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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

#111

Post by latch »

anigbrowl wrote: post #106

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.

Because a huge number of people suffer from malnutrition, and a nutritionally dense plant which provides a complete protein, is special.

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

#112

Post by jccalhoun »

jff wrote: post #19
[deleted] wrote: post #16

[deleted]

That was my question coming out of the article: why exactly do we want quinoa? The native Americans stopped growing it because it didn't yield well enough. Modern farmers have had trouble growing it here in the US. And I've never found the taste astounding, so I find myself wondering why we don't stick to rice, soy, lentils, beans, corn, and wheat?

Because it is gluten free which is trendy (I'm not saying there aren't people who do have heath problems with gluten) and it itself is trendy.

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

#113

Post by jffry »

switch007 wrote: post #35

A quick search revealed that quinoa is between £4.50 and £8 a kilo in the UK and brown rice is £1-£4 (depending on quality). To the rice you could just add some bran (£2/kilo, but you don't need much) and another, cheap source of protein to make it similar to quinoa's nutirtional values.

Which is great, as long as you're able to tolerate gluten. I know two people with Celiac disease, and quinoa is a godsend to them.

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

#114

Post by lnanek2 »

jessaustin wrote: post #23

Some puzzling stuff in this article. We're apparently to believe that Colorado's transportation infrastructure is far behind that of the Bolivian Andes?

Transportation in our mountains doesn't have to be worse than theirs, just bad enough to prevent our farmers from farming the areas. One of the reasons Japan has so much cool electronics is that a successful manufacturing run their is much smaller. A product could sell one tenth what it does in the US and still be seen as a success, but the the US one a failure.

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

#115

Post by mikestew »

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.

Thanks for the ideas and the recipes. I'll admit that my experience has been off the Whole Foods food bar (and a few other places). It wasn't tasty enough to try at home, so I never bothered. Enough folks here tell me I'm crazy that I'll give it a go at preparing it myself.

For the next episode of "Ask HN: food preparation", how about a way to make tempeh edible? That I have tried at home enough times that I gave up. :-)

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

#116

Post by wslh »

cgh wrote: post #100
elemeno wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be a little weary of keeping cooked rice for a week, even in a good fridge (my fridge stays at a solid 2C, which keeps most things good to eat for long than you'd think!). Rice is a surprisingly good vector for food poisoning due to it's often carrying Bacillus Cereus spores which are heat resistant and can then germinate and grow in the fridge - most of the sources I've seen suggest that you shouldn't keep cooke…

Jeepers, that's scary. I've never had such bad luck - in truth, we normally don't have rice around for more than five days. But even that sounds like it could be too long.

I never eat something in the refrigerator after three days there.

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

#117

Post by justin66 »

Duhck wrote: post #97
stock_toaster wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes a huge difference, and is how I prefer it as well.

Wait, you mean adding salt to your food makes it palatable?! Eureka! Seriously, if I need to boil something in sodium to make it taste great, that kind of defeats the purpose.

He said stock. Salt is not needed, and there are plenty of decent ways to make a great vegetable stock without it.

That said, it's not clear why you'd regard adding a little salt as bad unless you had a serious medical condition prohibiting it. I get that you'd want to avoid the absurd amounts a lot of prepared foods include, just for taste.

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

#118

Post by mattebb »

dghughes wrote: post #52
echohack wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people who turn into a giant balloon when they eat gluten, yes, it's a Big Deal. The people around them too - it's typically a hazard to even have glutenous foods in the area, so it's much easier for families to just go gluten free. I'm talking about chrone's or celiac's disease people here, not ignorant folks who are basing their diets on some Paleo diet voodoo that's fashionable. Also, have you had Quinoa? That…

>I'm talking about chrone's or celiac's disease people here, not ignorant folks who are basing their diets on some Paleo diet voodoo that's fashionable. I'd say that's the problem it's trendy to talk about gluten and be on a paleo diet and it turns people off. It seems a very small percentage of the population has celiac disease or Crohn's from what I can find it's 0.75% and 0.1% respectively of the general populatio…

Side note: Crohn's doesn't really have anything to do with gluten. Some people claim a GF diet helps them, but the disease itself is different to Celiac, and there's not much hard evidence to show that a GF diet helps in any way.

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

#119

Post by mikestew »

kevinconroy wrote: post #77
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.

Try this recipe for a Quinoa Burrito Bowl. Even my children love it, which is saying something. http://www.makebetterfood.com/recipes/quinoa-burrito-bowl/

From the recipe alone, I think you have a winner. Thanks!

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

#120

Post by al1x »

etler wrote: post #92
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…

Oatmeal is very dense. Calorie for Calorie Quinoa has more protein and dietary fiber than oatmeal. 100 calories of Quinoa http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=83+g+quinoa 100 calories of Oatmeal http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=26+g+oatmeal However if you look at the vitamins, oatmeal wins. I also wouldn't call Quinoa a super food, but it does fill a gap left by other grains and is definitely a worthy addition to…

The source you really want to use for nutrition information is the USDA National Nutrient Database.

See http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/6359?fg=&man=&lfacet=... and http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/1866

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