The Truth About Tortillas

Tortillas always seemed like and innocent & healthy food to me. Then I read the labels from a heart healthy viewpoint - wow! I'll summarize and then explain:

The only form of tortilla that is heart healthy is soft corn tortillas.
Every form of flour tortilla does more harm to your heart than good.


That's it - soft corn is what is allowed in a heart healthy diet. Here are the facts to back this up from Mission Tortillas (it is the same for all other brands, I just have the mission facts handy):

• Mission Medium-Sized Flour Tortillas (1 tortilla): 440mg sodium, 3.5g fat.
• Mission Medium-Sized 96% Fat Free Tortillas (1 tortilla): 330mg sodium, 1.5g fat.
• Mission Yellow Corn Tortillas (2 tortillas): 10mg sodium, 1g fat.

Look at those sodium counts! Consider an average meal uses 2 tortillas (2 tacos or 1 quesadilla) and, then, 2 standard flour tortillas have 880 mg of sodium. What is humorous is that Mission marks their "96% fat free" tortillas as "heart healthy." You cannot call an ingredient "heart healthy" when it contributes 660 mg of sodium to your meal - that is ludicrous!

Anyway, the good news is corn tortillas ROCK - not only do 2 tortillas contain a measly 10 mg of sodium, but they also contain upwards of 40 mg of potassium (e.g., corn tortillas are a 4:1 potassium:sodium food vs flour which are a 1:5 potassium:sodium food). Corn tortillas add nothing but pure positives to your high potassium/low sodium/low fat heart healthy diet.