Ate it for the first time last night and loved it. I thought everyone should be aware of this little grain. The ONLY non-animal source for a complete protein (all 9 amino acids), pretty much zero fat, and absolutely delicious. Here’s what I did:
Boil the hell out of it (15 min at a 2:1 water to grain ratio) in lightly salted water until the moisture was all taken up. Add chopped cilantro, diced tomatoes, more salt, a little pepper, basil and the kicker was 2 tsp of chili and bay leaf marinated extra virgin olive oil (throw a chili pepper and bay leaf in your olive oil bottle).
The best part is that it was filling… and didn’t leave me hungry after 2 hrs like rice does.
Hey I read Mark Allen used to eat a lot of that stuff and swore by it 15 years ago. Glad you’re bringing it back up, 'cause I’m finally going ot try it.
It’s a good source of omega-9 and omega-6 fatty acids. Like kamut, it’s got a higher fatty acid content that most grains. Lots of iron, calcium, magnesium plus other minerals, and a fairly efficient protein. Slightly better than a peanut.
It’s more accurate to describe it as efficient rather than complete because in actuality ALL plant foods have all the essential amino acids, and are hence “complete”, but not necessarily “efficient” because they’re not in the correct ratios necessary for us peeps.
I love cooking up stews and stir-fries and serving them on a bed of quinoa.
Oh yah, because of the higher fatty acid content, make sure you store it in a fridge if you’re not going to consume it quickly. It will go rancid.
It’s more accurate to describe it as efficient rather than complete because in actuality ALL plant foods have all the essential amino acids, and are hence “complete”, but not necessarily “efficient” because they’re not in the correct ratios necessary for us peeps.
Kind of a semantic quibble - if a plant source has only trace amounts of an essential amino acid, or a non-bioavailable form, it might as well have none. Not that it really matters as with a little planning one can have a perectly complete vegan diet.
Hey xen355, I’m intrigued by this stuff, I’ll get some next time I go to the store. I searched on the web and found this cooking idea:
Toast the grain in a dry skillet for five minutes before cooking to give it a delicious roasted flavor. To cook, use two parts liquid to one part quinoa. Combine the liquid and toasted quinoa in a medium saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook until the grains are translucent and the germ has spiraled out from each grain, about 15 minutes.
Quinoa are the seeds of a plant distantly related to spinach.
PS: My computer must have bugged out on me, because I don’t know how I made that comparison between quinoa and peanuts. In any case quinoa is a good source of protein.
It may seem minor, but that “semantic quibble” has IMO created a huge misperception that plants are not a good source of protein. On the contrary, they most certainly are. (sorry gordo) Heck even the word “efficient” still plays into that trap.
While I can’t address the issue of bioavailibility - that seems to me to be more a problem for minerals than amino acids - I can say that you will be surprised to see how many plants have much more than trace amounts of essential amino acids. I dare you to do a search on http://www.nutritiondata.com for things like broccoli, spinach, amaranth, kiwi, and tomatoes. An amino acid score of 50 or better is certainly not what I’d call “trace”.
But you’re absolutely right that it doesn’t matter, nutritionally speaking. Where it does matter is in public-opnion & public misperception.
Maybe some vegans take offense because meat eaters are calling their foods “imcomplete” or of lesser quality than good old fashioned meat. I don’t know if that’s the case, but it shouldn’t be.
The site you gave is very cool, but I will note that it makes the following disclaimer:
The Amino Acid Score has not been corrected for digestibility, which could reduce its value.
It’s pretty well documented that populations who rely primarily on a single vegetable protein source often suffer amino-acid deficiencies, though we’re mainly talking about developing countries. But there are reports in the US that vegan children are sometimes behind omnivores in terms of growth.
That’s not to say that vegetables/grains are “bad” sources of protein, or that there aren’t real health benefits from a vegan diet. Nor does one require meat to get their essential amino acids. But I do think a vegan diet takes a little more planning, esp. with children.