What do you know about Quinoa?

In the interest of making our diet better, we have started doing a number of things, most of which comes from wanting to lose some weight, reduce health risks, improve our life style, while finding different and tastier ways to do it in the process. We are already pretty healthy, and have improved our diet from where it was, but we knew there is still more we can do.

We are improving our lifestyle by making it more active, which is tougher than you might think, as we grow older. People get set in their routines and tend to do what is easier, mostly because it feels good and takes less effort. This might appear to be a seamless way to feel good while your body tells you that you can't do the things the way you used to, but it comes at a price. Your weight creeps up, fractions at a time, and those pants are just a little tighter than before. You find that because you are taking it easier than you used to, anytime you need to do something more than you are now doing with "the new you", it's harder to get started, you feel it afterward, or in some cases, you just can't do it. Our weight is up slightly, but it's the effects of slowing down that is a bit disturbing.

Now we are not an extreme case here. We are just noticing that these things are taking place and we are not happy about it. We both still work hard, we stay mildly active, and I'm developing a workout routine to get me back into better shape. I have always been relatively active, so I can feel the changes taking place as a result of the relaxed life style, and I don't like what I can feel is happening as a result. With grandchildren now a part of our life, we have no interest in becoming the kind of grandparents content to sit on the couch, while they are urging us to get up and take part in their play.

My wife, Sue, has taken this on as, not only an interesting and fun way to learn more about cooking, but has found a way to educate us both on the plethora of other things out there we hardly knew existed.

Barnes and Nobel has become a more frequent stop for us. At first we were both looking for some light entertainment reading, but as we have taken more of an interest in feeling great and fitting better in our clothes, we are spending more time in the cooking/recipe section of the store. Sue has picked up books on herbs and spices, slow cooker recipes, and low-cholesterol cooking, but the most recent of these is a gluten-free bible.

She is experimenting with a lot of new recipies she is finding and sometimes our kitchen turns into more of a science lab, but it is fun and a bit exciting to try new recipes, some with things we already are familiar with, but it's the things we know nothing about that are the most intriguing... which leads me to a little seed plant called quinoa.

It wasn't familiar to us, although in conversation with my #2 son, he knew a little about it. As we dug a little deeper, we found this to be something that has been around for quite a while, but not largely known to the general public (at least by my limited and informal survey).

Quinoa originated in the Andean region of Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, where it was successfully domesticated 3,000 to 4,000 years ago for human consumption, though archaeological evidence shows a non-domesticated association with pastoral herding some 5,200 to 7,000 years ago, so it has been around for a long long time. It is a species of goosefoot, is a grain crop grown primarily for its edible seeds, and is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beetroots, spinach and tumbleweeds (who would have ever suspected this?).
You can read all about this curious little seed in Wikipedia under Quinoa.

Anyway, the more we investigated into quinoa, the more interesting it became. If you look in the article, Five Health Benefits of Eating Quinoa, it tells you quinoa is quickly becoming a nutritional superstar. Some of the highlighted benefits are:

1. Quinoa promotes healthy bone growth
2. Quinoa can help reduce cholesterol
3. Quinoa is high in riboflavin
4. Quinoa’s high magnesium content promotes cardiovascular health
5. Quinoa helps prevent gallstones

It is also covered in LIVESTRONG, The Natural News, and The World's Healthiest Foods.

That's all the good news. 
Two downsides of all of this are:

1. It's not cheap. Despite all of the pluses, quinoa, in it's various available forms of seed, flakes, flour, pasta, etc, is going to cost  more. This puzzles me with all of the history, benefits, and articles written about it. By any volume you want to talk about, this little seed is going to raise to the cost of groceries by whatever percentage you choose to use it.
2. Availability is limited. Don't think you are going to find it at your local grocery story or supermarket. You need to look for it on-line to find some place near you, and call them to make sure. Walmart says on-line they have it, but in going there, the tiny gluten-free section there gave no sign of it. WINCO Foods has it, but they have limited locations (Washington, Idaho, California, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, and Texas). Whole Foods also has quinoa, and is a great place to shop, but they can be a bit pricey, and are also in limited locations. There are also lots of places on-line where you can find it, like Vitacost. Prices here are quite a bit better.

What I do recommend is if you decide to give this a try, find a recipe that sounds appetizing, get a small quantity, and see where it takes you. 

I'm anxious to dig deeper into this little seed. I'll let you know if it's all it's "cracked" up to be.