Marxist Bill Dictates How Tortillas Are Made

Marxist Democrats:

"Shut the fuck up and eat what the Hell we tell you to eat."

California famously became the first state to ban foie gras in 2004. Now, the Golden State is targeting another culinary tradition: the handmade tortilla. A new bill in Sacramento, if passed, would mandate adding folic acid to corn masa flour. Pushed under the auspices of public health, the costs of this well-intentioned idea—as always—will disproportionately fall on small businesses.

Assembly Bill 1830, introduced by Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula (D–Fresno), would require all masa manufacturers to fortify their products with folic acid. This will affect producers of tortillas, as well as producers of pupusas, tamales, and taco shells, to name just a few.

The rationale is based on research showing that the ingestion of folic acid by women of reproductive age can reduce neural tube birth defects, such as spina bifida and anencephaly.

The costs of government mandates always fall most heavily on small businesses and entrepreneurs. Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano reports that small-batch tortilla makers—like La Princesita Tortilleria in East Los Angeles—are starting to panic. La Princesita uses the nixtamalization method (involving only corn masa, water, and lime), a culinary heritage that dates back millennia.

Arellano, who likens the taste of mass-produced corn tortillas found in most grocery stores to "the lickable part of an envelope," conducted a blind taste test of La Princesita's traditional tortillas alongside the same tortillas with folic acid. He immediately tasted the difference, with the folic acid version having a distinct but unidentifiable lingering taste, as well as a more rubbery texture while being chewed. La Princesita ran the same test with its employees, who concurred in the inferior taste—not to mention color—of the folic acid version.

"The danger is that tortilla makers who make it the traditional way lose their market advantage over others," Arellano wrote in an email exchange. "That would definitely have an impact on their bottom line, but even worse is the cultural impact. Imagine you practice a foodways that goes back thousands of years, then [are] told by the government you can't do it anymore? Cultural imperialism at its worst!"

California's Tortilla Bill Threatens To Flatten Small Businesses (msn.com)