February 7, 2017 • 43 mins
Quinoa is a trendy food, right alongside kale and anything else farm to table. But it's really an ancient grain. Although it's not exactly a grain at all. Technically it's a pseudo-cereal. But it is tasty and nutritious, a true superfood. Learn all about the food with the funny name in today's episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hang and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Charles W. Chuck Bryant's right there, Jerry's right there. It's
a little chilly in here. So it's Stuff you should
know the podcast because it's chili. That's the cherry on top.
(00:27):
That's right. Uh, spoiler or not spoiler teaser At the
end of this episode, let's say, between the end and
before listener mail that's agreeable to you. At the forty
three minute more, we are going to taste soilent for
the first time live on the air. Yeah, I guess
(00:49):
I should have thought this too. I took him out
of the fridge already, so three minutes for it to
warm up. Should we put them back? Well, I wouldn't
you know. I wasn't gonna say anything. Then I was
going to say something. Should I put them back? Well,
it's probably best cold. Okay, We'll hang on everybody, So, yes,
we're gonna try soiling eventually in this episode. That's right.
(01:12):
I'm excited to try soil it or to talk about both. Okay,
So Chucky just kind of gave it away alongside the
title we're talking about keene wa today, not quinoa, no keena,
that's right. But super food, yes, some I saying yeah.
(01:34):
I mean you can make a pretty good claim that
it is a super food. And what is the super
food if not a type of food that has a
lot going on just in and of itself. It's super Yeah,
like blueberries are super food or a saberry super food
or a si e berries. Yeah, algae was I didn't
(01:56):
know algae was? I buy that? Hemp seeds, chia seeds, yeah,
A lot of nuts, rich crackers, M, I don't know.
Those are just super super delicious buttery. Yeah, with my
crabb dip especially one day, maybe I'll find out what
(02:16):
you just want me to bring you grabbed up? Ye,
give me a cooking lesson. Uh So Keinwa. There at
least a hundred and twenty varieties and it is nothing new.
It's been around. In fact, we might as well delve
into a little history here. It's been cultivated for geez,
(02:37):
more than five thousand years. I saw up to eight
thousand years. Almost more than five thousand, well, I guess
we could say more than five years. More more than
the last six months. Chema has been around on this planet. Yeah,
and it's Andean plant and specifically originated um around Lake
Titty Kaka in Peru, in Bolivia in the altiplan. Yeah,
(03:00):
it's wonderful, wonderful area. Have you been. Oh no, but
just look at photos. Sure, Machu Picchu, You're like, well,
look at that place exactly one day. Maybe I'd like
to go for sure, But it is um. There is
historical evidence of it um being domesticated, like we said,
is maybe as long as eight thousand years ago. And
(03:21):
they even saw in uh in ancient tombs, they saw
a little you know, archaeological drawings and things that what
they think is keen wa. So people were ingesting it
and using it as a super food way back when. Yeah.
And the fact that it grew up there, or grows
up there, and not only grows, but thrives up in
(03:41):
this high rocky I think, pretty much arid plateau that's
also very cold. It doesn't make any sense that you'd
have anything but like al PACs and lama's up there.
But in fact, there's a plant that's one of the
most nutritious foods on the planet that just so happens
to thrive up there in Bolivian Peru in the highlands.
(04:03):
That's pretty awesome, it is, And so of course they
they have used this for thousands and thousands of years, um,
and it wasn't. It wasn't until I think the early
twentieth century that it really started to make its way
for the first time out to the United States. I
think the U. S d A got their hands on
(04:23):
it and tried to get farmers to grow it here
in the States, and they said, nah, let's give it
another hundred years, maybe a little less. Yeah, I mean
the twenty first century is when it really kind of
became popular. And even in the last she's mid two
thousand's you can even talk about it being trendy. Well
supposedly the whole trend for keen wa, which, by the way,
(04:44):
in typical stuff, you should know, fashion has already come
and gone, and now we're doing an episode on it.
Oh it's not gone, are you sure? Oh? Yeah, Okay, Well,
do you know how keen Wa hit the hit the map,
hit the scene, Well, in a lot of different ways.
I assume you think it's one thing only Oprah. Yeah,
she had something to do with it, for sure. She
(05:05):
she was on some sort of cleansed diet in two
thousand and eight, and um, she uh eight keen jan mushrooms,
I guess, And everybody was like, what is that? And
she's like, oh, you've been calling it kenoa, it's keen wa.
And he said, well we have to try this now. Yeah,
she definitely was a factor Oprah. Her reaches wide, but
(05:26):
it doesn't reach me. You're not an opre fan. No.
I think she's fine, But I didn't learn about keene
wa from her or anything else where. Did you learn
about keene then? Just you know, I think the first
time I had it was in a restaurant. So it's
to me it's spread because chefs started using it because
they watch Oprah exactly. Chefs don't serve anything unless zero uh.
(05:50):
Here in the United States, um, you know, talked about
at least a hundred and twenty varieties. You're more than
likely going to be eating the red, red, white, and blue,
no red or black varieties of keenwa. And do you
eat it in your home? I guess we'll get to
this stuff, but I'm curious of vive cooked with it
a lot, not a lot? Now I had it here,
(06:10):
they're had in a couple of restaurants. So this stuff
is Uh. It's known as an ancient grain, but it's
not exactly a grain, and it's not exactly a cereal.
It's classified technically as a pseudo cereal. Like fruity pebbles,
that's a cereal. They just came out with cinnamon pebbles. Oh,
(06:34):
but does a good Yeah, you could they click cinnamon
old shoes and put them in a cereal box and
it'd be good. But Quinwa technically is a pseudo cereal. Um.
