Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hang and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant's right there, Jerry's right there. It's
Speaker 1: a little chilly in here. So it's Stuff you should
Speaker 1: know the podcast because it's chili. That's the cherry on top.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh, spoiler or not spoiler teaser At the
Speaker 1: end of this episode, let's say, between the end and
Speaker 1: before listener mail that's agreeable to you. At the forty
Speaker 1: three minute more, we are going to taste soilent for
Speaker 1: the first time live on the air. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: I should have thought this too. I took him out
Speaker 1: of the fridge already, so three minutes for it to
Speaker 1: warm up. Should we put them back? Well, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: you know. I wasn't gonna say anything. Then I was
Speaker 1: going to say something. Should I put them back? Well,
Speaker 1: it's probably best cold. Okay, We'll hang on everybody, So, yes,
Speaker 1: we're gonna try soiling eventually in this episode. That's right.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to try soil it or to talk about both. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Chucky just kind of gave it away alongside the
Speaker 1: title we're talking about keene wa today, not quinoa, no keena,
Speaker 1: that's right. But super food, yes, some I saying yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean you can make a pretty good claim that
Speaker 1: it is a super food. And what is the super
Speaker 1: food if not a type of food that has a
Speaker 1: lot going on just in and of itself. It's super Yeah,
Speaker 1: like blueberries are super food or a saberry super food
Speaker 1: or a si e berries. Yeah, algae was I didn't
Speaker 1: know algae was? I buy that? Hemp seeds, chia seeds, yeah,
Speaker 1: A lot of nuts, rich crackers, M, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Those are just super super delicious buttery. Yeah, with my
Speaker 1: crabb dip especially one day, maybe I'll find out what
Speaker 1: you just want me to bring you grabbed up? Ye,
Speaker 1: give me a cooking lesson. Uh So Keinwa. There at
Speaker 1: least a hundred and twenty varieties and it is nothing new.
Speaker 1: It's been around. In fact, we might as well delve
Speaker 1: into a little history here. It's been cultivated for geez,
Speaker 1: more than five thousand years. I saw up to eight
Speaker 1: thousand years. Almost more than five thousand, well, I guess
Speaker 1: we could say more than five years. More more than
Speaker 1: the last six months. Chema has been around on this planet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's Andean plant and specifically originated um around Lake
Speaker 1: Titty Kaka in Peru, in Bolivia in the altiplan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful, wonderful area. Have you been. Oh no, but
Speaker 1: just look at photos. Sure, Machu Picchu, You're like, well,
Speaker 1: look at that place exactly one day. Maybe I'd like
Speaker 1: to go for sure, But it is um. There is
Speaker 1: historical evidence of it um being domesticated, like we said,
Speaker 1: is maybe as long as eight thousand years ago. And
Speaker 1: they even saw in uh in ancient tombs, they saw
Speaker 1: a little you know, archaeological drawings and things that what
Speaker 1: they think is keen wa. So people were ingesting it
Speaker 1: and using it as a super food way back when. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the fact that it grew up there, or grows
Speaker 1: up there, and not only grows, but thrives up in
Speaker 1: this high rocky I think, pretty much arid plateau that's
Speaker 1: also very cold. It doesn't make any sense that you'd
Speaker 1: have anything but like al PACs and lama's up there.
Speaker 1: But in fact, there's a plant that's one of the
Speaker 1: most nutritious foods on the planet that just so happens
Speaker 1: to thrive up there in Bolivian Peru in the highlands.
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome, it is, And so of course they
Speaker 1: they have used this for thousands and thousands of years, um,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't. It wasn't until I think the early
Speaker 1: twentieth century that it really started to make its way
Speaker 1: for the first time out to the United States. I
Speaker 1: think the U. S d A got their hands on
Speaker 1: it and tried to get farmers to grow it here
Speaker 1: in the States, and they said, nah, let's give it
Speaker 1: another hundred years, maybe a little less. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the twenty first century is when it really kind of
Speaker 1: became popular. And even in the last she's mid two
Speaker 1: thousand's you can even talk about it being trendy. Well
Speaker 1: supposedly the whole trend for keen wa, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: in typical stuff, you should know, fashion has already come
Speaker 1: and gone, and now we're doing an episode on it.
Speaker 1: Oh it's not gone, are you sure? Oh? Yeah, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: do you know how keen Wa hit the hit the map,
Speaker 1: hit the scene, Well, in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: I assume you think it's one thing only Oprah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she had something to do with it, for sure. She
Speaker 1: she was on some sort of cleansed diet in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, and um, she uh eight keen jan mushrooms,
Speaker 1: I guess, And everybody was like, what is that? And
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, you've been calling it kenoa, it's keen wa.
Speaker 1: And he said, well we have to try this now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she definitely was a factor Oprah. Her reaches wide, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't reach me. You're not an opre fan. No.
Speaker 1: I think she's fine, But I didn't learn about keene
Speaker 1: wa from her or anything else where. Did you learn
Speaker 1: about keene then? Just you know, I think the first
Speaker 1: time I had it was in a restaurant. So it's
Speaker 1: to me it's spread because chefs started using it because
Speaker 1: they watch Oprah exactly. Chefs don't serve anything unless zero uh.
