Selects: The Quinoa Revolution!

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

0:31aka neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Happy Saturday. Hi, everybody. Chuck here. We're going to go back in time today with this selection to February 7th, 2017. The quinoa revolution. mainly because I don't remember much about this one and I have to listen to these again, so I'm going to listen and I hope you do too. Learn everything you always wanted to know and more about quinoa right now.

1:14Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

1:23Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Charles W. Chuck Bryant's right there. Jerry's right there. It's a little chilly in here. So it's Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. Because it's chilly? That's the cherry on top. That's right. Spoiler, or not spoiler, teaser. At the end of this episode, let's say between the end and before listener mail, that's agreeable to you. At the 43-minute mark. We are going to taste Soylent for the first time live on the air. Yeah. I guess I should have thought this through. I took them out of the fridge already, so we've got 43 minutes for it to warm up.

2:07Should we put them back? Well, I wouldn't, you know, I wasn't going to say anything. Then I was going to say something. Should I put them back? Well, it's probably best cold, don't you think? Well, hang on, everybody.

2:20So yes, we're going to try Soylent eventually in this episode. That's right. I'm excited. To try Soylent or to talk about quinoa? Both. Okay. So Chuck, you just kind of gave it away alongside the title. Sure. We're talking about quinoa today, not quinoa. No. Quinoa. That's right. But. It's a superfood. Yes. Some say. Yeah. I mean, you can make a pretty good claim that it is a superfood. And what is a superfood if not a type of food that has a lot going on just in and of itself? Yeah, it's super. Yeah. Like blueberries are superfood. Or acai berries. Superfood? Yeah. Or acai berries. Yeah. Algae?

3:08I didn't know what algae was. Oh, yeah. I buy that. Hemp seeds? Sure. Chia seeds? Yeah. A lot of nuts. Ritz crackers? I don't know. No. Those are just super. Right. Super delicious. And buttery. Yeah, with my crab dip especially. Oh, I'll bet. One day maybe I'll find out. What, you just want me to bring you crab dip? Yeah. Give me a cooking lesson. So quinoa, there are at least 120 varieties, and it is nothing new. It's been around. In fact, we might as well delve into a little history here. Yes, let's. It's been cultivated for, geez, more than 5 ,000 years. I saw up to 8 ,000 years. Wow. That's more than 5 ,000.

3:54Sure. Well, I guess we could say more than five years. Right. More than the last six months, quinoa has been around on this planet. Yeah. And it's an Andean plant and specifically originated around Lake Titicaca in Peru. Yeah. In Bolivia. In the Altiplano. Yeah. It's wonderful. Wonderful area. Have you been? I don't know, but just look at photos. Sure, Machu Picchu. Yeah. You're like, well, look at that place. Exactly. One day, maybe. I'd like to go for sure. But there is historical evidence of it being domesticated, like we said, maybe as long as 8 ,000 years ago, and they even saw in ancient tombs, they saw little archaeological drawings and things, what they think is quinoa.

4:42Right. So people were ingesting it and using it as a superfood way back when. Yeah, and the fact that it grew up there or grows up there, and not only grows but thrives up in this high, rocky, I think pretty much arid plateau that's also very cold. It doesn't make any sense that you'd have anything but alpacas and llamas up there. But in fact, there's a plant that's one of the most nutritious foods on the planet that just so happens to thrive up there in Bolivia and Peru in the highlands. That's pretty awesome. It is. And so, of course, they have used this for thousands and thousands of years.

5:23And it wasn't until, I think, the early 20th century that it really started to make its way for the first time out to the United States. I think the USDA got their hands on it and tried to get farmers to grow it here in the States, and they say, nah, let's give it another 100 years maybe, a little less. Yeah, I mean the 21st century is when it really kind of became popular. Right. And even in the last, geez, mid-2000s, you can even talk about it being trendy. Well, supposedly the whole trend for quinoa, which by the way in typical Stuff You Should Know fashion, has already come and gone, and now we're doing an episode on it.

6:02Oh, it's not gone. Are you sure? Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, do you know how quinoa hit the map, hit the scene? Well, in a lot of different ways. I assume you think it's one thing only. Right. Oprah. Yeah, she had something to do with it for sure. She was on some sort of cleanse diet in 2008, and she ate quinoa and mushrooms, I guess. And everybody was like, what is that? She's like, oh, you've been calling it quinoa. It's quinoa. And they said, well, we have to try this now. Yeah, she definitely was a factor. Oprah, her reach is wide. It is. But it doesn't reach me. Are you not an Oprah fan? No, I think she's fine, but I didn't learn about quinoa from her or anything else.

