Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Hi everybody, Chuck here. We're going to go
Speaker 1: back in time today with this selection to February seventh,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: The keene Wah Revolution, mainly.
Speaker 1: Because I don't remember much about this one and I
Speaker 1: have to listen to these again. So I'm going to listen,
Speaker 1: and I hope you do too. Learn everything you always
Speaker 1: wanted to know and more about keenwa Right now.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles
Speaker 4: W Chuck Bryant's right there, Jerry's right there. It's a
Speaker 4: little chilly in here, so it's Stuff you should know
Speaker 4: the podcast because it's chilly. That's the cherry on top,
Speaker 4: that's right.
Speaker 1: Spoiler or not spoil or teaser at the end of
Speaker 1: this episode, let's say between the end and before listener
Speaker 1: mail that's agreeable to you.
Speaker 4: At the forty three minute mark.
Speaker 1: We are going to taste soilent for the first time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, live on the air.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess I should have thought this through. I
Speaker 4: took him out of the fridge already, so we wandered
Speaker 4: forty three minutes for it to warm up. Should we
Speaker 4: put them back?
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't you know. I wasn't going to say
Speaker 2: anything then I was going to say something.
Speaker 4: Should I put him back?
Speaker 2: Well, it's probably best cold, don't.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well hang on everybody, So, yes, we're gonna try
Speaker 4: soilent eventually in this episode.
Speaker 2: That's right. I'm excited to try soilent or to talk
Speaker 2: about quin wa both.
Speaker 4: Okay, So Chuck, you just kind of gave it away
Speaker 4: alongside the title. Sure, we're talking about queen wa today,
Speaker 4: not quinoa, no queen wah.
Speaker 2: That's right. But superfood, yes, some say yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean you can make a pretty good claim that
Speaker 4: it is a super food. And what is a superfood
Speaker 4: if not a type of food that has a lot
Speaker 4: going on just in and of itself. Yeah, it's super Yeah,
Speaker 4: Like blueberries are super fruit or a saii beerry super food? Yeah,
Speaker 4: or ASII berries Yeah, algae.
Speaker 2: I didn't know algae was Oh yeah, I buy that.
Speaker 4: Hemp seeds, sure, chia seeds, yeah.
Speaker 2: A lot of nuts, rich crackers, I don't know. Those
Speaker 2: are just super super delicious and buttery. Yeah, with my
Speaker 2: crab dip especially.
Speaker 4: Oh bet, one day, maybe I'll find out what you
Speaker 4: just want me to bring you crabdip. Yeah, give me
Speaker 4: a cooking lesson.
Speaker 2: Uh So quinoa.
Speaker 1: There are at least one hundred and twenty varieties, and
Speaker 1: it is nothing new. It's been around. In fact, we
Speaker 1: might as well dealt into a little history here. It's
Speaker 1: been cultivated for geez, more than five thousand years.
Speaker 4: I saw up to eight thousand years.
Speaker 2: Well it's more than five thousand, sure, well, I guess
Speaker 2: we could say more than five years.
Speaker 4: Right, more than the last six months. Kima has been
Speaker 4: around on this planet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's an Andean plant and specifically originated around
Speaker 1: Lake Titi Kaka in Peru.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in Bolivia in the Altiplano.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wonderful, wonderful area.
Speaker 4: Have you been.
Speaker 2: Oh no, but just look at photos.
Speaker 4: Sure, Machu Pichu.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we'll look at that place exactly one day.
Speaker 4: Maybe I'd like to go for sure.
Speaker 1: But it is there is historical evidence of it being domesticated,
Speaker 1: like we said, is maybe as long as eight thousand
Speaker 1: years ago. And they even saw in ancient tombs they
Speaker 1: saw little you know, archaeological drawings and things that what
Speaker 1: they think is quinoa. Right, So people were in ingesting
Speaker 1: it and using it as a super food way back when.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the fact that it grew up there, or
Speaker 4: grows up there, and not only grows, but thrives up
Speaker 4: in this high rocky i think, pretty much arid plateau
Speaker 4: that's also very cold. It doesn't make any sense that
Speaker 4: you'd have anything but like alpacas and lama's up there.
Speaker 4: But in fact, there's a plant that's one of the
Speaker 4: most nutritious foods on the planet that just so happens
Speaker 4: to thrive up there in Bolivia and Peru in the highlands.
Speaker 4: That's pretty awesome, it is. And so of course they
Speaker 4: have used this for thousands and thousands of years, and
Speaker 4: it wasn't It wasn't until I think the early twentieth
Speaker 4: century that it really started to make its way for
Speaker 4: the first time out to the United States. I think
Speaker 4: the USDA got their hands on it and tried to
Speaker 4: get farmers to grow it here in the States, and
Speaker 4: they said, nah, let's give it another one hundred years,
Speaker 4: maybe a little less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the twenty first century when it really
Speaker 1: kind of became popular. And even in the last she's
Speaker 1: mid two thousands, you can even talk about it being trendy.
Speaker 4: Well, supposedly the whole trend for keen wah, which, by
Speaker 4: the way, in typical stuff you should know, fashion has
Speaker 4: already come and gone, and now we're doing an episode
Speaker 4: on it.
Speaker 2: Oh it's not gone, Are you sure? Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, Well do you know how ke hit the map,
Speaker 4: hit the scene.
Speaker 2: Well, in a lot of different ways. I assume you think.
Speaker 1: It's one thing only, right, Oprah. Yeah, she had something
Speaker 1: to do with it, for sure.
Speaker 4: She was on some sort of cleansed diet in two
Speaker 4: thousand and eight and she ate keenwa and mushrooms, I guess,
Speaker 4: and everybody was like, what is that. She's like, oh,
Speaker 4: you've been calling it Canoa, it's keen wah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He said, well we have to try this now.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, she definitely was a factor, Oprah. Her reach is wide,
Speaker 1: it is, but it doesn't reach me.
