Weight 7.00 lbs Price: $37.04
Posted on 01/17/2013 12:38:00 AM PST by Cronos
Not long ago, quinoa was just an obscure Peruvian grain you could only buy in wholefood shops. We struggled to pronounce it (it's keen-wa, not qui-no-a), yet it was feted by food lovers as a novel addition to the familiar ranks of couscous and rice. Dieticians clucked over quinoa approvingly because it ticked the low-fat box and fitted in with government healthy eating advice to "base your meals on starchy foods".
Adventurous eaters liked its slightly bitter taste and the little white curls that formed around the grains. Vegans embraced quinoa as a credibly nutritious substitute for meat. Unusual among grains, quinoa has a high protein content (between 14%-18%), and it contains all those pesky, yet essential, amino acids needed for good health that can prove so elusive to vegetarians who prefer not to pop food supplements.
Sales took off. Quinoa was, in marketing speak, the "miracle grain of the Andes", a healthy, right-on, ethical addition to the meat avoider's larder (no dead animals, just a crop that doesn't feel pain). Consequently, the price shot up – it has tripled since 2006 – with more rarified black, red and "royal" types commanding particularly handsome premiums.
But there is an unpalatable truth to face for those of us with a bag of quinoa in the larder. The appetite of countries such as ours for this grain has pushed up prices to such an extent that poorer people in Peru and Bolivia, for whom it was once a nourishing staple food, can no longer afford to eat it. Imported junk food is cheaper. In Lima, quinoa now costs more than chicken. Outside the cities, and fuelled by overseas demand, the pressure is on to turn land that once produced a portfolio of diverse crops into quinoa monoculture.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Embarrassingly, for those who portray it as a progressive alternative to planet-destroying meat, soya production is now one of the two main causes of deforestation in South America, along with cattle ranching, where vast expanses of forest and grassland have been felled to make way for huge plantations.
all that stuff came to a big screeching halt when Obama became President. The world economy fell off a ledge and it can’t get up. PLUS we have this enormous drought in Eurasia and North America. It’s a regular aspect of this planet ~ about once in every 80 years (give or take a few) we have this enormous drought. prices go up.
Are most of the people who eat quinoa vegans? I doubt it. I’ve had dishes at restaurants before. I never realized it was evil.
Well, there’s tasty Mississippian indian sumpweed yet to try.
and there's Illinois bundleflower...
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” - Obama accepts the nomination in 2008.
All the sapolins in quinoa have to be removed because it will give you the runs. It will anyway.
I’ve never had it, but I know that my vegan friend went ga-ga over this a year ago as it was a substitute for meat.
I did. The taste and consistency was a big clue.
Weight 7.00 lbs Price: $37.04
I don’t really follow why everything it mentions are so bad. If you don’t share their hipster, leftist assumptions it all sounds like discussion of Hegelian dialectics or exegesis on the Koran.
I don’t like the “little white curls” they talk about. It creeps me out. I don’t like grains that move while I’m eating them.
I’m with ya.
Polk Salad.
Dandelion seed is THE way to go.
I’ve had quinoa several times and I actually enjoy it. it’s a little bland to say the least, but it’s a great substitute when I don’t want to feel “heavy” with pasta.
But, it was a stroke of marketing genius. All the socially responsible little leftists can have somebody else cook it, then zoom into the parking lot in their little SUV that doesn't get any better mileage than the big ones, run in with the engine running and the doors locked so FooFoo doesn't get hot or cold, buy four trays full on the way home from their government job and zoom back home to nourish the PC brood in time to hit a few downtown bars while househusband babysits.
As with all things Progressive, there can never be a silver lining without a dark heavy rain cloud near by.
The think that gets me is the name! Every bag and box of it has this: Quinoa — Pronounced “Keen-wha”... You know what? If you got to spell out how people should say it, maybe that's what you should name it! It's pretentious!
Eh, it’s not that bad. There is pasta made out of it that is reasonably good - folks like me who are allergic to wheat eat it.
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