Speaker 1: Here in the United States, um, you know, talked about
Speaker 1: at least a hundred and twenty varieties. You're more than
Speaker 1: likely going to be eating the red, red, white, and blue,
Speaker 1: no red or black varieties of keenwa. And do you
Speaker 1: eat it in your home? I guess we'll get to
Speaker 1: this stuff, but I'm curious of vive cooked with it
Speaker 1: a lot, not a lot? Now I had it here,
Speaker 1: they're had in a couple of restaurants. So this stuff
Speaker 1: is Uh. It's known as an ancient grain, but it's
Speaker 1: not exactly a grain, and it's not exactly a cereal.
Speaker 1: It's classified technically as a pseudo cereal. Like fruity pebbles,
Speaker 1: that's a cereal. They just came out with cinnamon pebbles. Oh,
Speaker 1: but does a good Yeah, you could they click cinnamon
Speaker 1: old shoes and put them in a cereal box and
Speaker 1: it'd be good. But Quinwa technically is a pseudo cereal. Um.
Speaker 1: It comes from the goose foot plant, right, that's why
Speaker 1: it's not a cereal. Cereal is a grain that comes
Speaker 1: from a grass, and goose Foot's not a grass, it's
Speaker 1: a plant. No. And it looks kind of weedy, and
Speaker 1: as we'll see later when you're cultivating, it looks alarmingly
Speaker 1: like some other we with the capital W. It looks
Speaker 1: like marijuana, a little bit from afar. That brilliant red
Speaker 1: and brilliant yellow marijuana looks like I'm not sure you
Speaker 1: know what marijuana is. Uh, I'll show you a picture something, okay. Um.
Speaker 1: It is labeled the 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. Yeah, Like when you
Speaker 1: talk about grains usually again you're you're talking about these
Speaker 1: things from grass is like wheat, right, and there's such
Speaker 1: a thing as whole grain wheat. But once we process something,
Speaker 1: once we mill it or um shell it, smack it
Speaker 1: on the bottom, whatever you do to them, you're actually
Speaker 1: removing certain parts of the grain. Right. So with like
Speaker 1: um enriched white flower, that's you've taken a whole wheat
Speaker 1: grain and you've removed the brand and the journey, and
Speaker 1: you've just got yourself the endosperm still. And the endosperm
Speaker 1: is what's used mostly for to produce white flower. And
Speaker 1: that's great. It's full of like quick, easily digestible carbs,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the nutrients are lost and actually
Speaker 1: not easily digestible for many people. That's true too, um,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the nutrients are lost in the process.
Speaker 1: So even if you can digest it no problem, you're
Speaker 1: not getting most of the nutrients that were there in
Speaker 1: the first place. With a whole grain, it's got the brand,
Speaker 1: the germ, and the endosperm, and they're all working together
Speaker 1: to make you vastly healthier than you would be if
Speaker 1: you're just eating the endosperm like you do in white
Speaker 1: white flower and um quinoa in particular. Is it's really
Speaker 1: weird when you look at it. It's closer. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: think so, but it's closer to shard and beats and
Speaker 1: spinach plant is anything else. Yeah, it's crazy. So imagine if,
Speaker 1: like from spinach plants, we got not only the leaves
Speaker 1: but also the seeds turned out to be whole grains.
Speaker 1: That's what's going on. It's a weird plant. It is.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't grow where it grows. It shouldn't be a cereal,
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a grain, It shouldn't be related to beats,
Speaker 1: shouldn't be delicious, but it is. Uh, and it's super
Speaker 1: super good for you, Like we're saying, it's a super
Speaker 1: food and um. One of the reasons, and another thing
Speaker 1: that makes it very strange is that it has a
Speaker 1: ton of protein, which is pretty unusual for a plant
Speaker 1: to have this much protein. Yeah, this article made that point,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't. Look, there's a lot of other plants
Speaker 1: that have pretty good amounts of protein in them. What
Speaker 1: rivals keenwa at a mommy black beans, lima beans, chickpeas
Speaker 1: all beat it by a mile. Yeah. I just thought
Speaker 1: it was weird because not only did this article say it,
Speaker 1: I ran across it elsewhere too that they were like,
Speaker 1: this is it's amazing how much protein it has, and
Speaker 1: it has like a decent amount, especially for a plant.
Speaker 1: It's just not like eye popping or anything like that.
Speaker 1: You know, he's gets hyperbole. I kind of pooh pooed
Speaker 1: that one. Okay, yeah, what it does have, unless you
Speaker 1: think is not true as well, Well, I'll be the
Speaker 1: judge of ten at least ten amino acids. And uh,
Speaker 1: that's good, right? Or is it bad too? I guess
Speaker 1: it's okay. No, it's chock full of amino acids, which
Speaker 1: is great for your body because our body cannot make
Speaker 1: amino acids, so we have to get them from food sources. Well,
Speaker 1: they it can't make essential amino acids. It can make essential,
Speaker 1: non essential amino acids, but the essential ones we have
Speaker 1: to get from food. And Keenoa is in a very
Speaker 1: small group of plants that are um complete sources of protein,
Speaker 1: meaning that they have all of the essential amino acids
Speaker 1: that we need in them. Yes, you don't find that
Speaker 1: and plants very frequently. That's what helps make it a
Speaker 1: super food exactly. Uh, it's not very high in calorie,
Speaker 1: no sugar, no cholesterol, no sodium. What else? ZINCC has
Speaker 1: a lot of potassium too. Apparently it has the most
Speaker 1: potassium of any food plant that that is around. Potassium
Speaker 1: is really good at regulating blood pressure because potassiums in
Speaker 1: charge of things like fluid retention and electrical conduction throughout cells. Um.