Speaker 4: Are you're not an Oprah fan?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I think she's fine. But I didn't learn about keen
Speaker 1: wa from her or anything else.
Speaker 4: Where'd you learn about quene wa then?
Speaker 1: Just you know, I think the first time I had
Speaker 1: it was in a restaurant, So it's to me it's
Speaker 1: spread because chefs.
Speaker 4: Started using it because they watch Oprah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Chefs don't serve anything unless opiation zero here
Speaker 1: in the United States. You know, I talked about at
Speaker 1: least one hundred and twenty varieties. You're more than likely
Speaker 1: going to be eating the red, red, white, and blue,
Speaker 1: no red, white.
Speaker 2: Or black varieties of quen wah. And do you eat
Speaker 2: it in your home? I guess we'll get to this stuff.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious of you've cooked with it.
Speaker 4: A lot, not a lot. No, I've had it here
Speaker 4: or there. I've had in a couple of restaurants.
Speaker 1: So this stuff is it's known as an ancient grain,
Speaker 1: but it's not exactly a grain, and it's not exactly
Speaker 1: a cereal. It's classified technically as a pseudo cereal, right,
Speaker 1: like fruity pebbles.
Speaker 4: That's one hundred percent cereal.
Speaker 2: Baby, they just came out with cinnamon pebbles.
Speaker 4: Oh I bet those are good. Yeah, you can make
Speaker 4: click cinnamon old shoes and put them in a cereal
Speaker 4: box and it'd be good.
Speaker 1: But uh, Quinwa technically is a pseudo cereal. It comes
Speaker 1: from the goosefoot plant.
Speaker 4: Right, That's why it's not a cereal. Cereal is a
Speaker 4: grain that comes from a grass. Yeah, And Goosefoot's not
Speaker 4: a grass, it's a plant.
Speaker 1: No, And it looks kind of weedy, and as we'll
Speaker 1: see later when you're cultivating, it looks alarmingly like some
Speaker 1: other weeds.
Speaker 4: Weed.
Speaker 2: We can be tricky with the capital w. Oh. Looks
Speaker 2: like marijuana, a little bit from afar.
Speaker 4: Huh. That brilliant red and brilliant yellow marijuana looks like
Speaker 4: what it's growing.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure you know what marijuana is.
Speaker 4: Huh uh.
Speaker 2: I'll show you a picture sometimes. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: It is labeled a whole grain though, because it's actually
Speaker 1: it fits the whole grain definition because it is the
Speaker 1: whole grain seed which you're eating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like when you talk about grains usually again you're
Speaker 4: talking about these things from grasses like wheat, right, And
Speaker 4: there's such a thing as whole grain wheat. But once
Speaker 4: we process something, once we mille it or shell it,
Speaker 4: smack it on the bottom, whatever you do to them,
Speaker 4: you're actually removing certain parts of the grain.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So with like enriched white flour, you've taken a whole
Speaker 4: wheat grain and you've removed the bran and the germ,
Speaker 4: and you've just got yourself the endosperm still and the
Speaker 4: endosperm is what's used mostly for to produce white flour,
Speaker 4: and that's great. It's full of like quick, easily digestible carbs,
Speaker 4: but a lot of the nutrients are lost.
Speaker 2: And actually not easily digestible for many people.
Speaker 4: That's true too, Yeah, but a lot of the nutrients
Speaker 4: are lost in the process. So even if you can
Speaker 4: digest it no problem, you're not getting most of the
Speaker 4: nutrients that were there in the first place. With a
Speaker 4: whole grain, it's got the brand, the germ, and the endosperm,
Speaker 4: and they're all worked together to make you vastly healthier
Speaker 4: than you would be if you're just eating the endosperm
Speaker 4: like you do in white white flour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Quenoi in particular, is it's really weird when
Speaker 1: you look at it. It's closer. You wouldn't think so,
Speaker 1: but it's closer to shard and beats and spinach, right
Speaker 1: the plant is anything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 4: So imagine if, like from spinach plants, we got not
Speaker 4: only the leaves but also the seeds turned out to
Speaker 4: be whole grains. That's what's going on. It's a weird plant.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 4: It shouldn't grow where it grows. It shouldn't be a cereal,
Speaker 4: shouldn't be a grain, it shouldn't be related to beets.
Speaker 2: It shouldn't be delicious.
Speaker 4: But it is.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's super super good for you, Like we're saying
Speaker 1: it's a super food. And one of the reasons, and
Speaker 1: another thing that makes it very strange is that it
Speaker 1: has a ton of protein, which is pretty unusual for
Speaker 1: a plant to have this much protein.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this article made that point, but I wouldn't. Look,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of other plants that have pretty good
Speaker 4: amounts of protein in them.
Speaker 2: What rivals quinoa in amounts.
Speaker 4: At a mammy black beans, lima beans, chickpeas all beat
Speaker 4: it by a mile.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I just thought it was weird because not only did
Speaker 4: this article say it, I ran across it elsewhere too
Speaker 4: that they were like, this is it's amazing how much
Speaker 4: protein it has in it. It has like a decent amount,
Speaker 4: especially for a plant. It's just not like eye popping
Speaker 4: or anything like that.
Speaker 2: You know, you just think it's hyperbole.
Speaker 4: I kind of pooh pooed that one.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, what it does have unless you think is
Speaker 1: not true as well, well, I'll be the judge of it,
Speaker 1: ten at least ten amino acids and that's good, right or.
Speaker 2: Is it bad too?
Speaker 4: I guess it's okay.
Speaker 2: No, it's choco fl.
