Thousands of years ago, in the mountains of Peru, Chile, and Bolivia, the people of the Inca empire ate a diet rich in plants like peppers, squash, corn, and avocados. But their mother grain or chisaya mama was quinoa. The Incas believed that quinoa was sacred.
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But because of this spiritual importance, when the Spanish colonized South America in the 16th century, they banned its cultivation. And instead, they replaced it with wheat. But what they didn’t know at the time was that the Incas were onto something: quinoa is special. It is not only a nutritional powerhouse, but it could even be the answer to world hunger. Here’s everything you need to know about the ancient crop, including how to cook it yourself from home.
What is quinoa?
Commonly thought of as a grain, quinoa is actually a “pseudo-grain.” This means that it mimics the nutritional content of…