Speaker 1: I think just compared to grains, there are plenty of
Speaker 1: other fruits with potassium. Okay, is that what it was? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like bananas are loaded with potassium, are they? Or is
Speaker 1: that the work of Edward Bernice? No, bananas are really
Speaker 1: good for you. Uh what else? Fiber, magnesium, full late, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good free. Well that's a big one man. So
Speaker 1: it's very commonly touted as a gluten free um food
Speaker 1: grain UM, which is good for people who have Celiac disease.
Speaker 1: But apparently they've tested there's at least would you say,
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty varieties that are like agricultural production
Speaker 1: right now, and um, somebody tested a bunch of them
Speaker 1: and they came up with like at least four that
Speaker 1: created a Celiac response, Yeah, so you gotta be careful.
Speaker 1: For the most part, they are gluten free, but they
Speaker 1: there are a few varieties out there that can touch off.
Speaker 1: The old Celiac response. Well, I think one of the
Speaker 1: deals though, is we're not seeing those in the marketplace though,
Speaker 1: which is one of the We'll get to it, but
Speaker 1: it's one of the potential problems is we're only eating
Speaker 1: like three or four of the varieties, and I think
Speaker 1: those are for sure gluten free. Like if you go
Speaker 1: to your grocery store, you're not gonna see varieties of
Speaker 1: this stuff, you know. Yeah, you're probably right. Uh all right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we're gonna get back and
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about cooking this delicious stuff. Oh so, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you were going to lay it on everybody how to
Speaker 1: cook quene wa. It's easy. If you can cook rice,
Speaker 1: you can cook quene wa. Yeah. I would say, well,
Speaker 1: it's easier than I would say it's easier than rice.
Speaker 1: It doesn't stick like rice does. Yeah, exactly. That's probably
Speaker 1: rice's biggest downfall, the sticky Yeah. Um, it's also what
Speaker 1: makes it great though, too. Sure, depending up what kind
Speaker 1: of rice you're getting, Um, I eat keene waite the house.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say a lot, but enough, like every couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. Oh yeah, that's a lot, is it? Wait?
Speaker 1: It is to me? So what you do is you
Speaker 1: want to rinse it? Yeah, like you will some kinds
Speaker 1: of rice. The bag you're you're buying is probably going
Speaker 1: to say pre rinsed or pre washed or something like that.
Speaker 1: You want to rinse it anyway, right, Yeah, they have
Speaker 1: this um. It's actually really good for you, this coating
Speaker 1: called sapping in um. And despite it's it's great health effects,
Speaker 1: when you add water to it, it lathers up like
Speaker 1: a soap. H yeah, and in fact it means it's
Speaker 1: from the Latin sapo, which is soap. So you don't
Speaker 1: want to eat it even though it's good for you know,
Speaker 1: the plant produces it to keep like pests away from
Speaker 1: it from eating it. Yeah, so you rinse that stuff
Speaker 1: off get keen when once you see it, it's really tiny.
Speaker 1: So you want to get a really fine strainer, not
Speaker 1: like a colander. You get a calndar. Then all like
Speaker 1: keena is gonna be where set down the drain man.
Speaker 1: I hate mondays, so get like a sifter really fine,
Speaker 1: sifter rinse it real good until it's the water is
Speaker 1: running clear, and um, base plea cook it like rice.
Speaker 1: It's uh one part keene watered, two parts water or broth.
Speaker 1: Well that's what I do. I used chicken broth. You'd
Speaker 1: be a madman is to use like water or veggie
Speaker 1: broth if you're you know, weird or off the meat.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. Um, beef broth if you're gross. That
Speaker 1: doesn't pair well with keen wa. I could see it not.
Speaker 1: I'm just not a big beef broth guy. I might
Speaker 1: have said, beef you did with th? Yeah, that's kind
Speaker 1: of cute beef broth beef broth. But I used chicken.
Speaker 1: I used like half. So if I do the two
Speaker 1: cups of water, I'll do one cup water, one cup
Speaker 1: chicken broth. Oh you cut your chicken broth? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just kind of do half and half. I got stomp
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah. Uh so then you cook it like rice,
Speaker 1: like I said, you're gonna boil it and then once
Speaker 1: it gets to a boil covered up, turn it down
Speaker 1: low and wait and let it simmer until it's all
Speaker 1: soaked up. Yeah, and then this started. Well I'm not
Speaker 1: as acquainted with cooking keen on as you are. But
Speaker 1: this article says that you want to look for the spirals,
Speaker 1: the seed 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. And that's the
Speaker 1: easiest way to say it. Like, once you look, it's
Speaker 1: almost like they pop open or something. And um, it's
Speaker 1: just quite obvious. It's just big and light and fluffy.