Speaker 1: Amino acids, which are great for your body because our
Speaker 1: body cannot make amino acids, so we have to get
Speaker 1: them from food sources.
Speaker 4: Well, they it can't make essential amino acids. It can
Speaker 4: make non essential amino acids, but the essential ones we
Speaker 4: have to get from food. And quin wat is in
Speaker 4: a very small group of plants that are complete sources
Speaker 4: of protein, meaning that they have all of the essential
Speaker 4: amino acids that we need in them. Yes, you don't
Speaker 4: find that in plants very frequently. No, that's what helps
Speaker 4: make it a superfood exactly.
Speaker 1: It's not very high in calorie, no sugar, no cholesterol,
Speaker 1: no sodium.
Speaker 2: What else?
Speaker 4: Zinct a lot of zinc. Has a lot of potassium too.
Speaker 4: Apparently it has the most potassium of any food plant
Speaker 4: that is around. Potassium is really good at regulating blood pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because potassium's in charge of things like fluid retention and
Speaker 4: electrical conduction throughout cells.
Speaker 1: I think just compared to grains, there are plenty of
Speaker 1: other fruits with potassium.
Speaker 4: Oh, okay, is that what it was?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like bananas are loaded with potassium, are they? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Or is that the work of ever Barnee.
Speaker 2: No, bananas are really good for you. What else? Fiber
Speaker 2: magnesium fol eight? Yeah, that's good and free.
Speaker 4: Well that's a big one, man. So it's very commonly
Speaker 4: touted as a gluten free food grain, which is good
Speaker 4: for people who have Celiac disease. But apparently they've tested
Speaker 4: there's at least would you say, one hundred and twenty
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty varieties that are in like agricultural
Speaker 4: production right now, and somebody tested a bunch of them
Speaker 4: and they came up with like at least four that
Speaker 4: created a coeliac response. Oh really, Yeah, so you got
Speaker 4: to be careful. For the most part, they are gluten free,
Speaker 4: but they there are a few varieties out there that
Speaker 4: can touch off the old celiac response.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I think one of the deals though, is we're not
Speaker 1: seeing those in the marketplace though, which is one of
Speaker 1: the we'll get to it, but it's one of the
Speaker 1: potential problems is we're only eating like three or four
Speaker 1: of the one hundred and twenty varieties, and I think
Speaker 1: those are for sure gluten free. Okay, Like if you
Speaker 1: go to your grocery store, right, you're not going to
Speaker 1: see one hundred and twenty varieties of this stuff.
Speaker 4: Oh man, you know, yeah, you're probably right.
Speaker 2: Uh all right, well let's take a break and we're
Speaker 2: going to get back and talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: cooking this delicious stuff.
Speaker 4: Selfish, selfish, So Chuck, you were going to lay it
Speaker 4: on everybody how to cook queen Wah.
Speaker 2: It's easy. If you can cook rice, you can cook quenoa.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I would say, well it than I would say
Speaker 4: it's easier than rice. It doesn't stick like rice does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: That's probably rice's biggest downfall.
Speaker 2: The sticky. Yeah, it's also what makes it great though,
Speaker 2: too sure, depending on what kind of rice you're getting.
Speaker 1: I eat keen white the house. I wouldn't say a lot,
Speaker 1: but enough, like.
Speaker 2: Every couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's a lot, is it to me?
Speaker 1: So what you do is you want to rinse it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you will some kinds of rice.
Speaker 4: The bag you're you're buying is probably going to say
Speaker 4: pre rinsed or pre washed or something like that. You
Speaker 4: want to rinse it anyway.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they had this.
Speaker 1: It's actually really good for you, this coating called sapanin,
Speaker 1: and despite its it's great health effects, when you add
Speaker 1: water to it, it lathers up like a soap, right yeah,
Speaker 1: and in fact it means it's from the Latin sappo,
Speaker 1: which is soap. So you don't I want to eat
Speaker 1: it even though it's good for you.
Speaker 4: No, the plant produces it to keep like pests away
Speaker 4: from it from eating it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you rinse that stuff off, get keenwa when
Speaker 1: you once you see it's really tiny. So you want
Speaker 1: to get a really fine strainer, not like a calender.
Speaker 2: Right, you get a calendar. Then I'll like keenwas going.
Speaker 4: To be eat down the drain man.
Speaker 1: I hate mondays, So get like a sifter, really fine sifter,
Speaker 1: rinse it real good until it's the water's running clear,
Speaker 1: and basically cook it like rice. It's one part keen
Speaker 1: want of two parts water or broth. Well that's what
Speaker 1: I do. I use chicken broth.
Speaker 4: You'd be a madman is to use like water in
Speaker 4: keene wah.
Speaker 2: Or veggie broth if you're you know, weird.
Speaker 4: Or off the meat.
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. Beef broth if you're gross.
Speaker 4: That doesn't pair well with quen Wah. I could see
Speaker 4: it not.
Speaker 2: I'm just not a big beef broth guy. I might
Speaker 2: have said, beef you did with a th, Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was cute beef broth.
Speaker 4: Beef broth.
Speaker 2: Uh, but I use chicken. I use like half.
Speaker 1: So if I do the two cups of water, I'll
Speaker 1: do one cup water, one cup chicken broth.
Speaker 4: Oh you cut your chicken broth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just kind of do half and half.
Speaker 4: I gotcha. You stomp on it, yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So then you cook it like rice, Like I said,
Speaker 1: you're gonna boil it, and then once it gets to
Speaker 1: a boil covered up, turn it down low and wait
Speaker 1: and let it simmer until it's all soaked up.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And then this article. I'm not as acquainted with
Speaker 4: cooking quen wall as you are, but this article says
Speaker 4: that you want to look for the spirals, the seed
Speaker 4: spirals to be prominent. What's the deal with that?
