Quinoa is another of those foods that keeps getting miscategorized— everyone thinks it’s a grain, everyone uses it like a grain, but it’s actually a seed. Anyway, who really cares? You know how the old saying goes … if it looks like a grain and it acts like a grain … Same principle.
The Stuff “War Balls” Are Made Of Quinoa was known by the Incas as the “mother of grains.” They used the seeds of this plant as one of their chief sources of nutrition. In fact, legend has it that the Incan armies frequently marched for days at a time eating a mixture of quinoa and fat known as “war balls,” and at planting time tradition demanded that the Incan leader would plant the first quinoa seed using a gold shovel. Quinoa is a highly nutritious food and is considered a high-protein “grain.” The protein quality and quantity in quinoa seed is often superior to those of more common cereal grains, and the nutritional quality of this crop has been compared to that of dried whole milk by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Quinoa is higher in lysine than wheat (lysine is an amino acid that’s scarce in the vegetable kingdom), and the amino acid content of quinoa seed in general is considered well balanced for human and animal nutrition, and similar to that of casein.
Preparing and Eating Quinoa
You can use quinoa to make flour, soup, or breakfast cereal. Most quinoa has been sold as whole grain that is cooked separately as rice or in combination dishes such as pilaf. Noted natural-foods expert and author Rebecca Wood suggests cooking about 2 cups of stock or water per cup of Quinoa, which should yield about 3 cups of cooked grain and take only about 15 minutes to prepare. She reminds us that it is as versatile as rice (and, in my opinion, a good deal better for us) and can be substituted for rice in any recipe, or used as a side dish. Quinoa has a lower sodium content and is higher in calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, copper, manganese, and zinc than wheat, barley, or corn. It’s particularly high in iron—1/2 cup contains almost 8 mg, way more than any other cereal grain, a hefty 5 g of fiber.
The Stuff “War Balls” Are Made Of Quinoa was known by the Incas as the “mother of grains.” They used the seeds of this plant as one of their chief sources of nutrition. In fact, legend has it that the Incan armies frequently marched for days at a time eating a mixture of quinoa and fat known as “war balls,” and at planting time tradition demanded that the Incan leader would plant the first quinoa seed using a gold shovel. Quinoa is a highly nutritious food and is considered a high-protein “grain.” The protein quality and quantity in quinoa seed is often superior to those of more common cereal grains, and the nutritional quality of this crop has been compared to that of dried whole milk by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Quinoa is higher in lysine than wheat (lysine is an amino acid that’s scarce in the vegetable kingdom), and the amino acid content of quinoa seed in general is considered well balanced for human and animal nutrition, and similar to that of casein.
Preparing and Eating Quinoa
You can use quinoa to make flour, soup, or breakfast cereal. Most quinoa has been sold as whole grain that is cooked separately as rice or in combination dishes such as pilaf. Noted natural-foods expert and author Rebecca Wood suggests cooking about 2 cups of stock or water per cup of Quinoa, which should yield about 3 cups of cooked grain and take only about 15 minutes to prepare. She reminds us that it is as versatile as rice (and, in my opinion, a good deal better for us) and can be substituted for rice in any recipe, or used as a side dish. Quinoa has a lower sodium content and is higher in calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, copper, manganese, and zinc than wheat, barley, or corn. It’s particularly high in iron—1/2 cup contains almost 8 mg, way more than any other cereal grain, a hefty 5 g of fiber.
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