Speaker 1: You see the little seed spiral. What's need is and
Speaker 1: we kind of walked past it. But you said it
Speaker 1: a couple of times that that stepping in is um
Speaker 1: good for you, really good for you? Yeah, it has
Speaker 1: some amazing properties, like it's anti tumor, anti ulcer uh,
Speaker 1: anti inflammatory, And so you have to imagine, like again
Speaker 1: that this plant is growing in this random place where
Speaker 1: plants aren't really supposed to grow, and it thrives there
Speaker 1: and it's full of all these new treents and the
Speaker 1: outer coating is that anti inflammatory, anti tumor agent that
Speaker 1: you wash away? Yeah, it's kind of sad. You could
Speaker 1: save it, sip on it later. I wonder what would happen, Like,
Speaker 1: how would you have to ingest. Do you think, like,
Speaker 1: would it have any anti inflammatory properties if you like
Speaker 1: drank sappening? Do you think or do you need to
Speaker 1: like inject it into your eye, I don't know, or
Speaker 1: mix it into a salve, maybe rub on your skin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. That's a good question. I bet people know.
Speaker 1: We'll hear about that up in Bolivia. They know. Uh.
Speaker 1: 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 cuscus or whatever, mashed potatoes.
Speaker 1: Although I would eat the mashed potatoes. You could mix
Speaker 1: it with mashed potatoes, right, No, I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: One one thing that the author of this article, I
Speaker 1: think it's a Leah hoyt um. She said that she
Speaker 1: likes to mix it in instead of breadcrumbs into like
Speaker 1: meatballs or burger. Why not keen wa burger? Yeah? So
Speaker 1: is there such a thing as a keen wa burger?
Speaker 1: That's just keen wah? Could you make that? Or do
Speaker 1: you need something to bind it? I think you probably
Speaker 1: need binding agents, yeah, beef broths or I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've never made a keen war burger and I don't
Speaker 1: make any kind of edgie burger by like in my home,
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't really know how to go about that.
Speaker 1: What do you do turkey burgers? Or I do turkey?
Speaker 1: Turkey burgers are pretty good depending on the brand. Some
Speaker 1: are just like what is this texture? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm making myself with my own little recipe. But um,
Speaker 1: that's just because Emily didn't eat beef beef. So I've
Speaker 1: gotten so into the turkey burger that I don't even
Speaker 1: really I mean, I'll I'll have a beef burger out
Speaker 1: never home. You and I are sympatico on the home
Speaker 1: burger cooking. Yea, do you grill or do you skill it?
Speaker 1: Foreman grill? Oh yeah, it's pretty great. Half. We watched
Speaker 1: that grease strip out of the front, and I've noticed
Speaker 1: many times like I will do on the same ling
Speaker 1: grease out of my mouth. Uh. So here's my favorite
Speaker 1: keen whye dish. And I got it from a restaurant
Speaker 1: in New York, uh that I can't remember. But they're
Speaker 1: all kinds of variations, but I have it. Um, I
Speaker 1: cook it and then put it in the fridge and
Speaker 1: chill it like overnight. So in the summer, I will
Speaker 1: get that cold keenewa and then dice up like some
Speaker 1: cucumber and some red onion, and I mean kind of
Speaker 1: 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 in there right now, like you
Speaker 1: get some basil, some fresh herbs. That's the way to go, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like anything that strikes your fancy. Maybe a little lemon juice,
Speaker 1: little apple cider, vinegar, but the base of it is yeah,
Speaker 1: and you just mix up anything that you kind of
Speaker 1: you know, it might add some texture like that crunch
Speaker 1: and um, and serve it along. I'd like a burger
Speaker 1: instead of fries. Oh yeah, it's really really good. And
Speaker 1: you know me, I'm not. I'm not into healthy foods
Speaker 1: like that a lot, which means it's good, which means
Speaker 1: it's really good and packs with protein, don't forget. That's right.
Speaker 1: It's the complete source of protein. So that's or maybe
Speaker 1: some dried cranberry or golden raisins. We're not big on
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff in the salad. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people like it. Not me. I
Speaker 1: don't love the golden raisins, but I do like the cranberry. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's nice. All right. So that's Chuck's recipe
Speaker 1: of the week. It's pretty good. We'll do that every week,
Speaker 1: no matter what the topic is. What are you gonna
Speaker 1: come up with the degrade? Oh? Just you wait? Um,
Speaker 1: So here's the deal with keen wa. It's gotten really trendy.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and seven, the United States was
Speaker 1: importing uh seven point three million pounds of keena. They
Speaker 1: were imported fifth seven million pounds and who god knows
Speaker 1: what it is this year. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: that was the direct result of a single person of
Speaker 1: what of Oprah? Yeah, it all comes down to Oprah. No,
Speaker 1: there's this dude. Um. He was a U N development
Speaker 1: worker from Bolivia who had moved to California, and um,
Speaker 1: he had obviously grown up at least familiar with keene
Speaker 1: wife not eating keenewa. His name was Sergio Nouniez the Arcode,
Speaker 1: and he he saw that keen wa was starting to
Speaker 1: catch on a little bit. I guess he saw that
Speaker 1: episode of Oprah. So we went back to Bolivia and
Speaker 1: he found that there were only a few indigenous producers
Speaker 1: who were putting out like retail sized bags of keene wa.