6:47Where'd you learn about quinoa then? Just, you know, I think the first time I had it was in a restaurant. So to me it spread because chefs started using it. Because they watch Oprah. Yeah, exactly. Chefs don't serve anything unless Oprah eats it. She's patient zero. Here in the United States, you know, talked about at least 120 varieties. You're more than likely going to be eating the red, red, white, and blue. No, red, white, or black varieties of quinoa. And do you eat it in your home? I guess we'll get to this stuff, but I'm curious if you've cooked with it a lot. Not a lot, no. I've had it here or there.

7:23I've had it in a couple of restaurants. So this stuff is known as an ancient grain, but it's not exactly a grain, and it's not exactly a cereal. It's classified technically as a pseudo cereal. Right. Like Fruity Pebbles. That's 100 % cereal, baby. They just came out with cinnamon pebbles. Oh, I'll bet those are good. Yeah. You could make cinnamon old shoes and put them in a cereal box, and it'd be good. But quinoa technically is a pseudo cereal. It comes from the goosefoot plant. Right. That's why it's not a cereal. Cereal is a grain that comes from a grass. Yeah. And goosefoot's not a grass. It's a plant.

8:06No, and it looks kind of weedy. And as we'll see later when you're cultivating, it looks alarmingly like some other weeds. Weed weed. It can be tricky. With a capital W. Oh, it looks like marijuana? A little bit from afar. Huh. That brilliant red and brilliant yellow. Isn't that what marijuana looks like when it's growing? I'm not sure you know what marijuana is. I'll show you a picture sometime. Okay. Okay. It is labeled a whole grain, though, because it's actually, it fits the whole grain definition because it is the whole grain seed which you're eating. Yeah. Like when you talk about grains, usually, again, you're talking about these things from grasses like wheat, right?

8:48Yeah. And there's such a thing as whole grain wheat. But once we process something, once we mill it or – Shell it. Smack it on the bottom, whatever you do to them, you're actually removing certain parts of the grain, right? So with like enriched white flour, that's – you've taken a whole wheat grain and you've removed the bran and the germ and you've just got yourself the endosperm still. and the endosperm is what's used mostly to produce white flour. Yeah. And that's great. It's full of like quick, easily digestible carbs, but a lot of the nutrients are lost. Actually not easily digestible for many people.

9:30That's true too. Yeah. But a lot of the nutrients are lost in the process. So even if you can digest it, no problem, you're not getting most of the nutrients that were there in the first place. With a whole grain, it's got the bran, the germ, and the endosperm, and they're all working together to make you vastly healthier than you would be if you're just eating the endosperm like you do in white flour. Yeah, and quinoa in particular is really weird. When you look at it, it's closer. You wouldn't think so, but it's closer to chard and beets and spinach than it is anything else. Yeah. It's crazy.

10:07So imagine if from spinach plants we got not only the leaves, But also the seeds turned out to be whole grains. That's what's going on. It's a weird plant. It is. It shouldn't grow where it grows. It shouldn't be a cereal. It shouldn't be a grain. It shouldn't be related to beets. It shouldn't be delicious. But it is. That's right. And it's super, super good for you. Like we were saying, it's a super food. And one of the reasons and another thing that makes it very strange is that it has a ton of protein, which is pretty unusual for a plant. to have this much protein. Yeah, this article made that point, but I went and looked.

10:46There's a lot of other plants that have pretty good amounts of protein in them. What rivals quinoa in amounts? Edamame, black beans, lima beans, chickpeas all beat it by a mile. Yeah. I just thought it was weird because not only did this article say it, I ran across it elsewhere too, that they were like, this is, it's amazing how much protein it has in it. It has like a decent amount, especially for a plant, but just not like eye popping or anything like that. You think it's hyperbole? I kind of poo-pooed that one. Okay. What it does have, unless you think it's not true as well. Well, I'll be the judge of it.

11:21At least 10 amino acids. And that's good, right? Or is it bad too? I guess it's okay. No, it's chock full of amino acids, which are great for your body because our body cannot make amino acids. So we have to get them from food sources. Well, it can't make essential amino acids. It can make non-essential amino acids, but the essential ones we have to get from food. And quinoa is in a very small group of plants that are complete sources of protein, meaning that they have all of the essential amino acids that we need in them. Yes. You don't find that in plants very frequently. No. That's what helps make it a superfood.

12:05Exactly. It's not very high in calorie. No sugar, no cholesterol, no sodium. What else? Zinc? It's got a lot of zinc. It has a lot of potassium, too. Apparently, it has the most potassium of any food plant that is around. Potassium is really good at regulating blood pressure. Yeah. Because potassium is in charge of things like fluid retention and electrical conduction throughout cells. I think just compared to grains, there are plenty of other fruits with potassium. Oh, okay. Is that what it was? Yeah, like bananas are loaded with potassium. Are they? Yeah. Or is that the work of Edward Bernays?

