the
diet,’’ says Quinones. “The
program also makes it possible for
us to show the food industry how to
use soy products to produce high
quality foods that will gain con
sumer acceptance.’’
“Our program evaluation shows
that teaching soy nutrition to
professionals
impact,”
“Sometimes
too,” she admit
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To illustrate she tells what
happened as a result of a course
taught by assistant nutritionist
Adela Perez in Baja California. At
the completion of a recent nutrition
course, the state government not
only hired an HNC-trained
nutritionist, but also employed
eight technicians to help spread
the soybean message in the state’s
innovative nutrition program.
While Perez was in Baja
California, she and Guillermo
Sada, who is in charge of the state
program, called on a tortilla plant
owner/operator in hopes of in
teresting him in fortifying his
tortillas with soybeans. Although
they didn't know the man, it turned
out that he was quite interested in
their product. As the owner of four
factories and president of the
tortilla factory association in Baja
California, be had, for some time,
been interested in making a soy
fortified product, says Orellana.
After explaining the technical
aspects of using soy flour, Perez
calculated that producing one
kilogram, (a little over two
pounds) of soybean fortified tor
tilla mix would only cost one cent
more than non-fortified tortillas.
The plant owner figured his
company could absorb the minor
additional cost so the price to
consumers remained the same.
Shortly after he began fortifying
the tortilla mix once a week in one
factory the owner noticed that
people were lining up to get the
tortillas produced there.
They like them because they are
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whiter and roll better than regular
tortillas, the factory owner ex
plained.
“Besides improving the color
and texture, an eight percent
addition of soybeans increases the
protein content in the tortillas to
about 14 percent,” Orellana says.
“And it’s much better quality
protein because the soybean amino
acids compliment the com amino
acids.” Now all four factories
fortify tortillas—each using about
9 bushels of soybeans a week—and
are ordering soybeans from the
United States.
These four factories alone are
using around 2000 bushels of
soybeans per year to fortify tor
tillas—roughly equal to the annual
production of an efficient Mid
western soybean farmer. Con
sidering the huge annual Mexican
tortilla consumption it’s easy to
see that inclusion of soy-fortified
flour in tortillas provides a huge
potential market for U.S. soybean
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fanners.
“This is an extension of the
Human Nutrition Center policy to
increase demand through nutrition
education,” Orellana says. “The
people we teach take the message
and go further with it. People in
Mexico are now looking for
soybean products. They are for
ming co-ops and are going to the"
government with their request for
good quality, edible soybean
products.
“Fortifying tortillas is going to
be the real thing in Mexico and
Central America,” Orellana
predicts. “That’s where we can use
most soybeans. Bakers are
probably the biggest users of soy in
the United States. There’s no
reason why they shouldn’t be in
Mexico.”
The Human Nutrition Center
continues to get requests for its
short courses and the staff plans to
carry on spreading the soybean
nutrition message.
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