Speaker 1: You'll see when you look at it, like before you
Speaker 1: cook it, it looks different than afterward.
Speaker 2: And that's the easiest way to say it. Like, once
Speaker 2: you look it's almost like they pop open or something,
Speaker 2: and it's just quite obvious. It's just big and light
Speaker 2: and fluffy, and you see the little seed spiral.
Speaker 4: What's neat is And we kind of walked past it.
Speaker 4: But you said it a couple of times that that steppin' in.
Speaker 2: Is good for really good for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it has some amazing properties, Like it's anti tumor,
Speaker 4: anti ulcer, anti inflammatory. Yeah, and so you have to imagine,
Speaker 4: like again that this plant is growing in this random
Speaker 4: place where plants aren't really supposed to grow, and it
Speaker 4: thrives there and it's full of all these nutrients and
Speaker 4: the outer coating is an anti inflammatory, anti tumor agent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that you wash away. Yeah, it's kind of sad.
Speaker 4: Well, you could save it, sip on it later. I
Speaker 4: wonder what would happen, Like, how would you have to
Speaker 4: ingest do you think, like would it have any anti
Speaker 4: inflammatory properties if you like drank sappening you think or
Speaker 4: do you need to like inject it into your eye.
Speaker 2: I don't know, or mix it into a salve, maybe
Speaker 2: rub on your skin. Yeah, I'm not sure. It's a
Speaker 2: good question. I bet people know we'll hear about.
Speaker 4: That up in Bolivia. They know.
Speaker 1: Uh, so you can eat it in a variety of ways.
Speaker 1: You can just eat it as a side dish like
Speaker 1: you would with rice or couscous or whatever.
Speaker 2: Mashed potatoes. Yeah, although I would eat the mashed potatoes.
Speaker 4: You could mix it with mashed potatoes, right, No, I
Speaker 4: wouldn't do that. One one thing that the author of
Speaker 4: this article, I think it's a Leah Hoyt. She said
Speaker 4: that she likes to mix it in instead of bread
Speaker 4: crumbs into like meatballs or burger. Sure, why not?
Speaker 2: Yeah, good keen wa burger? Yeah?
Speaker 4: So is there such a thing as a keen wahburger?
Speaker 4: That's just keen wa? Could you make that? Or do
Speaker 4: you need something to bind it?
Speaker 1: I think you probably need binding agents for beef, yeah,
Speaker 1: beef broths.
Speaker 2: Or I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've never made a keen waburger, and I don't make
Speaker 1: any kind of veggie burger.
Speaker 2: By like in my home. Oh really, so I wouldn't
Speaker 2: really know how to go about that.
Speaker 4: What do you do? Turkey burgers or I do? Turkey
Speaker 4: Turkey burgers are pretty good depending on the brand. Some
Speaker 4: are just like what is this texture? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean I make them myself with my own little recipe.
Speaker 2: But that's just because Emily doesn't need beef beef mm hmm.
Speaker 2: So I've gotten so into the turkey burger that I
Speaker 2: don't even really I mean, I'll I'll have a beef
Speaker 2: burger out right never at home.
Speaker 4: You and I are simpatico on the home burger cooking. Yeah, Hi,
Speaker 4: do you grill or do you skill it form and grill?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's pretty great. Half watch you watch that
Speaker 4: grease strip out of the front. And I've noticed many
Speaker 4: times like I will do the same, drooling grease out
Speaker 4: of my mouth.
Speaker 2: So here's my favorite keen wa dish. And I got
Speaker 2: it from a restaurant in New York that I can't remember,
Speaker 2: but they're all kinds of variations, but I have it.
Speaker 1: I cook it and then put it in the fridge
Speaker 1: and chill it like overnight. So in the summer, I
Speaker 1: will get that cold quenewa and then dice up like
Speaker 1: some cucumber and some red onion, and I mean kind
Speaker 1: of anything you want like that fits a salad, summer salad,
Speaker 1: like orange pepper, like crunchy green pepper or roasted red pepper, garlic,
Speaker 1: throw some pine nuts.
Speaker 4: In there summer right now, Like.
Speaker 2: You get some basil, some fresh herbs.
Speaker 4: That's the way to go, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like anything that strikes your fancy. Maybe a little
Speaker 1: lemon juice, little apple cider, vinegar.
Speaker 4: But the base of it is quene. Wah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you just mix up anything that you kind
Speaker 1: of you know, I might add some texture like that
Speaker 1: crunch and and serve it alongside like a burger instead
Speaker 1: of fries.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's really really good.
Speaker 2: And you know me, I'm I'm not into healthy foods
Speaker 2: like that a lot, which means it's good, which means
Speaker 2: it's really good. Yeah, and packed with protein, don't forget.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: And it's a complete source of protein.
Speaker 2: So that's or maybe some dried cranberry or golden raisins.
Speaker 4: I'm not big on that kind of stuff in the salad.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I know a lot of people like it,
Speaker 4: not me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I don't love the golden raisins, but I
Speaker 2: do like the cranberry do Yeah. Yeah, I think it's nice.
Speaker 2: All right. So that's Chuck's recipe of the week.
Speaker 4: That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: We'll see that every week no matter what the topic is.
Speaker 4: What are you going to come up with for the
Speaker 4: tartar grade?
Speaker 2: Oh? Does you wait.