12:45No, bananas are really good for you. What else? Fiber, magnesium, folate? Yeah, that's good. Gluten-free? Well, that's a big one, man. So it's very commonly touted as a gluten-free food, grain, which is good for people who have celiac disease, but apparently they've tested. there's at least, what'd you say, 120, 150 varieties? 120, yeah. That are in agricultural production right now. Yeah. And somebody tested a bunch of them, and they came up with at least four that created a celiac response. Oh, really? Yeah, so you've got to be careful. For the most part, they are gluten-free, but there are a few varieties out there that can touch off the old celiac response.

13:32Well, I think one of the deals, though, is we're not seeing those in the marketplace, though. which is one of the, we'll get to it, but it's one of the potential problems is we're only eating like three or four of the 120 varieties. Yeah. And I think those are for sure gluten-free. Okay. Like if you go to your grocery store, you're not going to see 120 varieties of this stuff. I don't know, man. You know? Yeah. You're probably right. All right, well, let's take a break, and we're going to get back and talk a little bit about cooking this delicious stuff.

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15:26Stuff you should know. Stuff you should know

15:34So, Chuck, you were going to lay it on, everybody, how to cook quinoa. It's easy. If you can cook rice, you can cook quinoa. Yeah. I would say, well, I was about to say easier than rice. I would say it's easier than rice. It doesn't stick like rice does. Yeah, exactly. That's probably rice's biggest downfall. The sticky? Yeah. It's also what makes it great, though, too. Sure. Depending on what kind of rice you're getting. I eat quinoa at the house, I wouldn't say a lot, but enough. Like every couple of weeks. Oh, yeah, that's a lot. Is it? Yeah, it is to me. So what you do is you want to rinse it.

16:16Yeah. Like you will some kinds of rice. The bag you're buying is probably going to say pre-rinsed or pre-washed or something like that. You want to rinse it anyway, right? Yeah, they had this. It's actually really good for you. this coating called saponin. And despite its great health effects, when you add water to it, it lathers up like a soap. Right. And it's bitter. Yeah. And in fact, it means, it's from the Latin sapo, which is soap. So you don't want to eat it even though it's good for you. No, the plant produces it to keep pests away from it, from eating it. Yeah. So you rinse that stuff off.

16:55Get quinoa, once you see it, it's really tiny. So you want to get a really fine strainer, not like a colander. Right. You get a colander, then all that quinoa is going to be down the drain. Man, I hate Mondays. So get like a sifter, a really fine sifter. Rinse it real good until the water is running clear. And basically cook it like rice. It's one part quinoa to two parts water. Or broth. Well, that's what I do. I use chicken broth. Sure. You'd be a madman just to use like water and quinoa. Or veggie broth if you're, you know, weird. Or off the meat. I'm just kidding. Beef broth if you're gross.

17:38That doesn't pair well with quinoa? I could see it not. I'm just not a big beef broth guy. I love beef. I might have said beef. You did. With a T-H. Yeah, it was kind of cute. Beef broth. Beef broth. But I use chicken. I use like half. So if I do the two cups of water, I'll do one cup water, one cup chicken broth. Oh, you cut your chicken broth? Yeah, I just kind of do half and half. I got you. You stomp on it? Yeah. So then you cook it like rice. Like I said, you're going to boil it, and then once it gets to a boil, cover it up, turn it down low, and wait and let it simmer until it's all soaked up.

18:14Yeah, and then this article, I'm not as acquainted with cooking quinoa as you are, but this article says that you want to look for the spirals, the seed spirals to be prominent. What's the deal with that? You'll see when you look at it. Like before you cook it, it looks different than afterward. And that's the easiest way to say it. Like once you look, it's almost like they pop open or something. And it's just quite obvious. It's just big and light and fluffy. You see the little seed spiral. What's neat is, and we kind of walked past it, but you said it a couple of times that that sepanin is good for you.

18:48Really good for you. Yeah, it has some amazing properties. Like it's anti-tumor, anti-ulcer, anti-inflammatory. And so you have to imagine, again, that this plant is growing in this random place where plants aren't really supposed to grow. And it thrives there and it's full of all these nutrients. And the outer coating is an anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor agent. Yeah, that you wash away. Yeah. It's kind of sad. Well, you could save it, sip on it later. I wonder what would happen. How would you have to ingest it, you think? Would it have any anti-inflammatory properties if you drank saponin, you think?

19:27Or do you need to inject it into your eye? I don't know. Or mix it into a salve. Maybe. Rub on your skin. I'm not sure. That's a good question. I bet people know. We'll hear about that. Up in Bolivia, they know. So you can eat it in a variety of ways. You can just eat it as a side dish like you would with rice or couscous or whatever. Mashed potatoes. Yeah. Although I would eat the mashed potatoes. You could mix it with mashed potatoes, right? No, I wouldn't do that. One thing that the author of this article, I think it's Leah Hoyt, she said that she likes to mix it in instead of breadcrumbs into like meatballs or burgers.