It comes from the goose foot plant, right, that's why
it's not a cereal. Cereal is a grain that comes
from a grass, and goose Foot's not a grass, it's
a plant. No. And it looks kind of weedy, and
(06:55):
as we'll see later when you're cultivating, it looks alarmingly
like some other we with the capital W. It looks
like marijuana, a little bit from afar. That brilliant red
and brilliant yellow marijuana looks like I'm not sure you
(07:15):
know what marijuana is. Uh, I'll show you a picture something, okay. Um.
It is labeled the whole grain though, because it's actually
it fits the whole grain definition because it is the
whole grain seed which you're eating. Yeah, Like when you
talk about grains usually again you're you're talking about these
things from grass is like wheat, right, and there's such
(07:37):
a thing as whole grain wheat. But once we process something,
once we mill it or um shell it, smack it
on the bottom, whatever you do to them, you're actually
removing certain parts of the grain. Right. So with like
um enriched white flower, that's you've taken a whole wheat
grain and you've removed the brand and the journey, and
(08:01):
you've just got yourself the endosperm still. And the endosperm
is what's used mostly for to produce white flower. And
that's great. It's full of like quick, easily digestible carbs,
but a lot of the nutrients are lost and actually
not easily digestible for many people. That's true too, um,
but a lot of the nutrients are lost in the process.
(08:21):
So even if you can digest it no problem, you're
not getting most of the nutrients that were there in
the first place. With a whole grain, it's got the brand,
the germ, and the endosperm, and they're all working together
to make you vastly healthier than you would be if
you're just eating the endosperm like you do in white
white flower and um quinoa in particular. Is it's really
(08:43):
weird when you look at it. It's closer. You wouldn't
think so, but it's closer to shard and beats and
spinach plant is anything else. Yeah, it's crazy. So imagine if,
like from spinach plants, we got not only the leaves
but also the seeds turned out to be whole grains.
That's what's going on. It's a weird plant. It is.
(09:06):
It shouldn't grow where it grows. It shouldn't be a cereal,
shouldn't be a grain, It shouldn't be related to beats,
shouldn't be delicious, but it is. Uh, and it's super
super good for you, Like we're saying, it's a super
food and um. One of the reasons, and another thing
that makes it very strange is that it has a
ton of protein, which is pretty unusual for a plant
(09:29):
to have this much protein. Yeah, this article made that point,
but I wouldn't. Look, there's a lot of other plants
that have pretty good amounts of protein in them. What
rivals keenwa at a mommy black beans, lima beans, chickpeas
all beat it by a mile. Yeah. I just thought
it was weird because not only did this article say it,
I ran across it elsewhere too that they were like,
(09:51):
this is it's amazing how much protein it has, and
it has like a decent amount, especially for a plant.
It's just not like eye popping or anything like that.
You know, he's gets hyperbole. I kind of pooh pooed
that one. Okay, yeah, what it does have, unless you
think is not true as well, Well, I'll be the
judge of ten at least ten amino acids. And uh,
(10:12):
that's good, right? Or is it bad too? I guess
it's okay. No, it's chock full of amino acids, which
is great for your body because our body cannot make
amino acids, so we have to get them from food sources. Well,
they it can't make essential amino acids. It can make essential,
non essential amino acids, but the essential ones we have
(10:32):
to get from food. And Keenoa is in a very
small group of plants that are um complete sources of protein,
meaning that they have all of the essential amino acids
that we need in them. Yes, you don't find that
and plants very frequently. That's what helps make it a
super food exactly. Uh, it's not very high in calorie,
(10:57):
no sugar, no cholesterol, no sodium. What else? ZINCC has
a lot of potassium too. Apparently it has the most
potassium of any food plant that that is around. Potassium
is really good at regulating blood pressure because potassiums in
charge of things like fluid retention and electrical conduction throughout cells. Um.
(11:19):
I think just compared to grains, there are plenty of
other fruits with potassium. Okay, is that what it was? Yeah?
Like bananas are loaded with potassium, are they? Or is
that the work of Edward Bernice? No, bananas are really
good for you. Uh what else? Fiber, magnesium, full late, Yeah,
(11:40):
that's good free. Well that's a big one man. So
it's very commonly touted as a gluten free um food
grain UM, which is good for people who have Celiac disease.
But apparently they've tested there's at least would you say,
a hundred and fifty varieties that are like agricultural production
(12:02):
right now, and um, somebody tested a bunch of them
and they came up with like at least four that
created a Celiac response, Yeah, so you gotta be careful.
For the most part, they are gluten free, but they
there are a few varieties out there that can touch off.
The old Celiac response. Well, I think one of the
deals though, is we're not seeing those in the marketplace though,
(12:25):
which is one of the We'll get to it, but
it's one of the potential problems is we're only eating
like three or four of the varieties, and I think
those are for sure gluten free. Like if you go
to your grocery store, you're not gonna see varieties of
this stuff, you know. Yeah, you're probably right. Uh all right, Well,
(12:48):
let's take a break and we're gonna get back and
talk a little bit about cooking this delicious stuff. Oh so, Chuck,
(13:19):
you were going to lay it on everybody how to
cook quene wa. It's easy. If you can cook rice,
you can cook quene wa. Yeah. I would say, well,
it's easier than I would say it's easier than rice.