Speaker 1: So he went around and he basically created a co
Speaker 1: op out of all the indigenous farmers who create, go
Speaker 1: grow keen Wa and Bolivia and made the supply from
Speaker 1: them reliable enough and big enough too. It's to supply
Speaker 1: industry abroad around the world. And this guy almost basically
Speaker 1: was the flash point for the keen wa explosion. He
Speaker 1: helped it happen, and he made sure that it was
Speaker 1: based on the work of the people who were originally
Speaker 1: cultivating keen wa. Yeah, which is a big one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He went from in two thousand five he sold twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars worth UH through his company, and these
Speaker 1: days he saw him 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 1: You put down that pamphlute. We're talking business here. Did
Speaker 1: they play the pamphlute? Yeah? Because Andy and Highlanders they
Speaker 1: love that love that junking. Is that where zam Fears from. No,
Speaker 1: I think Sam Fear is. I think he's Mediterranean. I
Speaker 1: wanted to say Greek and pretty sure. Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm getting He and Yanni confused, though, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe we are. They seem like they probably at least
Speaker 1: go bowling together. Yanny didn't play the pan fleet, that
Speaker 1: did he? No, No, Sam Fear is definitely master of
Speaker 1: the pan Fleet. Of course, you can't call yourself that
Speaker 1: on a CD unless Oprah has said so and that
Speaker 1: has the stamp of approval. So um, the price has
Speaker 1: really gone up to as a result, and it was
Speaker 1: not small um for a lot of years. One metric
Speaker 1: ton was about five dred dollars and in two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten that was dollars. So that's almost threefold. And
Speaker 1: again that was six years seven, almost seven years ago.
Speaker 1: I kept going up to I think it picked in two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. The price went up quite a bit, so
Speaker 1: you would think that's great. These farmers are making a
Speaker 1: ton of money now right, Yes, apparently. I don't know
Speaker 1: where it started, but somebody created um some I guess
Speaker 1: somebody wrote an article or started digging around and they said, hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: you guys are eating all this keen walk. Guess what
Speaker 1: you did. You drove up prices so much that the
Speaker 1: very indigenous people who have been cultivating this for thousands
Speaker 1: of years can't afford it anymore. So. Stuck on that hipster, right,
Speaker 1: Like the people of Fiji are exporting Fiji water, but
Speaker 1: they're all don't have clean drinking water themselves. That kind
Speaker 1: of same thing, right. It's basically an American pastime to
Speaker 1: take hipsters down to peg, isn't it? Is it? It
Speaker 1: seems like anything hipsters Like everybody goes to a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble to dig around and find what's wrong with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the one thing they can trace back I just
Speaker 1: gotta be bled on the hands somewhere. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we'll talk a little bit about, um,
Speaker 1: what this all means and whether or not that's even true.
Speaker 1: Right after this? Oh all right? So, Uh, if it's
Speaker 1: being produced um in the Andes and prices are going up,
Speaker 1: you would think that at some point people in the
Speaker 1: United States might try and take a stab at it.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened, uh and is happening. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you sent this great article is Keenwa California farmers
Speaker 1: in New Kale because Kale had a similar explosion uh
Speaker 1: in popularity, you know, over the past few years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Kale is out now, yeah, or at least
Speaker 1: made fun of, I think for being too hipstory and hot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the hipsters kind of chewed that up and
Speaker 1: spit it out. But it's still great. I know. People
Speaker 1: just hate all that stuff. Yeah, you know, really just
Speaker 1: like what's trending and what's not and what we think
Speaker 1: is cool, let's write about it, right, And I've read
Speaker 1: this really interesting article. I think it was a Mother
Speaker 1: Jones writer, like a Mother Jones Egg writer who basically said, like, hey, dudes,
Speaker 1: all of this stuff that you know suddenly like the
Speaker 1: hot new super food. It's niche um food marketing. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing as like Oreos coming out with a
Speaker 1: new flavor every like couple of months that you gotta
Speaker 1: go try or something like that, Like you're just a
Speaker 1: sheep for kale. But but yeah, but but geared towards
Speaker 1: people who don't eat junk food. But it's the same
Speaker 1: exact things. It. Don't be a chump, yeah, or at
Speaker 1: least don't get on your high horse about the other
Speaker 1: stuff saying mass marketed or being eaten by idiots and
Speaker 1: SAPs and simpletons. So the thing is the thing that
Speaker 1: made it even even worse though, was the idea that
Speaker 1: like the huge demand in the expanded market for keen
Speaker 1: ua that was largely found in the United States, was
Speaker 1: directly responsible for pricing indigenous farmers who were growing that
Speaker 1: keen wah out of it, so they weren't even eating it,
Speaker 1: was the problem and right, and what they found was
Speaker 1: that one they couldn't afford it, they've been priced out,
Speaker 1: or they were making the decision to where yeah, they're
Speaker 1: making more money now, but they would rather sell all
Speaker 1: their keen wa and buy less expensive, less nutrient dense
Speaker 1: food for their families. So the very people producing keen
Speaker 1: wah were not only couldn't afford it, they also were
Speaker 1: being malnourished as a result of this keen wah explosion.
Speaker 1: So it was a big deal. It made a lot
Speaker 1: of people's second guess it, uh feel pretty bad about themselves.
Speaker 1: And I also guarantee it had a negative impact on
Speaker 1: the keen wah market as well, which would directly affect
Speaker 1: the farmers. But what you dug up though on this
Speaker 1: um mprs the salt I guess blog their food blog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a story about it attached to it as well.
