Classroom Spotlight

For the past 4 years in Chemistry classes our students have learned about nixtamalization, which is a process for making the nutrients of corn available for human digestion. People indigenous to the Americas knew and used this process for thousands of years, subsisting off of corn as a staple. People in Europe did not and did not use corn as a human food source.

Nixtamalization is a chemical process students can engage in in lab, soaking the corn in an alkaline solution to break off the outer layer and observe the changes. It is real world chemistry.

In NE Minneapolis, a restaurant/tortilleria, Nixta makes their own corn tortillas with heirloom corn using the traditional nixtamalization process in their kitchen. https://www.nixtampls.com/

Nixta graciously donated corn tortillas for our students to sample the outcome of this process. They are also sending a video they made to show our students the process in action in their kitchen.