The Dark Truth Behind The Popular Superfood, Quinoa

Posted: 24 Apr 2014 11:47 PM PDT

by Jill Richardson
AlterNet

As the hype around quinoa builds, so do big questions about the problems with its production.

Quinoa is rising up the popularity charts as a food staple in U.S. and Europe. A growing spate of positive coverage cites quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wa) as a high-protein grain-like relative of spinach and beets which is a newly discovered gluten-free superfood. Its growing popularity has also spawned a growing source of controversy, following reports that high global quinoa prices put the crop out of reach for the people who grow it.

Many Americans want to get down to the bottom line: Should I eat it or not? Tanya Kerrsen, a Bolivia-based researcher for Food First who studies quinoa, thinks that is the wrong question.

"The debate has largely been reduced to the invisible hand of the marketplace, in which the only options for shaping our global food system are driven by (affluent) consumers either buying more or buying less," she writes. "…whichever way you press the lever (buy more/buy less) there are bound to be negative consequences, particularly for poor farmers in the Global South."

So what should you know about quinoa and its complex story?

Let's begin by looking at the Bolivian Altiplano, the high flat plain in the Andes where quinoa originates, from the perspective you might have if you were to visit. Two and three miles above sea level, the Quechua (modern-day Inca) and Aymara (a people who pre-date the Inca) still live in the same place where they first domesticated quinoa as well as potatoes and many indigenous crops you've probably never heard of: oca, arracacha, kañawa, isaño, papaliza, and much more.

In the north, around Lake Titicaca, you'll encounter warm days and cold nights. Altitudes range from 10,000 feet and up. Here you'll observe a wide variety of crops and livestock: potatoes, barley, lima beans, sheep, pigs, dairy cows, and even guinea pigs (yes, raised for food). You might see some quinoa, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a single llama, even though they were domesticated in this region.
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