I may be behind the times in knowing just how great quinoa is for the body, so just incase you were stuck in the time warp with me, here’s a quick little post.
Today I had a quinoa salad – cucumber, sun-dried tomatoes, sesame seeds, pepitas, olives, fresh sweet basil, lemon juice and salt. Bliss. Seeing as I’m pregnant, I wanted to see, how good is quinoa anyway? Well, what I read what simply awesome – seems quite the miracle food, and the perfect ingredient for pregnant ladies. Not only are the health benefits awesome, quinoa has some other worthy features which make it one of my favourite ingredients to use.
1. It’s easy to cook!
And much quicker than cooking rice.
2. It’s a blank canvas.
Just google “quinoa recipes” to see how versatile it is!
3. It feels light to eat.
If a grain is too heavy I feel full instantly (like rolled oats), then stop eating and feel hungry an hour later – not so with quinoa! (yes, I know quinoa is not a grain)
4. It’s a superfood easy to slip into a lot of dishes.
Have you ever tried to slip spirulina into anything?
5. It keeps well as leftovers.
Just store any excess cooked quinoa in the fridge, and you practically have a dish the next day! For breakfast, add fruit, seeds, nuts, honey, and warm milk.
6. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Dessert.
Breakfast – Add fruit. Lunch – Add salad. Dinner – Add roast veggies. Dessert – Add honey and sweet treats (oh, that’s sounds like breakfast, no?).
7. It’s gluten free.
“No, really darling, this dish was no trouble at all.”
8. I suppose it’s time to talk health.
I could have counted each health benefit listed below and called this post 15 great reasons to love quinoa, but I didn’t milk it 😉
Quinoa contains:
- Protein containing all nine essential amino acids.
- Almost twice as much fibre as most grains.
- Iron
- Folate
- Lysine
- Magnesium
- Quinoa is high in Riboflavin (B2).
- Manganese (antioxidant)
Links:
This list of benefits will make you feel really good about eating it!
View the nutritional values of quinoa here.
ETHICAL ISSUE! There is a serious issue when it comes to buying quinoa. Do the world a favour and buy ethically sourced quinoa. For hundreds of years, quinoa has been a staple food in South America, until, well it became a popular health food in the “west”. So now, native Bolivians and Peruvians cannot even afford to buy it. Their food is literally robbed off their plates. Ironically, imported junk food being cheaper to buy. So long as people keep buying quinoa that isn’t ethically sourced, this will continue to happen. Read this great article from The Guardian which made realise the massive impact of importing quinoa from Bolivia and Peru.
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