Speaker 1: So here's the deal with keenwa. It's gotten really trendy.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and seven, the United States was
Speaker 1: importing seven point three million pounds of quenwa. Twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: they were imported fifty seven million pounds, and who god
Speaker 1: knows what it is this year.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of that was the direct result
Speaker 4: of a single person of Oprah. Yeah, it all comes
Speaker 4: down to Oprah. No, there is this dude. He was
Speaker 4: a un development worker from Bolivia who'd moved to California,
Speaker 4: and he had obviously grown up at least familiar with keenwa,
Speaker 4: if not eating keen wa. His name was Sergio Nunez Darco,
Speaker 4: and he he saw that kin wa was starting to
Speaker 4: catch on a little bit. I guess he saw that
Speaker 4: episode of Oprah. Yeah, So he went back to Bolivia
Speaker 4: and he found that there were only a few indigenous
Speaker 4: producers who were putting out like retail sized bags of
Speaker 4: kin wa.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So he went around and he basically created a co
Speaker 4: op out of all the indigenous farmers who grow queenwa
Speaker 4: and Bolivia, yeah, and made the supply from them reliable
Speaker 4: enough and big enough to supply industry abroad. Around the world.
Speaker 4: This guy almost basically was the flashpoint for the Keenwa explosion.
Speaker 4: He helped it happen, and he made sure that it
Speaker 4: was based on the work of the people who were
Speaker 4: originally cultivating Kinwa, right, Yeah, which is a big one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He went from in two thousand and five, he sold
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars worth through his company, and these
Speaker 1: days he saw in about twenty six million dollars worth
Speaker 1: annually from his own facility and about forty million from
Speaker 1: other facilities. So he basically went around to them and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: these weekend farmers' markets are cute, but how would you
Speaker 1: like to be a part of the industrial food supply.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you put down that pam flute. We're talking business here.
Speaker 2: Did they play the pam flute?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Those Andian Highlanders they love that.
Speaker 2: They love that junking. Is that where zam Fear is from?
Speaker 4: No, I think Sam Fear is. I think he's Mediterranean.
Speaker 2: I want to say Greek.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know if I'm getting He and Yanni confused.
Speaker 4: Though, Oh yeah, maybe we are.
Speaker 1: They seem like they probably at least go bowling together.
Speaker 4: Yanni didn't play the pan flute, though, did he?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: No, okay, Sam Fear is definitely master of the pamphlet.
Speaker 2: Well, of course you can't call yourself that on a
Speaker 2: CD unless Oprah has said.
Speaker 4: So, right, and that has the stamp of approval.
Speaker 1: So the price has really gone up too as a result.
Speaker 1: And it was not small for a lot of years.
Speaker 1: One metric ton was about five hundred dollars, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two that was thirteen hundred dollars, so
Speaker 1: that's almost threefold.
Speaker 2: And again that was six years seven, almost seven years ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it kept going up to I think it peaked
Speaker 4: in twenty twelve. Really, yeah, it was. The price went
Speaker 4: up quite a bit, so.
Speaker 2: You would think that's great. These farmers are making a
Speaker 2: ton of money now, right.
Speaker 4: Yes, apparently. I don't know where it started, but somebody
Speaker 4: created some I guess somebody wrote an article or started
Speaker 4: digging around and they said, hey, everybody, you guys are
Speaker 4: eating all this keen wak. Guess what you did. You
Speaker 4: drove up prices so much that the very indigenous people
Speaker 4: who have been cultivating this for thousands of years can't
Speaker 4: afford it anymore.
Speaker 2: So stuck on that hipster, right, Like the people of
Speaker 2: Fiji are exporting Fiji water, but they're all don't have
Speaker 2: clean drinking water themselves. That kind of same thing, right.
Speaker 4: It's basically an American pastime to take hipsters down a peg,
Speaker 4: isn't it?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 4: It seems like it anything hipsters, Like everybody goes to
Speaker 4: a lot of trouble to dig around and find what's
Speaker 4: wrong with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the one thing they can trace back just
Speaker 1: got to be bled on the hands somewhere. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what this all means and whether or not that's
Speaker 1: even true.
Speaker 2: Right after this salvash novision.
Speaker 1: No, all right, So if it's being produced in the
Speaker 1: Andes and prices are going up, you would think that
Speaker 1: at some point people in the United States might try
Speaker 1: and take a stab at it. And that's exactly what
Speaker 1: happened and is happening. And you sent this great article
Speaker 1: is Quinoa, California Farmers and New k because Cale had
Speaker 1: a similar explosion in popularity, you know, over.
Speaker 2: The past few years.
Speaker 4: Kale's so hot.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think Cale is out now, yeah, or at least
Speaker 1: made fun of I think for being hipstery and hot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the hipster's kind of chewed that up
Speaker 4: and spit it out. But it's still great.
Speaker 2: I know. People just hate all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, just like what's trending and what's not
Speaker 1: and what we think is cool.
Speaker 2: Let's write about.
Speaker 4: It, right, And I read this really interesting article. I
Speaker 4: think it was a Mother Jones writer, like a Mother
Speaker 4: Jones AG writer, who basically said, like, hey, dudes, all
Speaker 4: of this stuff that you know is suddenly like the
Speaker 4: hot new superfood. It's niche food marketing. It's the same
Speaker 4: thing as like Oreos coming out with a new flavor
Speaker 4: every like couple months that you got to go try
Speaker 4: or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you're just a sheep for kale.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, but geared toward people who don't eat
Speaker 4: junk food. But it's the same exact thing, so it
Speaker 4: don't be a chump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or at least don't get on your high horse
Speaker 1: about the other stuff, right being mass marketed.