It doesn't stick like rice does. Yeah, exactly. That's probably
rice's biggest downfall, the sticky Yeah. Um, it's also what
(13:41):
makes it great though, too. Sure, depending up what kind
of rice you're getting, Um, I eat keene waite the house.
I wouldn't say a lot, but enough, like every couple
of weeks. Oh yeah, that's a lot, is it? Wait?
It is to me? So what you do is you
want to rinse it? Yeah, like you will some kinds
(14:02):
of rice. The bag you're you're buying is probably going
to say pre rinsed or pre washed or something like that.
You want to rinse it anyway, right, Yeah, they have
this um. It's actually really good for you, this coating
called sapping in um. And despite it's it's great health effects,
when you add water to it, it lathers up like
a soap. H yeah, and in fact it means it's
(14:27):
from the Latin sapo, which is soap. So you don't
want to eat it even though it's good for you know,
the plant produces it to keep like pests away from
it from eating it. Yeah, so you rinse that stuff
off get keen when once you see it, it's really tiny.
So you want to get a really fine strainer, not
like a colander. You get a calndar. Then all like
keena is gonna be where set down the drain man.
(14:50):
I hate mondays, so get like a sifter really fine,
sifter rinse it real good until it's the water is
running clear, and um, base plea cook it like rice.
It's uh one part keene watered, two parts water or broth.
Well that's what I do. I used chicken broth. You'd
be a madman is to use like water or veggie
(15:12):
broth if you're you know, weird or off the meat.
I'm just kidding. Um, beef broth if you're gross. That
doesn't pair well with keen wa. I could see it not.
I'm just not a big beef broth guy. I might
have said, beef you did with th? Yeah, that's kind
of cute beef broth beef broth. But I used chicken.
(15:38):
I used like half. So if I do the two
cups of water, I'll do one cup water, one cup
chicken broth. Oh you cut your chicken broth? Yeah, I
just kind of do half and half. I got stomp
on it. Yeah. Uh so then you cook it like rice,
like I said, you're gonna boil it and then once
it gets to a boil covered up, turn it down
low and wait and let it simmer until it's all
(15:58):
soaked up. Yeah, and then this started. Well I'm not
as acquainted with cooking keen on as you are. But
this article says that you want to look for the spirals,
the seed spirals to be prominent. What's the deal with that?
You'll see when you look at it, like before you
cook it, it looks different than afterward. And that's the
easiest way to say it. Like, once you look, it's
almost like they pop open or something. And um, it's
(16:21):
just quite obvious. It's just big and light and fluffy.
You see the little seed spiral. What's need is and
we kind of walked past it. But you said it
a couple of times that that stepping in is um
good for you, really good for you? Yeah, it has
some amazing properties, like it's anti tumor, anti ulcer uh,
anti inflammatory, And so you have to imagine, like again
(16:43):
that this plant is growing in this random place where
plants aren't really supposed to grow, and it thrives there
and it's full of all these new treents and the
outer coating is that anti inflammatory, anti tumor agent that
you wash away? Yeah, it's kind of sad. You could
save it, sip on it later. I wonder what would happen, Like,
(17:04):
how would you have to ingest. Do you think, like,
would it have any anti inflammatory properties if you like
drank sappening? Do you think or do you need to
like inject it into your eye, I don't know, or
mix it into a salve, maybe rub on your skin. Yeah,
I'm not sure. That's a good question. I bet people know.
We'll hear about that up in Bolivia. They know. Uh.
(17:24):
So you can eat it in a variety of ways.
You can just eat it as a side dish like
you would with rice or cuscus or whatever, mashed potatoes.
Although I would eat the mashed potatoes. You could mix
it with mashed potatoes, right, No, I wouldn't do that.
One one thing that the author of this article, I
think it's a Leah hoyt um. She said that she
(17:46):
likes to mix it in instead of breadcrumbs into like
meatballs or burger. Why not keen wa burger? Yeah? So
is there such a thing as a keen wa burger?
That's just keen wah? Could you make that? Or do
you need something to bind it? I think you probably
need binding agents, yeah, beef broths or I don't know.
(18:08):
I've never made a keen war burger and I don't
make any kind of edgie burger by like in my home,
So I wouldn't really know how to go about that.
What do you do turkey burgers? Or I do turkey?
Turkey burgers are pretty good depending on the brand. Some
are just like what is this texture? Yeah, I mean,
I'm making myself with my own little recipe. But um,
(18:29):
that's just because Emily didn't eat beef beef. So I've
gotten so into the turkey burger that I don't even
really I mean, I'll I'll have a beef burger out
never home. You and I are sympatico on the home
burger cooking. Yea, do you grill or do you skill it?
Foreman grill? Oh yeah, it's pretty great. Half. We watched
(18:55):
that grease strip out of the front, and I've noticed
many times like I will do on the same ling
grease out of my mouth. Uh. So here's my favorite
keen whye dish. And I got it from a restaurant
in New York, uh that I can't remember. But they're
all kinds of variations, but I have it. Um, I
cook it and then put it in the fridge and
(19:16):
chill it like overnight. So in the summer, I will
get that cold keenewa and then dice up like some
cucumber and some red onion, and I mean kind of
anything you want like that fits a salad summer salad,
like orange pepper, like crunchy green pepper or roasted red pepper, garlic,
(19:38):
throw some pine nuts in there right now, like you
get some basil, some fresh herbs. That's the way to go, man. Yeah,
like anything that strikes your fancy. Maybe a little lemon juice,
little apple cider, vinegar, but the base of it is yeah,
and you just mix up anything that you kind of
you know, it might add some texture like that crunch
and um, and serve it along. I'd like a burger
(20:01):
instead of fries. Oh yeah, it's really really good. And
you know me, I'm not. I'm not into healthy foods
like that a lot, which means it's good, which means
it's really good and packs with protein, don't forget. That's right.
