2013: The Year of Quinoa

Have you heard of quinoa? If you're one of the millions that shops at specialty groceries like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, you probably have. It's an ancient grain, grown mainly in South America, which has become quite trendy in the us in recent years, and as a result has gotten more expensive. Can we expect the price to go down as the quinoa supply increases to meet rising demand? Maybe, and maybe not.

An interesting post at the Washington Post Wonkblog (with graphs!) gets into the economic reasons why quinoa farmers are not cropping up all over the world. Mostly, there is an enormous startup cost to growing a new species of plant on a large scale, or in a new environment. Producing more quinoa in the US, for example, would require both. Getting more quinoa from the farmers in Bolivia and Peru that have been growing the grain for centuries isn't such an easy proposition, either, as these traditional farmers use older techniques and equipment that are not so easily scaled up as are industrial agricultural methods. A number of solutions are being studied, including new varieties of quinoa that can grow in different climates. These topics will be discussed at an upcoming quinoa symposium.

Why are we eating so much quinoa? Well, aside from the facts that we love novelty the latest health food fad, quinoa is tasty and actually healthy. It's about 14% protein, which is a lot for something we consider a grain (although not as high as beans), and it is a vegetarian source of "complete protein," meaning that it contains all the amino acids that our body cannot synthesize on its own and needs to get from our diet. It's also high in fiber and a number of other nutrients like B vitamins and iron. So, eat your quinoa, if you can afford it, and hope that in the future, there will be enough to go around.

Also, here is a fun quinoa bonus fact from Wikipedia: While quinoa is not a true grass like the cereal crops we think of as grains (wheat, rice, etc.), it is closely related to tumbleweeds.

A tip of the hat to Ragan for the article!
(Image: Quinoa, a Creative Commons 2.0 licensed image from Renee S. Suen's Photostream)

Science of Addiction: Junk Food Edition

Everybody knows that we shouldn't eat so much processed junk food, and everybody also knows that's it's sometimes difficult to control your intake of these foods. However, I don't think that many people have thought about what goes on in your brain when you eat many more potato chips than you had planned to eat. In the NYT this week there  is a very interesting piece addressing just these issues and the research that has contributed to our current understanding of why humans love junk food.

For the past 50 years or so, a great deal of research has gone into what it is that humans like to eat and how to market it to them, beginning with military research into which MREs soldiers prefer and continuing to the modern day with research into how many pounds per square inch of pressure it takes to break the ideal potato chip and how to successfully market baby carrots as snack food. Most of this research has been done by large processed food companies with an eye to idealizing the taste of their snack foods so that people will eat more of them. By most accounts, they have been wildly successful - so successful that in the U.S. today one in three adults is obese and the rate of type II diabetes climbs  every year.

One interesting tidbit from the article is that research shows that, although we like strong or unique tasting foods for a short time, we quickly tire of them if we eat the same one over and over again. Over the long term, we will eat more of relatively bland but tasty foods (like white bread and potato chips). This is great news for the makers of salty, fatty, but unremarkable snack foods (I'm looking at you, Cheetos!) that we know so well.

There is a growing awareness that the types of foods, especially processed foods, that people eat contributes to (or detracts from) their health as much, if not more, than the quantity of that food. As I learned from this article, even people involved with marketing processed foods to the public are acknowledging that what we eat is part of the growing health crisis in our country.

Hopefully in the future we can put all of the research behind marketing and idealizing unhealthy food to work helping people to make better choices about what they eat. The more we understand about why people like certain foods, the more we can make healthy foods that people like to eat, or at least stop making and eating addictive foods that ultimately make us sick. The solution to the problem will have to be a combination of information that consumers can use to make better food choices and more responsible food manufacturing and marketing by the handful of companies that control the majority of processed food in America. Understanding what is going wrong now is the first step in the right direction.

(Image: Junk food, grocery store, Houston, TX, USA, a Creative Commons 2.0 licensed image from Cory Doctorow's Photostream via BoingBoing)

Pardon the Interruption...

 (scary cake, via The Kitchn)

I know I've been slacking off on posting lately. It's been mostly due to the impending end to my graduate student career and related thesis writing activities. Basically, posting is going to be very sparse until August. Until then, I'll try to keep you updated with the goings-on in the food interwebs. Also, my CSA is starting next week, so I'm planning to have some related posts on seasonal veggies.

For now, please entertain and inform yourselves with the following items of interest:

Snake Oil in Your Snacks - Don't believe everything you read on food packaging, or How yogurt isn't going to solve all of your bowel problems.
The Bisphenol A Saga Heats Up - This endocrine disrupting compound is showing up more and more places - previously, in Nalgene bottles and other plastic bottles, and now in most canned food, too.
Dismal Reports on Dietary Supplements - In other snake oil news, food supplements are mostly bunk.
Your Fetus Can Taste Your Food - Turns out, what you eat while pregnant has an effect on what your baby will prefer to eat once it's born.
Why Bananas Turn Black in the Fridge - Cold damages these tropical fruits and causes their cells' vaculoles to leak causing phenol oxidation. Got that?
Do Spices Really Only Keep For Six Months? - Unsurprisingly, they don't spontaneously go bad after this period, but ground spices do lose flavor over time.
Keep 'Em Separated - Why you have to keep egg whites and yolks separate if you want to whip up some nice foamy egg whites. You don't want lipids in your protein foam do you? DO YOU?!
Eat Your Way to a Better Tan - Science says, eating your veggies can help give you a healthy, sun-kissed glow.
Vodka Watermelon - Okay, there isn't much science in this post, but there should be. Osmosis, anyone? Also, delicious boozy watermelon... mmmmm....

Finally, because it is awesome, this video on DIY Plum Wine and Plum Syrup. Japanese green ume plums are in season now, if you can find them:

Speaking of "in season," its finally getting into real summertime here in the Northeast, so get thee to a farmer's market! Radishes and snap peas and strawberries, oh my!

Marion Nestle and the Future of Food

The Kitchn has a rundown of a recent talk by Dr. Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU. Apparently, good news - she thinks we (meaning our society) are not all doomed to die of diabetes, as long as we stop eating so much processed corn by-products. Word.