Speaker 4: Or being eaten by idiots and SAPs and simpletons. So
Speaker 4: the thing is the thing that made it even worse though,
Speaker 4: was the idea that like the huge demand in the
Speaker 4: expanded market for keen waw that was largely found in
Speaker 4: the United States was directly responsible for pricing indigenous farmers
Speaker 4: who were growing that keen waw out of it, so
Speaker 4: they weren't even eating it was the problem and is
Speaker 4: well supposedly right, And what they found was that one
Speaker 4: they couldn't afford it. They've been priced out, yeah, or
Speaker 4: they were making the decision to where yeah, they're making
Speaker 4: more money now, but they would rather sell all their
Speaker 4: keen waw and buy less expensive, less nutrient dense food
Speaker 4: for their families. So the very people producing keen waw,
Speaker 4: we're not only couldn't afford it, they also were being
Speaker 4: malnourished as a result of this keen waw explosion. Right,
Speaker 4: So it was a big deal. It made a lot
Speaker 4: of people second guess it feel pretty bad about themselves.
Speaker 4: And I also guarantee it had a negative impact on
Speaker 4: the kinwah market as well, sure, which would directly affect
Speaker 4: the farmers. But what you dug up though on this
Speaker 4: MPR's the salt I Guess blog their food blog.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a story about it attached to it
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 4: It was pretty eye opening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these dudes got together and they were trying to
Speaker 1: get to kind of the root of all this, and
Speaker 1: so they got a data source et Naho. It's the
Speaker 1: National Survey of Peru that they carry out every year
Speaker 1: about just Peruvian households and all kinds of data that
Speaker 1: they're collecting, but one of them is food. And there
Speaker 1: are twenty two thousand randomly selected households. So they got
Speaker 1: ten years worth of this data covering from before the
Speaker 1: Keenwah boom a few years before through the keen wa boom,
Speaker 1: so they could kind of do a good comparison.
Speaker 2: Right, and they split the households into three groups.
Speaker 1: Uh, those who grow and eat keenwa, those who eat
Speaker 1: it but don't grow it, and those who neither grow
Speaker 1: it nor eat it.
Speaker 2: They say, yeah, I guess there's the final household is
Speaker 2: people that pronounce it quinola. It's like one household in Peru.
Speaker 2: It's like, what is this stuff?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Uh, And they all three showed a clear rise in
Speaker 1: their welfare, which they measured is a total value of
Speaker 1: goods consumed as that price of qen wah rose, and
Speaker 1: apparently that reflected in the increased living standards in.
Speaker 2: Peru as a whole too. So at the height of
Speaker 2: that boom.
Speaker 1: The welfare of the growers increased more rapidly than the
Speaker 1: other two groups, though, which you would you know that
Speaker 1: makes sense?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so you can. They basically tracked a direct
Speaker 4: correlation between the keen wah boom around the world and
Speaker 4: and a rise in the household welfare of keenwa farmers
Speaker 4: back in Peru.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So they conclusively proved pretty much that there there was
Speaker 4: no that these farmers weren't too poor to afford keenwa.
Speaker 4: But the other one was still left standing, right right,
Speaker 4: the idea that they were selling all their keenwah, but
Speaker 4: then they were still malnursed because they were buying less
Speaker 4: nutritionally dense food. Yeah, and that apparently they managed to
Speaker 4: disprove as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least that's what they're saying in this paper.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're not saying this is evidence, but at
Speaker 1: least this is what they dug out after pouring over
Speaker 1: these ten years worth of studies. They said this guy
Speaker 1: Andrew Stevens, a doctoral candidate, focused on specifically the Puno
Speaker 1: region in the Andes, which grows about eighty percent of
Speaker 1: all the kenwan Peru, and he said this is a
Speaker 1: it's a cultural and nutritionally hordant food, but it's not.
Speaker 1: I think the gist was people are trying to make
Speaker 1: it out to be like this is what they subsist
Speaker 1: on every day and they can't afford to eat it, right,
Speaker 1: And he said, this is actually a pretty small part
Speaker 1: of their diet overall, and they're actually eating more quinoa
Speaker 1: than ever before in that region that grows the most.
Speaker 4: That was pretty surprising.
Speaker 1: So it said they did not come cut back their
Speaker 1: consumption between twenty four and twenty twelve despite a fourfold
Speaker 1: price increase. They see no signs of changing calories, proteins
Speaker 1: or carbohydrates and the diet across Peru as a whole.
Speaker 2: So they kind of debunked it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty cool. Hipster's rejoice, They shall rejoice, but there
Speaker 4: are still some outstanding problems, right, sure, So, like you
Speaker 4: said it was, you said that I mentioned it was
Speaker 4: a culturally important food, so much so that Bolivia and
Speaker 4: it's drafted two thousand and nine Constitution and shrine quen
Speaker 4: whas part of their food sovereignty, which is their right
Speaker 4: to protect culturally important food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, hey, you're coming in here and you're basically
Speaker 1: taking this and now you're going to grow it all
Speaker 1: over the world.
Speaker 4: Right, And they recognized the importance of queen wa for
Speaker 4: a very long time. There was apparently a Colorado researcher
Speaker 4: who went to Bolivia in nineteen eighty six and was
Speaker 4: shot dead trying to smuggle keen Wa seeds out of
Speaker 4: the country. Yeah, and I guess somebody from Colorado eventually
Speaker 4: got them out because Colorado State University patented a hybrid
Speaker 4: quin wa in nineteen ninety four based on Bolivian seeds,
Speaker 4: and the government of Bolivia called them bio pirates. WHOA, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's not something you want leveled at you. No, not
Speaker 4: by Bolivia.
Speaker 2: The other thing too, and I think you sent me
Speaker 2: this was that because there's more. Basically, there's sort of
Speaker 2: a land grab going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is where I was going in Peru where
Speaker 1: all of a sudden and they realize that you know,
Speaker 1: before when it wasn't worth that much money they I mean,
Speaker 1: sure they were producing it, but it wasn't like it
Speaker 1: is now. So all these people are saying, wait, this
Speaker 1: land that was once unused, like, is anyone claiming it?