It's the complete source of protein. So that's or maybe
some dried cranberry or golden raisins. We're not big on
(20:21):
that kind of stuff in the salad. Oh yeah, I
know a lot of people like it. Not me. I
don't love the golden raisins, but I do like the cranberry. Yeah, yeah,
I think it's nice. All right. So that's Chuck's recipe
of the week. It's pretty good. We'll do that every week,
no matter what the topic is. What are you gonna
come up with the degrade? Oh? Just you wait? Um,
(20:45):
So here's the deal with keen wa. It's gotten really trendy.
So in two thousand and seven, the United States was
importing uh seven point three million pounds of keena. They
were imported fifth seven million pounds and who god knows
what it is this year. You know, a lot of
(21:05):
that was the direct result of a single person of
what of Oprah? Yeah, it all comes down to Oprah. No,
there's this dude. Um. He was a U N development
worker from Bolivia who had moved to California, and um,
he had obviously grown up at least familiar with keene
wife not eating keenewa. His name was Sergio Nouniez the Arcode,
(21:30):
and he he saw that keen wa was starting to
catch on a little bit. I guess he saw that
episode of Oprah. So we went back to Bolivia and
he found that there were only a few indigenous producers
who were putting out like retail sized bags of keene wa.
So he went around and he basically created a co
op out of all the indigenous farmers who create, go
(21:53):
grow keen Wa and Bolivia and made the supply from
them reliable enough and big enough too. It's to supply
industry abroad around the world. And this guy almost basically
was the flash point for the keen wa explosion. He
helped it happen, and he made sure that it was
based on the work of the people who were originally
(22:15):
cultivating keen wa. Yeah, which is a big one. Yeah.
He went from in two thousand five he sold twenty
five thousand dollars worth UH through his company, and these
days he saw him about twenty six million dollars worth
annually from his own facility and about forty million from
other facilities. So he basically went around to them and said, Hey,
(22:37):
these weekend farmers markets are cute, but how would you
like to be a part of the industrial food supply.
You put down that pamphlute. We're talking business here. Did
they play the pamphlute? Yeah? Because Andy and Highlanders they
love that love that junking. Is that where zam Fears from. No,
I think Sam Fear is. I think he's Mediterranean. I
(22:57):
wanted to say Greek and pretty sure. Okay, I don't
know if I'm getting He and Yanni confused, though, oh yeah,
maybe we are. They seem like they probably at least
go bowling together. Yanny didn't play the pan fleet, that
did he? No, No, Sam Fear is definitely master of
the pan Fleet. Of course, you can't call yourself that
on a CD unless Oprah has said so and that
(23:18):
has the stamp of approval. So um, the price has
really gone up to as a result, and it was
not small um for a lot of years. One metric
ton was about five dred dollars and in two thousand
and ten that was dollars. So that's almost threefold. And
again that was six years seven, almost seven years ago.
I kept going up to I think it picked in two. Yeah,
(23:42):
it was. The price went up quite a bit, so
you would think that's great. These farmers are making a
ton of money now right, Yes, apparently. I don't know
where it started, but somebody created um some I guess
somebody wrote an article or started digging around and they said, hey, everybody,
you guys are eating all this keen walk. Guess what
(24:03):
you did. You drove up prices so much that the
very indigenous people who have been cultivating this for thousands
of years can't afford it anymore. So. Stuck on that hipster, right,
Like the people of Fiji are exporting Fiji water, but
they're all don't have clean drinking water themselves. That kind
of same thing, right. It's basically an American pastime to
(24:26):
take hipsters down to peg, isn't it? Is it? It
seems like anything hipsters Like everybody goes to a lot
of trouble to dig around and find what's wrong with it. Yeah,
like the one thing they can trace back I just
gotta be bled on the hands somewhere. All right, Well,
let's take a break and we'll talk a little bit about, um,
what this all means and whether or not that's even true.
(24:47):
Right after this? Oh all right? So, Uh, if it's
(25:15):
being produced um in the Andes and prices are going up,
you would think that at some point people in the
United States might try and take a stab at it.
And that's exactly what happened, uh and is happening. Uh.
And you sent this great article is Keenwa California farmers
in New Kale because Kale had a similar explosion uh
in popularity, you know, over the past few years. Yeah,
(25:39):
I think Kale is out now, yeah, or at least
made fun of, I think for being too hipstory and hot. Yeah,
I think the hipsters kind of chewed that up and
spit it out. But it's still great. I know. People
just hate all that stuff. Yeah, you know, really just
like what's trending and what's not and what we think
(26:00):
is cool, let's write about it, right, And I've read
this really interesting article. I think it was a Mother
Jones writer, like a Mother Jones Egg writer who basically said, like, hey, dudes,
all of this stuff that you know suddenly like the
hot new super food. It's niche um food marketing. It's
the same thing as like Oreos coming out with a
(26:21):
new flavor every like couple of months that you gotta
go try or something like that, Like you're just a
sheep for kale. But but yeah, but but geared towards
people who don't eat junk food. But it's the same
exact things. It. Don't be a chump, yeah, or at
least don't get on your high horse about the other
stuff saying mass marketed or being eaten by idiots and
(26:42):
SAPs and simpletons. So the thing is the thing that
made it even even worse though, was the idea that
like the huge demand in the expanded market for keen
ua that was largely found in the United States, was
directly responsible for pricing indigenous farmers who were growing that
(27:04):
keen wah out of it, so they weren't even eating it,
was the problem and right, and what they found was
that one they couldn't afford it, they've been priced out,
or they were making the decision to where yeah, they're
making more money now, but they would rather sell all
their keen wa and buy less expensive, less nutrient dense
(27:27):
food for their families. So the very people producing keen
wah were not only couldn't afford it, they also were
being malnourished as a result of this keen wah explosion.
