what is quinoa
What is Quinoa ?
Native to the Andean region of South America, quinoa has been around for thousands of years (Bhargava, A & Srivastava, S, 2013, p.3) providing nutritious food for humans and animals, medicine, and even a repellent from insects (Vega-Galvez, A., et al, p. 2542). After the Spanish conquest the plant was taken over by other crops such as potatoes and barley only to resurface recently (Bhargava, A & Srivastava, S, 2013, p.4). Today quinoa is growing in popularity due to its strong resistance to abiotic factors, the nutritional quality of the grain, and the versatility it can provide to society.
Quinoa being native to a region with unpredictable temperatures, varying altitudes and precipitation makes the plant naturally very resistant to these adverse abiotic factors (Bhagava, A & Srivastava, S, 2013, p.104). In order to thrive over many of thousands of years the plant has adapted methods to tolerate intermittent drought as well as terminal drought that are present in the Andean region (Bhagava, A. & Srivastava, S, 2013, p.114). The importance of drought resistance in a plant is the ability to finish the life cycle and provide a harvest even in unfavourable conditions. This is very important to areas that depend on the crop for survival.
The nutritional quality of quinoa has been recently discovered and spurred a demand for the seeds following the niche market of health foods that has risen in richer countries. Having a higher nutritive value than many commonly consumed cereal grains quinoa is an important emerging crop that needs to be investigated further. The most important aspect of quinoa is the ability for it to provide a complete protein and all essential amino acids needed in the human diet (Vega-Galvez, A. et al. 2010 p. 2543).
The lack of one of these amino acids in the diet plays a large part in the amount of nitrogen absorbed into the diet as well as resulting in poor growth seen in humans (Vega-Galvez, A. et al. 2010 p.2543) (Bhagava, A. &Srivastava, S, 2013 p.5). Along with the protein quality seen in quinoa, high amounts of important vitamins and minerals, carbohydrates, and fat are seen at higher concentrations than other commonly consumed substitutes (Vega-Galvez A. et al .2010 p.2543-2544). With this information being spread it will allow the replacement of a nutritionally inferior grain crop with quinoa resulting in better nutrition for those in developed nations and reduce the malnutrition seen in developing countries.
Finally, quinoa is a very versatile crop with the ability to utilize nearly all components of the plant. Quinoa can be eaten by humans or livestock and provide benefits to both. The most common way quinoa is seen eaten by humans is the seed boiled and served as a side dish replacing rice or cous cous, or made into a salad. The seed can also be ground into flour, used for a hot breakfast cereal, and used as an input product into other processed foods (Bhagava, A. & Srivastava S. 2013 p. 8). For livestock the leaves are high in protein and can be eaten by many breeds as fodder or put into processed feed for poultry (Bhagava, A. &Srivastava, S. 2013 p. 8). With more research and investigation quinoa may emerge as useful in industrial applications, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, cloth dying, the textile industry and many more diverse applications (Bhagava, A. & Srivastava, S. 2013 p.8).
From an underutilized and overlooked crop quinoa is emerging as a useful and potentially staple crop across many countries providing a hearty nutritional crop with many uses. With further research the benefits are endless to both the developed as well as developing nations around the world.