Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] processing quinoa ?

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Graham <grahamburnett@blueyonder.co.uk>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] processing quinoa ?
  • Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 23:38:21 +0100



Lisa in Oregon wrote:

Not sure it's entirely appropriate for this list, but then I'm not
sure if any other list would be better...

I grew a few quinoa plants. The harvested grains are brown. Seeds planted ranged in color from tan to brown (it's "Qunioa - Multihued").

I've got them soaking, and have agitated, very little soapiness and the seeds are still bitter. After 24 hours of soaking they have a
nice soaked grain texture, nice except for the terrible bitter aftertaste. Am I missing something?

Yup you should change the soak water at least 2 or 3 times before consumption. The bitter saponins (cause of soupiness) help to keep the birds at bay. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa


4 Saponin content

In its natural state quinoa has a coating of bitter-tasting saponins <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saponin>, making it essentially unpalatable. Most quinoa sold commercially in North America has been processed to remove this coating. Some have speculated that this bitter coating may have caused the Europeans who first encountered quinoa to reject it as a food source, even as they adopted other indigenous products of the Americas like maize <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize> and potatoes <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato>. However, this bitterness has beneficial effects in terms of cultivation, as it is a crop that is is relatively untouched by birds and thus requires minimal protection. There have been attempts made to lower the saponin content of quinoa through selective breeding in order to produce sweeter and more palatable varieties of the crop. However when these varieties were introduced by agronomists to native growers in the high plateaux, they were rejected after just one season. The growers returned to their traditional high saponin varieties, the reason being that despite the newer varieties giving 'magnificent' yields, birds had consumed the entire crop.

The saponin content in quinoa can be mildly toxic, as can be the oxalic acid <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalic_acid> content found in the leaves of all of the chenopodium family. However the risks associated with quinoa are minimal provided that it is properly prepared and leaves are not eaten to excess.




Lisa in Ashland Oregon



__________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
http://farechase.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture








Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page