So it was a big deal. It made a lot
of people's second guess it, uh feel pretty bad about themselves.
And I also guarantee it had a negative impact on
(27:47):
the keen wah market as well, which would directly affect
the farmers. But what you dug up though on this
um mprs the salt I guess blog their food blog. Yeah,
that was a story about it attached to it as well.
It was pretty eye opening. Yeah, these dudes got together
and they um were trying to get to kind of
(28:08):
the root of all this, and so they got a
data source. Uh eat an a h oh. It's the
National Survey of Peru that they carry out every year,
um about just Peruvian households and all kinds of stuff
data that they're collecting, but one of them is food.
And there are twenty two thousand randomly selected households. So
they got ten years worth of this data covering from
(28:30):
before the keen Wa boom, um a few years before
through the keen Wa boom, so they could kind of
do a good comparison. And they split the households into
three groups. Uh, those who grow and eat kenwa, those
who eat it but don't grow it, and those who
neither grow it nor eat it. They say, yeah, I
(28:50):
guess there's the final householders, people that pronounce it quanila.
It's like one household in Peru. It's like, what is
this stuff? Uh? And they all three showed a clear
rise in their welfare which they measured as a total
value of goods consumed as that price of kenwa rose um.
And apparently that reflected in the increased living standards in
(29:13):
Peru as a whole too. Right, So at the height
of that boom, uh, the welfare of the growers increased
more rapidly than the other two groups though, which you
would you know that makes sense? Yeah, and so you can.
They they basically tracked a direct correlation between the keen
wa boom around the world and a rise in the
(29:34):
household welfare of keen wa farmers back in Prue. So
they conclusively proved pretty much that there there was no
um that these farmers weren't too poor to afford keenwa.
But the other one was still left standing, right right,
the idea that they were selling are all their keen wa.
(29:55):
But then they were still male nurse because they were
buying less nutritionally dense Yeah, and that apparently they managed
to disprove as well. Yeah, at least that's what they're
saying in this paper. I mean, we're not saying this
is evidence, but at least this is what they dug
out after pouring over these ten years worth of of
studies Uh. They said this guy Andrew Stevens, a doctorial
(30:18):
candidate UM, focused on specifically the Puno region and the Andies,
which grows about eight of all the keen jan Peru.
And he said, this is a it's a cultural and
nutritionally important food, but it's not. I think the gist
was people are trying to make it out to be
like this is what they subsist on every day and
(30:40):
they can't afford to eat it. And he said, this
is actually a pretty small part of their diet overall,
and they're actually eating more keenwa than ever before in
that region that grows the most. That was pretty surprising.
So uh, it said they did not come cut back
their consumption between two thousand four and twenty twelve despite
a fourfold price increase. They see no signs of changing calories,
(31:03):
proteins or carbohydrates in the diet across Peru as a whole. Right,
so they kind of debunked it. Pretty cool. Hipster's rejoice,
They shall rejoice, But UM, there's still some outstanding problems. Right, So,
like you said, it was, you said that I mentioned
it was a culturally important food, so much so that
(31:23):
Bolivia UM and it's drafted two thousand nine Constitution and
shrine keen was part of their food sovereignty, which is
their right to protect culturally important food. Yeah, like, hey,
you're coming in here and you're basically taking this and
now you're gonna grow it all over the world, right,
and they recognize the importance of kima. For a very
(31:45):
long time. There was apparently a Colorado researcher who went
to Bolivia in and was shot dead trying to smuggle
keen wassies out of the country. And I guess somebody
from Colorado eventually got him out because Colorado State University
patented a hybrid keenwa based on Bolivian seeds, and the
(32:09):
government Oblivia called them bio pirates. Yeah, that's not something
you want level there at you not probably Bolivia. Uh.
The other thing too, and I think you sent me
this was that, um, because there's more. Basically there's sort
of a land grab going on. Yeah, this is where
I was going in Peru where all of a sudden
(32:31):
they realized that you know, before when it wasn't worth
that much money they I mean, sure they were producing it,
but it wasn't like it is now. So all these
people are saying, wait, this this land that was once unused,
like is anyone claiming it? And there's sort of a
rush to claim these lands. Well, there was fighting going. Yeah,
there was violence that broke out in February of I
think two thousand fifteen, maybe four sorry, two thousand fourteen,
(32:53):
where um one guy got his arm blown off by
dynamite during this battle among hundreds of farmers for some
land that had been sitting there abandoned for like decades.
And part of the problem is when you're doing good
agricultural practices, what do we talk about no till farming
in I can't remember, Well, we've definitely talked a lot
(33:17):
about that. Um and when you're using good agricultural practice
is one of the main things you want to do
is let um fields lie fallow for a year season
at a time. And they're not doing that anymore in
the Andes. And again, this is really really fragile crop
land that they're growing this stuff in, so they're not
letting it lay fallow any longer. And they're also using
(33:41):
lama's less and lamas and keen wa go together like
rice and beans, which by the way, is another complete
um protein food. But it's not just a single food,
so he can food. Yeah. Yeah, man, what was that episode?
