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Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

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Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#101

Post by lsc »

artsrc wrote: post #48
lukasb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember seeing a headline in Thailand "rise in rice prices hits small farmers hard". I've seen similar things in Kenya: "high maize prices devastate small farmers." It turns out many subsistence farmers (of which there are roughly a billion) are net consumers of their staple crop. In order to survive, the poor diversify across a variety of agricultural products. Large industrial farming operations are growing the…

> 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.

Something you sell is, generally speaking, more vulnerable to confiscation than something you make yourself... I mean, taxes, for example, are generally levied between when you sell a thing and when you buy food. (in my jurisdiction, I don't have to pay sales tax when buying food I intend to eat, but if I sold something to afford that food, I'd have to pay taxes on that income. If I grew food for my own personal use, there would be no taxes involved.) For me? It's not a huge deal because food (and housing and other post-tax expenditures... ) is a very small portion of what my business brings in,(most of my expenditures are things like electricity and payroll, which come out of the business pre-tax) but i imagine it makes a difference for sustenance farmers.

I mean, I'm not saying taxation is the only way it's easier for others to get their hands on your crops if the crops are bought and sold... but it's one of the more clear examples.

Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#102

Post by kroger »

mikestew wrote: post #51

"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.

You may want to try red quinoa. It has a stronger, nutty flavor.

Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#103

Post by acchow »

marshray wrote: post #94
lukasb wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More typically, farmers produce 10 units, sell 3, and buy another 10 later in the year. Hence any rise in price is a net loss for them.

How did that ever work?

It didn't. You're just reading bullshit economics masquerading as insight.

Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#104

Post by whyenot »

ubernostrum wrote: post #59
a_c_s wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quinoa is a grain, which is technically a seed. I'm confused about the refrigeration comment though - I make quinoa all the time and have not had that issue.

"Grain" typically means the seeds of cereal grasses, of the family Poaceae. Quinoa is the seed of a plant from family Amaranthaceae; it's not a grass, it's a leafy plant from the same taxonomic group as beets and spinach. This leads to it being referred to as a "pseudocereal grain" if it's called a "grain" at all.

cereal grains (from the Poaceae) actually are both a seed and a fruit. In most grasses the ovary wall (fruit) and the seed are fused together into a structure called a caryopsis. Sometimes the ovary wall is milled off before consumption (often with wheat), sometimes not (corn, oats). Grain is not a well defined term, at least botanically. Soybeans, corn and wheat are all considered grains by some (for example, some departments of the US government).

Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#105

Post by dwiel »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #95

Quinoa gives me such gut-wrenching pain that I can no longer convince myself to eat it. My girlfriend is vegetarian which is why I have such great armchair-scientific experience in describing this potentially-foul food. I've been told to wash the Quinoa to remove the saponin from it before cooking, which worked on occasion. But when you get that gut-pain from eating Quinoa even once it's an incredibly strong deterren…

I did. I had to take medicatipn and stop eating rice for a year or so. Now, I can eat rice as long as my stomach isnt aleady upset from something else. I love quinoa.

Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#106

Post by anigbrowl »

Quinoa should be taking over the world.

Why? It has some nutritional benefits and it tastes OK, but that's all. I wouldn't want to eat it all the time. This is a crap story, with this bolted-on conspiracy near the end that quinoa is losing out because it can't compete with Big Ag. Give it a chance to succeed or fail on its own merits - because it might well be a fad, like Acai berries were two years ago.

Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#107

Post by DigitalSea »

Quinoa is the perfect rice substitute. I switched over to Quinoa about 3 years ago instead of rice. Even though it's super expensive (especially in Australia) it has health benefits that far outweigh other suitable grains that can be used as a rice substitute. Steam some vegetables, put them into a bowl with Quinoa, cook a nice massive mushroom and sit the Quinoa on-top and then sprinkle some Himalayan Rock Salt over the top and you've got yourself a delicious healthy meal.

Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#108

Post by latch »

scythe wrote: post #80

Quinoa, famous for protein and fiber content, still contains less protein and fiber than, say, oatmeal. It's okay - hyperventilating paleo bloggers have raised concerns about saponins -- but the whole "superfood" frenzy about quinoa is just a tad off base. It's okay, not bad for you, probably better than white rice or processed food, but most of what quinoa has going for it is simply that it is real and unmodified. I…

"Probably better than processed food" ?

It's gluten free, which is important for some people (a lot if you buy into wheat belly). It's another source of a complete protein, which is important for vegans.

Not all popular health foods get converted into crap. There might be unhealthy variants of these, but fruits, vegetables, legumes, fish and soy tend to be popular and healthy. I'd even say that processed foods which are based on these, like french fries, are better than those based on sugar (like a chocolate bar).

It's about perspective. In a world where people eat fabricated sugars and fat, you're doing a disservice to it. It is, categorically, healthy.

Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#109

Post by DigitalSea »

scythe wrote: post #80

Quinoa, famous for protein and fiber content, still contains less protein and fiber than, say, oatmeal. It's okay - hyperventilating paleo bloggers have raised concerns about saponins -- but the whole "superfood" frenzy about quinoa is just a tad off base. It's okay, not bad for you, probably better than white rice or processed food, but most of what quinoa has going for it is simply that it is real and unmodified. I…

Would you use Oatmeal in place of rice though? I couldn't picture a healthy curry or stir-fry that used Oatmeal instead of Quinoa in place of rice, could you?

Re: Quinoa should be taking over the world. This is why it isn’t

#110

Post by ufo »

windsurfer wrote: post #66
lukasb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember seeing a headline in Thailand "rise in rice prices hits small farmers hard". I've seen similar things in Kenya: "high maize prices devastate small farmers." It turns out many subsistence farmers (of which there are roughly a billion) are net consumers of their staple crop. In order to survive, the poor diversify across a variety of agricultural products. Large industrial farming operations are growing the…

I still don't understand. If a farmer produces 10 units of quinoa and sell 4 every year, they'll still produce 10 units no matter what the price is. They'll still be able to sell 4 units, and still be able to consume 6. The only difference would be that farmers will make more of a profit selling the 4 units. The only possible explanation would be that the resources (farming equipment, seeds, fertilizer?) required to…

The problem is that not everyone is a quinoa farmer or farms mainly quinoa. For example, here in Brazil we have a similar problem with Açai - if you are not an Açai farmer (fisherman, farm something else, etc) then the rising Açai prices are very bad.
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