Speaker 1: It was pretty eye opening. Yeah, these dudes got together
Speaker 1: and they um were trying to get to kind of
Speaker 1: the root of all this, and so they got a
Speaker 1: data source. Uh eat an a h oh. It's the
Speaker 1: National Survey of Peru that they carry out every year,
Speaker 1: um about just Peruvian households and all kinds of stuff
Speaker 1: data that they're collecting, but one of them is food.
Speaker 1: And there are twenty two thousand randomly selected households. So
Speaker 1: they got ten years worth of this data covering from
Speaker 1: before the keen Wa boom, um a few years before
Speaker 1: through the keen Wa boom, so they could kind of
Speaker 1: do a good comparison. And they split the households into
Speaker 1: three groups. Uh, those who grow and eat kenwa, those
Speaker 1: who eat it but don't grow it, and those who
Speaker 1: neither grow it nor eat it. They say, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess there's the final householders, people that pronounce it quanila.
Speaker 1: It's like one household in Peru. It's like, what is
Speaker 1: this stuff? Uh? And they all three showed a clear
Speaker 1: rise in their welfare which they measured as a total
Speaker 1: value of goods consumed as that price of kenwa rose um.
Speaker 1: And apparently that reflected in the increased living standards in
Speaker 1: Peru as a whole too. Right, So at the height
Speaker 1: of that boom, uh, the welfare of the growers increased
Speaker 1: more rapidly than the other two groups though, which you
Speaker 1: would you know that makes sense? Yeah, and so you can.
Speaker 1: They they basically tracked a direct correlation between the keen
Speaker 1: wa boom around the world and a rise in the
Speaker 1: household welfare of keen wa farmers back in Prue. So
Speaker 1: they conclusively proved pretty much that there there was no
Speaker 1: um that these farmers weren't too poor to afford keenwa.
Speaker 1: But the other one was still left standing, right right,
Speaker 1: the idea that they were selling are all their keen wa.
Speaker 1: But then they were still male nurse because they were
Speaker 1: buying less nutritionally dense Yeah, and that apparently they managed
Speaker 1: to disprove as well. Yeah, at least that's what they're
Speaker 1: saying in this paper. I mean, we're not saying this
Speaker 1: is evidence, but at least this is what they dug
Speaker 1: out after pouring over these ten years worth of of
Speaker 1: studies Uh. They said this guy Andrew Stevens, a doctorial
Speaker 1: candidate UM, focused on specifically the Puno region and the Andies,
Speaker 1: which grows about eight of all the keen jan Peru.
Speaker 1: And he said, this is a it's a cultural and
Speaker 1: nutritionally important food, but it's not. I think the gist
Speaker 1: was people are trying to make it out to be
Speaker 1: like this is what they subsist on every day and
Speaker 1: they can't afford to eat it. And he said, this
Speaker 1: is actually a pretty small part of their diet overall,
Speaker 1: and they're actually eating more keenwa than ever before in
Speaker 1: that region that grows the most. That was pretty surprising.
Speaker 1: So uh, it said they did not come cut back
Speaker 1: their consumption between two thousand four and twenty twelve despite
Speaker 1: a fourfold price increase. They see no signs of changing calories,
Speaker 1: proteins or carbohydrates in the diet across Peru as a whole. Right,
Speaker 1: so they kind of debunked it. Pretty cool. Hipster's rejoice,
Speaker 1: They shall rejoice, But UM, there's still some outstanding problems. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like you said, it was, you said that I mentioned
Speaker 1: it was a culturally important food, so much so that
Speaker 1: Bolivia UM and it's drafted two thousand nine Constitution and
Speaker 1: shrine keen was part of their food sovereignty, which is
Speaker 1: their right to protect culturally important food. Yeah, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're coming in here and you're basically taking this and
Speaker 1: now you're gonna grow it all over the world, right,
Speaker 1: and they recognize the importance of kima. For a very
Speaker 1: long time. There was apparently a Colorado researcher who went
Speaker 1: to Bolivia in and was shot dead trying to smuggle
Speaker 1: keen wassies out of the country. And I guess somebody
Speaker 1: from Colorado eventually got him out because Colorado State University
Speaker 1: patented a hybrid keenwa based on Bolivian seeds, and the
Speaker 1: government Oblivia called them bio pirates. Yeah, that's not something
Speaker 1: you want level there at you not probably Bolivia. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other thing too, and I think you sent me
Speaker 1: this was that, um, because there's more. Basically there's sort
Speaker 1: of a land grab going on. Yeah, this is where
Speaker 1: I was going in Peru where all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they realized that you know, before when it wasn't worth
Speaker 1: that much money they I mean, sure they were producing it,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't like it is now. So all these
Speaker 1: people are saying, wait, this this land that was once unused,
Speaker 1: like is anyone claiming it? And there's sort of a
Speaker 1: rush to claim these lands. Well, there was fighting going. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was violence that broke out in February of I
Speaker 1: think two thousand fifteen, maybe four sorry, two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: where um one guy got his arm blown off by
Speaker 1: dynamite during this battle among hundreds of farmers for some
Speaker 1: land that had been sitting there abandoned for like decades.