It's totally on the tip of my tongue. We talked
a lot about no till no till farming. I can't remember.
(34:05):
I want to say I had something to do with
the dust bowl, but we didn't do one on the
dust bawl. We did. We did one on the dust
ball and desertification. Maybe it was the yeah good one.
Um yeah. So the llamas, that's one of the big issues, right,
is that they're not letting them poop everywhere. Well they're not.
They're not lama farming like they used to. Laun Llamas
use a lot of grazing land and they're like, we
(34:27):
can use that instead to um grow keenwa because keene
was more valuable than lama's right, But lamas again and
keen wa go together like rice and beans, and llama
poop is almost like it's designed or tailored to fertilize keenewa.
They started to use sheep poop instead, I guess imported
(34:48):
sheep poop and it allows a lot more pests and
invasive weeds than lama poop does. When lama poop is fertilizing.
So the whole ecosystem is definitely being um altered. Yeah,
and not necessarily in good ways because of this huge
demand and this huge influx of cash. It's basically more money,
more problems. Yeah, the the Alto planos people are finding out.
(35:13):
It's so weird. We're not weird, but kind of sad
that you can't you know, it can't just be a
success story never, you know. I guess in the long run.
They're also worried that um I was talking about all
those different varieties. Um I saw the twenty but it
says here there could be up to thousands of different varieties,
(35:35):
and farmers are abandoning most of these to concentrate on
the ones that they can sell to you know, ship
out to export to American markets or I guess just
you know, not just America. I think Europe has eating
stuff like crazy too. Yeah, but um it says that
those varieties are This guy says that, um they're the
(35:56):
future of keenwa because they can adapt to things like
climate change. And you narrow the varieties down to a
certain few and they don't adapt, then you're kind of screwed.
You're s o l if you have three thousand to
choose from to try to adapt to changing climate, then yeah,
you're way better off. So crop diversity is pretty important.
But yeah, that's getting erased as well. Yeah, well they're
(36:18):
trying to encourage it with these Andean farmers at least. Uh.
They are working with Bolivia and Peru to develop internal
markets for these threatened varieties, like with school food programs
and stuff like, not necessarily to sell, but to use
like within the country at hospitals and schools. They said
they've been fairly successful with some of that stuff, so um,
(36:40):
hopefully that continues. See that. To me, that's what government
subsidies are for stuff like that, for like small indigenous
farmers who are protecting thousand year old varieties of crops
that are part of the cultural um fabric of a
(37:00):
country for the future. For all. They are growing in
California though that article you sent this dude is growing
it in in the Sonoran Desert, crazy in the Imperial
Valley below sea level, in like one of the hottest
places in North America. They're growing keena. Yeah, and well,
part of the problem is keena is very closely related.
(37:22):
I think it's in the same genus as um, something
called Lamb's quarters, which doesn't really matter up in the
Alto Plano, but in California, Lamb's quarters is a toxic,
toxic plant to live stock which might accidentally graze on
it because they're not thinking about that kind of stuff.
And then it also um carries a virus that kills alfalfa,
(37:46):
which is very much growing in California to feed that
live stock. So there's it's a it's a weird, it's
a complex, amazing plant that shouldn't exist. Yeah, maybe that'll
be the title quene wa olan complex more complex than
you think. That's a good one. Or maybe it should say, well,
(38:07):
never mind, I'll figure that out. Should we just brainstorm
some more? And let's show title. Are we gonna try
the soilent? Yes, let's um and then do listener mail. Yeah,
let's do that all right? So, uh, here we are.
We're gonna try this. Yeah, soilent. It's in a white bottle.
(38:28):
We called a lot of flak about not having tried
it and still done something. I'm like, well, here we go.
Then I'm not iridescent, but I've done an episode on iridescent.
Give me a break, people, I think you should probably
shake well, right, I think so, I don't know. We
gotta go back and listen to the episode against been
a while. People also thought that that was a sponsored
(38:49):
episode by Soilent, and I was like, I think we
said enough bad things about the taste. You should have
figured out that it was not. All right, here we go,
So this is us trying. So we also want to
say thanks again to Don Kent for sending this in.
It smells like, this is a nice kind of nice smell.
What does that smell like? It smells like cereal milk.
(39:10):
We got that a lot. A lot of people said
it smells like or it tastes like cheerios milk. It's
totally what it smells like. Can we say cheerios? Or
is this an episode for Cheerios? Now? All right, I'm
gonna should we do the same one. I thought we
were chucking the whole thing. No, oh, that's that's not bad.
(39:31):
It is It's not bad at all. A cheerio cereal milk.
I think I'm I would have come up with that
even if somebody hadn't said it. This is good. Yeah,
I mean it's sort of Bland's definitely it's not nearly
a sweet. It's not like a honeynut cheerio milk. No,
that's true for cinnamon toast crunch milk. It's not bad.
I was dreading this. I thought it was gonna be
(39:53):
awful from all the comments. But that's not bad at all.
I like it. I can see how you would kind
of start to crave it because it's got that like
almost a fatty mouth feel to it, you know what
I mean, Like it really gets on the tongue. All right, Well,
there it is. I should probably stop. It's pretty got
a lot of calories in it. Yeah, I mean that's
(40:15):
twenty if you're a daily nutrition Well thanks again and
don Kent, thanks again to everybody who wrongly called us
out for doing an ad for soilent. The aftertaste is
a little bit like milk of magnesia. I'm not getting
map like my Lanta. Yeah no, I know you mean
kind of chalky. I don't have that. Hm uh oh.
