71–80 of 186 posts
"Quinoa is a low-calorie, gluten-free, high-protein grain that tastes great ." (emphasis mine) I'm a vegetarian, high-mileage distance runner who has every reason to enjoy quinoa. "Tastes great" is not one of the reasons I eat it. I choke it down as best I can because it's good for me.
When I hear of the effect this is having on local farmers and their ability to feed their families, I'm confronted with the question: Do I stop eating quinoa? What is my responsibility?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, I deleted my post because someone else posted at the same time a reasonable explanation - a rice substitute ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6029358 ). Thanks for adding information. My original text: "The arid, cool land that quinoa needs was plentiful, since little else could grow there. And thus far, that trait has made it difficult to grow elsewhere." (posted link) "Protein content is very high for a…
It contains a good amount of all of the essential amino acids (ie the amino acids that your body cannot produce adequately itself). It also has calcium and iron. It's a pretty awesome nutritional food. EDIT: to emphasize, the key advantage of quinoa is that it has a lot of all of the essential amino acids, which is very very rare among plants. I believe the only other plant with all essential amino acids is soy.
When I hear of the effect this is having on local farmers and their ability to feed their families, I'm confronted with the question: Do I stop eating quinoa? What is my responsibility?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this a problem? If quinoa sprouted literal diamonds we wouldn't be upset that the farmers were selling them instead of making their own jewelry. Having your crops be too valuable to eat is a good problem to have; these farmers incomes have more than sextupled. That easily lets them sell the crop and buy other food like everyone else.
Non-farmers in Peru used to be able to afford food. In a sense, they were getting discount-priced quinoa. Now, farmers are selling quinoa to foreigners, so the farmers are making more money, but everyone else is paying more for food. One solution would be to impose some sort of tax, to share the windfall quinoa profits with the former customers, or cooperative community ownership of the farms. Or farmers spending the…
"Quinoa is a low-calorie, gluten-free, high-protein grain that tastes great ." (emphasis mine) I'm a vegetarian, high-mileage distance runner who has every reason to enjoy quinoa. "Tastes great" is not one of the reasons I eat it. I choke it down as best I can because it's good for me.
"Quinoa is a low-calorie, gluten-free, high-protein grain that tastes great ." (emphasis mine) I'm a vegetarian, high-mileage distance runner who has every reason to enjoy quinoa. "Tastes great" is not one of the reasons I eat it. I choke it down as best I can because it's good for me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> farmers consume more quinoa than they sell, and suffer when prices go up. Unless there are other foods they can buy which are cheaper. Then they benefit from the higher prices and don't pay them.
The reason staples are staples is because they're cheapest per calorie. There probably are not replacements that are as cheap per calorie. Remember that subsistence farmers tend to be geographically isolated so you can't assume they have access to the same food products you do.
If the price of the staple increases dramatically, can't they shift towards eating other crops (that they were previously net producers of)?