$Unique_ID{COW00441}
$Pretitle{266}
$Title{Bolivia
Quinua, the Miracle Grain}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Manuel Vargas}
$Affiliation{Embassy of Bolivia, Washington DC}
$Subject{quinua
food
grain
bolivia

}
$Date{1989}
$Log{}
Country:     Bolivia
Book:        The Cultural Guide of Bolivia
Author:      Manuel Vargas
Affiliation: Embassy of Bolivia, Washington DC
Date:        1989

Quinua, the Miracle Grain

     Once spurned as a low-class "Indian food" a high-protein grain cultivated
for centuries by Inca communities in the Andes could help solve hunger
problems in the Third World, according to a U.S. group that has begun
marketing it.

     The grain, calle quinua (pronounced KEEN-wa), already has made its way
into health food stores in the U.S. and is having a renaissance here.

     Texas A & M University, in a recent report, said quinua "is about 18
percent high quality protein and is superior in food value to most other
grains in the world." In comparison, standard tables show wheat to contain
just 11 percent protein and corn 3.5 percent.

     "Quinua can be grown in places with extremely poor soil but where
malnutrition is rampant. It resists the most severe climates," said Stephen
Gorad, the president of the Quinua Corp, of Boulder, Colorado during a recent
visit to Bolivia. "Its future is unlimited."

     Quinua Corp, and Sierra Blanca Associates, a nonprofit organization in
Boulder, imported 20 tons of the grain to the western United States. They say
they hope to go nationwide soon and are putting together recipes for the use
of quinua in salads, casseroles and desserts.

     Quinua also can be eaten in its natural state, in granola. According to
Sierra Blanca, quinua "is an unexplored grain that might prove to be an
important addition to the U.S. food system." Also, the organization says, it
could become a cheap, easily grown substitute for wheat that many Third World
countries are now hard-pressed to import.

     Sierra Blanca says quinua is being grown experimentally in eight U.S.
Western states. Planting is being expanded in South America and tests are
under way in Europe, Japan and China, the group says.

     People in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador make quinua into flakes, roll it in
cereal form and grind it into flour for bread and cakes. When cooked, it
tastes somewhat like wild rice.

     "You can use it for practically anything," sais Fortunato Chejo, 40, an
Aymara Indian farmer in Huatahuaya, near the shore of Lake Titicaca at 12,000
feet, as he showed a visitor sorghum - like clusters of lavender, white and
brown quinua seeds.

     "Also," he said, "when a drought two years ago destroyed almost all our
crops, the only thing that survived was quinua."

     That dry spell wiped out about half of Bolivia's potatoes, barley and
corn, but quinua was barely affected. Without quinua, the food situation in
Bolivia could have become disastrous.

     In the era before the Spanish conquest, the ruler of the vast Inca empire
would signal the importance of the start of each year's quinua season by
personally planting the first row of seeds with a golden spade. The Incas
called quinua the "mother grain of the Andes".

     But after the Spanish conquest of South America in the 1500s, the hardy
grain was largely ignored. It was a food that Spaniards wouldn't eat. That
didn't start to change until very recently, but still there is resistance.

     "In the areas of greatest quinua production, it's still hard to find
quinua in restaurants", Gorad said in an interview. "You ask for it, and South
Americans are embarrassed to admit knowledge of it. Commercials on radio and
television here promote refined foods that have only a fraction of quinua's
nutrients and are much more expensive."

     "But", the quinua importer pointed out, "the Andes region of South
America gave the world potatoes and now quinua is being revived as an
important food source."