Speaker 1: And there's sort of a rush to claim these lands. Well,
Speaker 1: there was fighting going on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was violence that broke out in February of
Speaker 4: I think twenty fifteen maybe sorry, twenty fourteen, where one
Speaker 4: guy got his arm blown off by dynamite during this
Speaker 4: battle among hundreds of farmers for some land that had
Speaker 4: been sitting there abandoned for like decades. And part of
Speaker 4: the problem is when you're doing good agricultural practices. What
Speaker 4: did we talk about no till farming in.
Speaker 2: I was thinking that too, I can't remember.
Speaker 4: Well, we've definitely talked a lot about that. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: when you're using good agricultural practice, one of the main
Speaker 4: things you want to do is let fields lay fallow
Speaker 4: for a year season at a time. And they're not
Speaker 4: doing that anymore in the Andes. And again, this is
Speaker 4: really really fragile crop land that they're growing this stuff in,
Speaker 4: so they're not letting it lay fallow any longer. And
Speaker 4: they're also using lamas less. Yeah, and lamas and quin
Speaker 4: wa go together like rice and beans, which, by the way,
Speaker 4: is another complete protein food, but it's not just a
Speaker 4: single food, so you can super food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, man, what was that episode? It's totally on
Speaker 2: the tip of my tongue.
Speaker 4: We talked a lot about no till no till farming.
Speaker 2: I can't remember. I want to say I had something
Speaker 2: to do with the dust bowl, but we didn't do
Speaker 2: one on the dust ball.
Speaker 4: We did we did one on the dust ball and desertification.
Speaker 4: Maybe it was the dust bowl.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the lamas, that's one of the big issues, right,
Speaker 1: is that they're not letting them poop everywhere.
Speaker 4: Well they're not. They're not lama farming like they used to.
Speaker 4: Lamas use a lot of grazing land and they're like,
Speaker 4: we can use that instead to grow quin wa.
Speaker 2: Because king wa is more valuable than lamas.
Speaker 4: Right, But lamas again and quen wah go together like
Speaker 4: rice and beans, and lama poop is almost like it's
Speaker 4: designed or tailored to fertilize quin wah. They started to
Speaker 4: use sheep poop instead, I guess imported sheep poop, and
Speaker 4: it allows a lot more pests and invasive weeds than
Speaker 4: lama poop does. Right, when lama poop is fertilizing, So
Speaker 4: the whole ecosystem is definitely being altered. Yeah, and not
Speaker 4: necessarily in good ways. Because of this huge demand and
Speaker 4: this huge influx of cash, it's basically more money, more problems. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the Alto Plano's people are finding out.
Speaker 1: It's so weird or not weird, but kind of sad
Speaker 1: that you can't you know, it can't just be a
Speaker 1: success story nuverous.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm good with the bad.
Speaker 2: I guess in the long run.
Speaker 1: They're also worried that I was talking about all those
Speaker 1: different varieties. I saw the one hundred and twenty, but
Speaker 1: it says here there could be up to thousands of
Speaker 1: different varieties. Yeah, and farmers are abandoning most of these
Speaker 1: to concentrate on the ones that they can sell to
Speaker 1: you know, ship out to export to American markets or
Speaker 1: I guess just you know, not just America.
Speaker 2: I think Europe has eaten stuff like crazy too, are they.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it says that those varieties are This guy
Speaker 1: says that they're the future of Quenwa because they can
Speaker 1: adapt to things like climate change. And if you narrow
Speaker 1: the varieties down to a certain few and they don't adapt,
Speaker 1: then you're kind of screwed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're sol If you have three thousand to choose
Speaker 4: from to try to adapt to changing climate, then yeah,
Speaker 4: you're way better off. So crop diversity is pretty important.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's getting erased as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they're trying to encourage it with these Andean farmers.
Speaker 1: At least they are working with Bolivia and Peru to
Speaker 1: develop internal markets for these threatened varieties, like with school
Speaker 1: food programs and stuff like, not necessarily to sell, but
Speaker 1: to use like within the country at hospitals and schools.
Speaker 1: They said they've been fairly successful with some of that stuff,
Speaker 1: so hopefully that continues.
Speaker 4: See that. To me, that's what government subsidies are for
Speaker 4: stuff like that, for like small indigenous farmers who are
Speaker 4: protecting a thousand year old varieties of crops that are
Speaker 4: part of the cultural fabric of a country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the future for all. Sure, they are growing
Speaker 2: at California though that article you sent this dude is
Speaker 2: growing it in the Sonoran Desert crazy in the Imperial
Speaker 2: Valley below sea level, in like one of the hottest
Speaker 2: places in North America. Yeah, they're growing quenwa.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, part of the problem is quinoa is very
Speaker 4: closely related. I think it's in the same genus as
Speaker 4: something called lamb's quarters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the weed which.
Speaker 4: Doesn't really matter up in the Alto Plano, but in California,
Speaker 4: lambs quarters is a toxic, toxic plant to livestock which
Speaker 4: might accidentally graze on it. Yeah, they're not thinking about
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff. And then it also carries a
Speaker 4: virus that kills alfalfa, which is very much grown in
Speaker 4: California to feed that live stock. Man. So there's it's
Speaker 4: it's weird. It's a complex, amazing plant that shouldn't exist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe that'll be the title quin Wa colon complex
Speaker 1: more complex than you think.
Speaker 4: That's gooding.
Speaker 2: Or maybe it should say, well, never mind, I'll forget
Speaker 2: that out. Or should we just brainstorm some more on
Speaker 2: let's show title?
Speaker 4: Let's do it?
Speaker 2: Are we gonna try that soilent? Yes, let's and then
Speaker 2: do listener mail.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's do.
Speaker 3: That all right?
Speaker 4: So, uh here we are. We're gonna try this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, soilent. It's it a white bottle.