Speaker 1: And part of the problem is when you're doing good
Speaker 1: agricultural practices, what do we talk about no till farming
Speaker 1: in I can't remember, Well, we've definitely talked a lot
Speaker 1: about that. Um and when you're using good agricultural practice
Speaker 1: is one of the main things you want to do
Speaker 1: is let um fields lie fallow for a year season
Speaker 1: at a time. And they're not doing that anymore in
Speaker 1: the Andes. And again, this is really really fragile crop
Speaker 1: land that they're growing this stuff in, so they're not
Speaker 1: letting it lay fallow any longer. And they're also using
Speaker 1: lama's less and lamas and keen wa go together like
Speaker 1: rice and beans, which by the way, is another complete
Speaker 1: um protein food. But it's not just a single food,
Speaker 1: so he can food. Yeah. Yeah, man, what was that episode?
Speaker 1: It's totally on the tip of my tongue. We talked
Speaker 1: a lot about no till no till farming. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I want to say I had something to do with
Speaker 1: the dust bowl, but we didn't do one on the
Speaker 1: dust bawl. We did. We did one on the dust
Speaker 1: ball and desertification. Maybe it was the yeah good one.
Speaker 1: Um yeah. So the llamas, that's one of the big issues, right,
Speaker 1: is that they're not letting them poop everywhere. Well they're not.
Speaker 1: They're not lama farming like they used to. Laun Llamas
Speaker 1: use a lot of grazing land and they're like, we
Speaker 1: can use that instead to um grow keenwa because keene
Speaker 1: was more valuable than lama's right, But lamas again and
Speaker 1: keen wa go together like rice and beans, and llama
Speaker 1: poop is almost like it's designed or tailored to fertilize keenewa.
Speaker 1: They started to use sheep poop instead, I guess imported
Speaker 1: sheep poop and it allows a lot more pests and
Speaker 1: invasive weeds than lama poop does. When lama poop is fertilizing.
Speaker 1: So the whole ecosystem is definitely being um altered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not necessarily in good ways because of this huge
Speaker 1: demand and this huge influx of cash. It's basically more money,
Speaker 1: more problems. Yeah, the the Alto planos people are finding out.
Speaker 1: It's so weird. We're not weird, but kind of sad
Speaker 1: that you can't you know, it can't just be a
Speaker 1: success story never, you know. I guess in the long run.
Speaker 1: They're also worried that um I was talking about all
Speaker 1: those different varieties. Um I saw the twenty but it
Speaker 1: says here there could be up to thousands of different varieties,
Speaker 1: and farmers are abandoning most of these to concentrate on
Speaker 1: the ones that they can sell to you know, ship
Speaker 1: out to export to American markets or I guess just
Speaker 1: you know, not just America. I think Europe has eating
Speaker 1: stuff like crazy too. Yeah, but um it says that
Speaker 1: those varieties are This guy says that, um they're the
Speaker 1: future of keenwa because they can adapt to things like
Speaker 1: climate change. And you narrow the varieties down to a
Speaker 1: certain few and they don't adapt, then you're kind of screwed.
Speaker 1: You're s o l if you have three thousand to
Speaker 1: choose from to try to adapt to changing climate, then yeah,
Speaker 1: you're way better off. So crop diversity is pretty important.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's getting erased as well. Yeah, well they're
Speaker 1: trying to encourage it with these Andean farmers at least. Uh.
Speaker 1: They are working with Bolivia and Peru to develop internal
Speaker 1: markets for these threatened varieties, like with school food programs
Speaker 1: and stuff like, not necessarily to sell, but to use
Speaker 1: like within the country at hospitals and schools. They said
Speaker 1: they've been fairly successful with some of that stuff, so um,
Speaker 1: hopefully that continues. See that. To me, that's what government
Speaker 1: subsidies are for stuff like that, for like small indigenous
Speaker 1: farmers who are protecting thousand year old varieties of crops
Speaker 1: that are part of the cultural um fabric of a
Speaker 1: country for the future. For all. They are growing in
Speaker 1: California though that article you sent this dude is growing
Speaker 1: it in in the Sonoran Desert, crazy in the Imperial
Speaker 1: Valley below sea level, in like one of the hottest
Speaker 1: places in North America. They're growing keena. Yeah, and well,
Speaker 1: part of the problem is keena is very closely related.
Speaker 1: I think it's in the same genus as um, something
Speaker 1: called Lamb's quarters, which doesn't really matter up in the
Speaker 1: Alto Plano, but in California, Lamb's quarters is a toxic,
Speaker 1: toxic plant to live stock which might accidentally graze on
Speaker 1: it because they're not thinking about that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And then it also um carries a virus that kills alfalfa,
Speaker 1: which is very much growing in California to feed that
Speaker 1: live stock. So there's it's a it's a weird, it's
Speaker 1: a complex, amazing plant that shouldn't exist. Yeah, maybe that'll
Speaker 1: be the title quene wa olan complex more complex than
Speaker 1: you think. That's a good one. Or maybe it should say, well,
Speaker 1: never mind, I'll figure that out. Should we just brainstorm
Speaker 1: some more? And let's show title. Are we gonna try
Speaker 1: the soilent? Yes, let's um and then do listener mail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do that all right? So, uh, here we are.
Speaker 1: We're gonna try this. Yeah, soilent. It's in a white bottle.