If you want to know more about soilent, go listen
(40:36):
to soil lamp sub. In the meantime, if you want
to know more about keen Wa, type that word q
U I n O A into the search far how
stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar,
it's time for more Soilent, I mean it's time for
listening now, all right, I'm gonna call it. Yeah. I
definitely don't like the aftertaste. It sound it sort of
(40:58):
chalking up on my throat and tongue. I kind of
like this stuff. I like food more, but that's not bad.
Sure Like if somebody said should I drink soil It,
I'd say why not? All right, I'm gonna call this, uh,
just a nice email from this lovely Australian woman. Hey guys,
been a long time listener, first time writer, currently living
(41:20):
in Sydney, Australia, though I grew up in Tennessee and
uh now I'm a Florida resident all over the place,
so maybe she's not a strong I've been listening to y'all.
Y'all since I was in college at U t K
Go Balls, and I even brought you along with me
while spending a year living in France. If you do
end up reading this on the air, which I don't expect,
(41:43):
I would be so thrilled. If you give a shout
out to my little sister LB, currently in Portland and
so up. LB she's used a little reverse psychology, Yeah,
she did. Anytime we make a road trip, we put
on stuff you should know, which incites a groan from
her every time. It's the chit chat that bugs her.
We just gave her a shout out. YEA, well, she's not.
(42:04):
She's not the only person to feel that way, all right.
To get to the point, I was listening to the
Dictator's episode and was so excited to hear you talking
about Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In fact, that's my grandmother's maiden name.
We pronounced it Suela, but whoever knows if that's the
true pronunciation. Her family is from southern Italy and immigrated
(42:26):
from Naples about a hundred years ago. She recently went
on a trip to Italy and studied up on her
ancestors sella uh and even visited a lot of the
sites inscribed with his name. It's amazing to see a
piece of your family history show up on your favorite podcast,
even if it is about dictators. Gave me a chuckle.
Thanks for keeping me entertained. This recently caught up to
(42:46):
all the episodes on iTunes. I know, I know there
are much more on your many more on your website. Wow,
she's a listener. She is, and that's Sarah right now
in Sydney. Thanks a lot, Sarah appreciate that. Um so,
wait is she from Ustara? She's just living in Australia
now I think she's just living there. Okay, got uh.
If you want to let us know about your world
(43:09):
travels and all that jazz, like Sarah did, you can
tweet to us at s y s K podcast or
josh um Clark. You can hang out with Chuck at
Charles W. Chuck Bryant on Facebook or it Stuff you
Should Know on Facebook. You can send us an email
of the Stuff podcast to how Stuff Worse dot com
and there's always joined us at our home on the web.
Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
(43:36):
and thousands of other topics. Does it how Stuff Works
dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hang and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Charles W. Chuck Bryant's right there, Jerry's right there. It's
a little chilly in here. So it's Stuff you should
know the podcast because it's chili. That's the cherry on top.
(00:27):
That's right. Uh, spoiler or not spoiler teaser At the
end of this episode, let's say, between the end and
before listener mail that's agreeable to you. At the forty
three minute more, we are going to taste soilent for
the first time live on the air. Yeah, I guess
(00:49):
I should have thought this too. I took him out
of the fridge already, so three minutes for it to
warm up. Should we put them back? Well, I wouldn't
you know. I wasn't gonna say anything. Then I was
going to say something. Should I put them back? Well,
it's probably best cold. Okay, We'll hang on everybody, So, yes,
we're gonna try soiling eventually in this episode. That's right.
(01:12):
I'm excited to try soil it or to talk about both. Okay,
So Chucky just kind of gave it away alongside the
title we're talking about keene wa today, not quinoa, no keena,
that's right. But super food, yes, some I saying yeah.
(01:34):
I mean you can make a pretty good claim that
it is a super food. And what is the super
food if not a type of food that has a
lot going on just in and of itself. It's super Yeah,
like blueberries are super food or a saberry super food
or a si e berries. Yeah, algae was I didn't
(01:56):
know algae was? I buy that? Hemp seeds, chia seeds, yeah,
A lot of nuts, rich crackers, M, I don't know.
Those are just super super delicious buttery. Yeah, with my
crabb dip especially one day, maybe I'll find out what
(02:16):
you just want me to bring you grabbed up? Ye,
give me a cooking lesson. Uh So Keinwa. There at
least a hundred and twenty varieties and it is nothing new.
It's been around. In fact, we might as well delve
into a little history here. It's been cultivated for geez,
(02:37):
more than five thousand years. I saw up to eight
thousand years. Almost more than five thousand, well, I guess
we could say more than five years. More more than
the last six months. Chema has been around on this planet. Yeah,
and it's Andean plant and specifically originated um around Lake
Titty Kaka in Peru, in Bolivia in the altiplan. Yeah,
(03:00):
it's wonderful, wonderful area. Have you been. Oh no, but
just look at photos. Sure, Machu Picchu, You're like, well,
look at that place exactly one day. Maybe I'd like
to go for sure, But it is um. There is
historical evidence of it um being domesticated, like we said,
is maybe as long as eight thousand years ago. And
(03:21):
they even saw in uh in ancient tombs, they saw
a little you know, archaeological drawings and things that what
they think is keen wa. So people were ingesting it
and using it as a super food way back when. Yeah.
And the fact that it grew up there, or grows
up there, and not only grows, but thrives up in
(03:41):
this high rocky I think, pretty much arid plateau that's
also very cold. It doesn't make any sense that you'd
have anything but like al PACs and lama's up there.