Speaker 4: We caught a lot of flak about not having tried
Speaker 4: it and still done something. I'm like, well, here we go. Then,
Speaker 4: I'm not iridescent, but I've done an episode on iridescence.
Speaker 4: Give me a break, people.
Speaker 2: I think you should probably shake well, right.
Speaker 4: I think so, I don't know. We gotta go back
Speaker 4: and listen to the episode again. It's been a while.
Speaker 2: People also thought that that was a sponsored episode by Soilent,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I think we said enough bad
Speaker 2: things about the taste. Yeah, you should have figured out
Speaker 2: that it was not.
Speaker 4: All right, here we go, so this is us trying solent.
Speaker 4: We also want to say thanks again to Don Kent
Speaker 4: for sending this in.
Speaker 2: It smells like.
Speaker 4: That's a nice kind of a nice smell.
Speaker 2: What does that smell like? It smells like cereal milk.
Speaker 4: We got that a lot. A lot of people said
Speaker 4: it smelled like or it tastes like cheerios milk.
Speaker 2: It's totally what it smells like.
Speaker 4: Can we say cheerios? Or is this an episode for cheerios?
Speaker 2: Now all right, I'm gonna should one.
Speaker 4: I thought we were chugging the whole thing. No, oh,
Speaker 4: that's that's not bad. It is.
Speaker 2: It's not bad at all.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent cheerio cereal milk.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think I would have come up with that even
Speaker 4: if somebody hadn't said it that's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's sort of bland. It's definitely. It's
Speaker 2: not nearly a sweet. It's not like a honeynut cheerio milk.
Speaker 4: No, that's true cinnamon toast crunch milk.
Speaker 2: It's not bad.
Speaker 1: I was dreading this. I thought it was going to
Speaker 1: be awful from all the comments. But it's not bad
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 4: I like it. I can see how you would kind
Speaker 4: of start to crave it because it's got that like
Speaker 4: almost a fatty mouthfeel to it, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 4: like it really gets on the tongue.
Speaker 2: Huh. All right, well there it is.
Speaker 4: I should probably stop. It's pretty. It's got a lot
Speaker 4: of calories in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's twenty percent if you're a daily nutrition.
Speaker 4: Well thanks again to Don Kent. Thanks again to everybody
Speaker 4: who wrongly called us out for doing an ad for soilent.
Speaker 2: The aftertaste is a little bit like milk of magnesia.
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding that, like my lana.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I know, you mean kind of chalky. I
Speaker 4: don't have that. M oh. If you want to know
Speaker 4: more about soilet go listen to the soil Lamp sub
Speaker 4: In the meantime, if you want to know more about
Speaker 4: Queen Wa, type that word q U I n O
Speaker 4: A into the search bar houstuffworks dot com. And since
Speaker 4: I said search bar, it's time for more soil it.
Speaker 4: I mean it's time for listening.
Speaker 2: Now, all right, I'm gonna call yeah.
Speaker 1: I definitely don't like the aftertaste, sort of chalking up
Speaker 1: on my throat and tongue.
Speaker 4: I kind of like this stuff. I like food more,
Speaker 4: but that's not bad.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 4: Like if somebody said should I drink soil it, I'd
Speaker 4: say why not?
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna call this.
Speaker 1: Uh, just a nice email from this lovely Australian woman.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, been a long time listener, first time writer,
Speaker 1: currently living in Sydney, Australia, though I grew up in
Speaker 1: Tennessee and now I'm a Florida.
Speaker 2: Resident all over the place. Wow, so maybe she's not Australian.
Speaker 2: I've been listening to y'all. Y'all since I was in
Speaker 2: college at UTK Go Balls, and I even brought you
Speaker 2: along with me while spending a year living in France.
Speaker 2: If you do end up reading this on the air,
Speaker 2: which I don't expect, I would be so thrilled. If
Speaker 2: you give a shout out to my little sister LB,
Speaker 2: currently in Portland. It's up LB.
Speaker 4: She's used a little reverse psychology on.
Speaker 2: You there, Yeah, she did. Anytime we make a road trip.
Speaker 1: We put on stuff you should know, which insights a
Speaker 1: groan from her every time.
Speaker 2: It's the chit chat that bugs her. We just gave
Speaker 2: her a shout out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, she's not the only person to feel that way.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: To get to the point, I was listening to The
Speaker 1: Dictator's episode and was so excited to hear you talking
Speaker 1: about Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In fact, that's my grandmother's maiden name.
Speaker 1: We pronounce it Suella, but whoever knows if that's the
Speaker 1: true pronunciation. Her family is from southern Italy and immigrated
Speaker 1: from Naples about one hundred years ago. She recently went
Speaker 1: on a trip to Italy and studied up on her
Speaker 1: ancestors and even visit a lot of the sites inscribed
Speaker 1: with his name.
Speaker 4: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's amazing to see a piece of your family history
Speaker 1: show up on your favorite podcast, even if it is
Speaker 1: about dictators. Gave me a chuckle. Thanks for keeping me entertained.
Speaker 1: Just recently caught up to all the episodes on iTunes.
Speaker 1: I know, I know there are much more. Yeah, on
Speaker 1: your mini more.
Speaker 2: On your website.
Speaker 4: Wow, she is a listener, how she is?
Speaker 2: And that's Sarah right. Now in Sydney.
Speaker 4: Thanks a lot, Sarah appreciate that. So wait, is she
Speaker 4: from Australia. She's just living in Australia.
Speaker 2: Now, I think she's just living there.
Speaker 4: Okay, got it. If you want to let us know
Speaker 4: about your world travels, all that jazz, like Sarah did,
Speaker 4: you can send us an email of the Stuff podcast
Speaker 4: the House. Stufffors dot com and has always joined us
Speaker 4: at our home on the web, Stuff Youshould Know dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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