Speaker 1: We called a lot of flak about not having tried
Speaker 1: it and still done something. I'm like, well, here we go.
Speaker 1: Then I'm not iridescent, but I've done an episode on iridescent.
Speaker 1: Give me a break, people, I think you should probably
Speaker 1: shake well, right, I think so, I don't know. We
Speaker 1: gotta go back and listen to the episode against been
Speaker 1: a while. People also thought that that was a sponsored
Speaker 1: episode by Soilent, and I was like, I think we
Speaker 1: said enough bad things about the taste. You should have
Speaker 1: figured out that it was not. All right, here we go,
Speaker 1: So this is us trying. So we also want to
Speaker 1: say thanks again to Don Kent for sending this in.
Speaker 1: It smells like, this is a nice kind of nice smell.
Speaker 1: What does that smell like? It smells like cereal milk.
Speaker 1: We got that a lot. A lot of people said
Speaker 1: it smells like or it tastes like cheerios milk. It's
Speaker 1: totally what it smells like. Can we say cheerios? Or
Speaker 1: is this an episode for Cheerios? Now? All right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna should we do the same one. I thought we
Speaker 1: were chucking the whole thing. No, oh, that's that's not bad.
Speaker 1: It is It's not bad at all. A cheerio cereal milk.
Speaker 1: I think I'm I would have come up with that
Speaker 1: even if somebody hadn't said it. This is good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's sort of Bland's definitely it's not nearly
Speaker 1: a sweet. It's not like a honeynut cheerio milk. No,
Speaker 1: that's true for cinnamon toast crunch milk. It's not bad.
Speaker 1: I was dreading this. I thought it was gonna be
Speaker 1: awful from all the comments. But that's not bad at all.
Speaker 1: I like it. I can see how you would kind
Speaker 1: of start to crave it because it's got that like
Speaker 1: almost a fatty mouth feel to it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like it really gets on the tongue. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: there it is. I should probably stop. It's pretty got
Speaker 1: a lot of calories in it. Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: twenty if you're a daily nutrition Well thanks again and
Speaker 1: don Kent, thanks again to everybody who wrongly called us
Speaker 1: out for doing an ad for soilent. The aftertaste is
Speaker 1: a little bit like milk of magnesia. I'm not getting
Speaker 1: map like my Lanta. Yeah no, I know you mean
Speaker 1: kind of chalky. I don't have that. Hm uh oh.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about soilent, go listen
Speaker 1: to soil lamp sub. In the meantime, if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about keen Wa, type that word q
Speaker 1: U I n O A into the search far how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar,
Speaker 1: it's time for more Soilent, I mean it's time for
Speaker 1: listening now, all right, I'm gonna call it. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: definitely don't like the aftertaste. It sound it sort of
Speaker 1: chalking up on my throat and tongue. I kind of
Speaker 1: like this stuff. I like food more, but that's not bad.
Speaker 1: Sure Like if somebody said should I drink soil It,
Speaker 1: I'd say why not? All right, I'm gonna call this, uh,
Speaker 1: just a nice email from this lovely Australian woman. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: been a long time listener, first time writer, currently living
Speaker 1: in Sydney, Australia, though I grew up in Tennessee and
Speaker 1: uh now I'm a Florida resident all over the place,
Speaker 1: so maybe she's not a strong I've been listening to y'all.
Speaker 1: Y'all since I was in college at U t K
Speaker 1: Go Balls, and I even brought you along with me
Speaker 1: while spending a year living in France. If you do
Speaker 1: end up reading this on the air, which I don't expect,
Speaker 1: I would be so thrilled. If you give a shout
Speaker 1: out to my little sister LB, currently in Portland and
Speaker 1: so up. LB she's used a little reverse psychology, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she did. Anytime we make a road trip, we put
Speaker 1: on stuff you should know, which incites a groan from
Speaker 1: her every time. It's the chit chat that bugs her.
Speaker 1: We just gave her a shout out. YEA, well, she's not.
Speaker 1: She's not the only person to feel that way, 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 pronounced it Suela, but whoever knows if that's the
Speaker 1: true pronunciation. Her family is from southern Italy and immigrated
Speaker 1: from Naples about a hundred years ago. She recently went
Speaker 1: on a trip to Italy and studied up on her
Speaker 1: ancestors sella uh and even visited a lot of the
Speaker 1: sites inscribed with his name. It's amazing to see a
Speaker 1: piece of your family history show up on your favorite podcast,
Speaker 1: even if it is about dictators. Gave me a chuckle.
Speaker 1: Thanks for keeping me entertained. This recently caught up to
Speaker 1: all the episodes on iTunes. I know, I know there
Speaker 1: are much more on your many more on your website. Wow,
Speaker 1: she's a listener. She is, and that's Sarah right now
Speaker 1: in Sydney. Thanks a lot, Sarah appreciate that. Um so,
Speaker 1: wait is she from Ustara? She's just living in Australia
Speaker 1: now I think she's just living there. Okay, got uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to let us know about your world
Speaker 1: travels and all that jazz, like Sarah did, you can
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s y s K podcast or
Speaker 1: josh um Clark. You can hang out with Chuck at
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant on Facebook or it Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know on Facebook. You can send us an email
Speaker 1: of the Stuff podcast to how Stuff Worse dot com
Speaker 1: and there's always joined us at our home on the web.
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