20:07Sure. Why not? Yeah, a good quinoa burger. Yeah. So is there such a thing as a quinoa burger that's just quinoa? Could you make that or do you need something to bind it? I think you probably need binding agents. Or beef. Yeah, beef broths. Or I don't know. I've never made a quinoa burger. And I don't make any kind of veggie burger in my home. Oh, really? So I wouldn't really know how to go about that. What do you do, turkey burgers? I do turkey. Turkey burgers are pretty good. Depending on the brand. Some are just like, what is this texture? Yeah, I mean, I make them myself with my own little recipe.

20:43Oh. But that's just because Emily doesn't eat beef. So I've gotten so into the turkey burger that I don't even really. I mean, I'll have a beef burger out. Right. Never at home. You and I are simpatico on the home burger cooking tip. Do you grill or do you skillet? Form and grill. Oh. Yeah. It's pretty great. That's a buzz market and a half. You watch that grease strip out of the front, and I've noticed many times I will be zoned out drooling grease out of my mouth. So here's my favorite quinoa dish, and I got it from a restaurant in New York that I can't remember. But there are all kinds of variations, but I cook it and then put it in the fridge and chill it overnight.

21:33night. Okay. So in the summer, I will get that cold quinoa and then dice up like some cucumber and some red onion and I mean, kind of anything you want like that fits a salad, summer salad. Okay. Like orange pepper, like crunchy green pepper or roasted red pepper. Oh yeah, that's good. Garlic. Throw some pine nuts in there. I wish it were summer right now. Like you get some basil, some fresh herbs. That's the way to go, man. Yeah, like Anything that strikes your fancy, maybe a little lemon juice, a little apple cider vinegar. But the base of it is quinoa. Yeah, and you just mix up anything that might add some texture, like that crunch, and serve it alongside a burger instead of fries.

22:18Oh, yeah. It's really, really good. And you know me, I'm not into healthy foods like that a lot. Which means it's good. Which means it's really good. And packed with protein, don't forget. That's right. And it's a complete source of protein. So that's my, or maybe some dried cranberry or golden raisins. I'm not big on that kind of stuff in a salad. Oh, yeah? I know a lot of people like it, not me. Yeah? No. I don't love the golden raisins, but I do like the cranberry. Do you? Yeah, yeah. I think it's nice. All right, so that's Chuck's recipe of the week. That's pretty good. We'll do that every week, no matter what the topic is.

22:55What are you going to come up with for the tartar grate? Oh, just you wait. So here's the deal with quinoa. It's gotten really trendy. So in 2007, the United States was importing 7.3 million pounds of quinoa. Right. In 2012, they imported 57 million pounds. And God knows what it is this year. You know, a lot of that was the direct result of a single person. Of Oprah, yeah. It all comes down to Oprah. No, there's this dude. he was a UN development worker from Bolivia who'd moved to California. And he had obviously grown up at least familiar with quinoa, if not eating quinoa. His name was Sergio Nunez de Arco.

23:46And he saw that quinoa was starting to catch on a little bit. I guess he saw that episode of Oprah. So he went back to Bolivia and he found that there were only a few indigenous producers who were putting out retail-sized bags of quinoa. Yeah. So he went around and he basically created a co-op out of all the indigenous farmers who grow quinoa in Bolivia and made the supply from them reliable enough and big enough to supply industry abroad, around the world. This guy basically was the flashpoint for the quinoa explosion. He helped it happen. And he made sure that it was based on the work of the people who were originally cultivating quinoa.

24:33Right. Yeah, which is a big one. Yeah, he went from, in 2005, he sold$25 ,000 worth through his company. And these days, he's selling about$26 million worth annually from his own facility and about$40 million from other facilities. Yeah. So he basically went around to them and said, hey, these weekend farmer's markets are cute. But how would you like to be a part of the industrial food supply? Yeah, you put down that pan flute. We're talking business here. Do they play the pan flute? Yeah. Those Andean Highlanders, they love that. They love that junk? Is that where Zamfir is from? No, I think Zamfir is Mediterranean.

25:13I wanted to say Greek. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Okay. I don't know if I'm getting he and Yanni confused, though. Oh, yeah, maybe we are. They seem like they probably at least go bowling together. Yanni didn't play the pan flute, though, did he? No, no. Okay. Sam Feer is definitely master of the pan flute. Well, of course. You can't call yourself that on a CD unless Oprah has said so. Right. And it has the stamp of approval. So the price has really gone up, too, as a result. And it was not small. For a lot of years, one metric ton was about$500. And in 2010, that was$1 ,300. So that's almost threefold.