But in fact, there's a plant that's one of the
most nutritious foods on the planet that just so happens
to thrive up there in Bolivian Peru in the highlands.
(04:03):
That's pretty awesome, it is, And so of course they
they have used this for thousands and thousands of years, um,
and it wasn't. It wasn't until I think the early
twentieth century that it really started to make its way
for the first time out to the United States. I
think the U. S d A got their hands on
(04:23):
it and tried to get farmers to grow it here
in the States, and they said, nah, let's give it
another hundred years, maybe a little less. Yeah, I mean
the twenty first century is when it really kind of
became popular. And even in the last she's mid two
thousand's you can even talk about it being trendy. Well
supposedly the whole trend for keen wa, which, by the way,
(04:44):
in typical stuff, you should know, fashion has already come
and gone, and now we're doing an episode on it.
Oh it's not gone, are you sure? Oh? Yeah, Okay, Well,
do you know how keen Wa hit the hit the map,
hit the scene, Well, in a lot of different ways.
I assume you think it's one thing only Oprah. Yeah,
she had something to do with it, for sure. She
(05:05):
she was on some sort of cleansed diet in two
thousand and eight, and um, she uh eight keen jan mushrooms,
I guess, And everybody was like, what is that? And
she's like, oh, you've been calling it kenoa, it's keen wa.
And he said, well we have to try this now. Yeah,
she definitely was a factor Oprah. Her reaches wide, but
(05:26):
it doesn't reach me. You're not an opre fan. No.
I think she's fine, But I didn't learn about keene
wa from her or anything else where. Did you learn
about keene then? Just you know, I think the first
time I had it was in a restaurant. So it's
to me it's spread because chefs started using it because
they watch Oprah exactly. Chefs don't serve anything unless zero uh.
(05:50):
Here in the United States, um, you know, talked about
at least a hundred and twenty varieties. You're more than
likely going to be eating the red, red, white, and blue,
no red or black varieties of keenwa. And do you
eat it in your home? I guess we'll get to
this stuff, but I'm curious of vive cooked with it
a lot, not a lot? Now I had it here,
(06:10):
they're had in a couple of restaurants. So this stuff
is Uh. It's known as an ancient grain, but it's
not exactly a grain, and it's not exactly a cereal.
It's classified technically as a pseudo cereal. Like fruity pebbles,
that's a cereal. They just came out with cinnamon pebbles. Oh,
(06:34):
but does a good Yeah, you could they click cinnamon
old shoes and put them in a cereal box and
it'd be good. But Quinwa technically is a pseudo cereal. Um.
It comes from the goose foot plant, right, that's why
it's not a cereal. Cereal is a grain that comes
from a grass, and goose Foot's not a grass, it's
a plant. No. And it looks kind of weedy, and
(06:55):
as we'll see later when you're cultivating, it looks alarmingly
like some other we with the capital W. It looks
like marijuana, a little bit from afar. That brilliant red
and brilliant yellow marijuana looks like I'm not sure you
(07:15):
know what marijuana is. Uh, I'll show you a picture something, okay. Um.
It is labeled the whole grain though, because it's actually
it fits the whole grain definition because it is the
whole grain seed which you're eating. Yeah, Like when you
talk about grains usually again you're you're talking about these
things from grass is like wheat, right, and there's such
(07:37):
a thing as whole grain wheat. But once we process something,
once we mill it or um shell it, smack it
on the bottom, whatever you do to them, you're actually
removing certain parts of the grain. Right. So with like
um enriched white flower, that's you've taken a whole wheat
grain and you've removed the brand and the journey, and
(08:01):
you've just got yourself the endosperm still. And the endosperm
is what's used mostly for to produce white flower. And
that's great. It's full of like quick, easily digestible carbs,
but a lot of the nutrients are lost and actually
not easily digestible for many people. That's true too, um,
but a lot of the nutrients are lost in the process.
(08:21):
So even if you can digest it no problem, you're
not getting most of the nutrients that were there in
the first place. With a whole grain, it's got the brand,
the germ, and the endosperm, and they're all working together
to make you vastly healthier than you would be if
you're just eating the endosperm like you do in white
white flower and um quinoa in particular. Is it's really
(08:43):
weird when you look at it. It's closer. You wouldn't
think so, but it's closer to shard and beats and
spinach plant is anything else. Yeah, it's crazy. So imagine if,
like from spinach plants, we got not only the leaves
but also the seeds turned out to be whole grains.
That's what's going on. It's a weird plant. It is.
(09:06):
It shouldn't grow where it grows. It shouldn't be a cereal,
shouldn't be a grain, It shouldn't be related to beats,
shouldn't be delicious, but it is. Uh, and it's super
super good for you, Like we're saying, it's a super
food and um. One of the reasons, and another thing
that makes it very strange is that it has a
ton of protein, which is pretty unusual for a plant
(09:29):
to have this much protein. Yeah, this article made that point,
but I wouldn't. Look, there's a lot of other plants
that have pretty good amounts of protein in them. What
rivals keenwa at a mommy black beans, lima beans, chickpeas
all beat it by a mile. Yeah. I just thought
it was weird because not only did this article say it,
I ran across it elsewhere too that they were like,
(09:51):
this is it's amazing how much protein it has, and
it has like a decent amount, especially for a plant.
It's just not like eye popping or anything like that.
You know, he's gets hyperbole. I kind of pooh pooed
that one. Okay, yeah, what it does have, unless you
think is not true as well, Well, I'll be the
judge of ten at least ten amino acids. And uh,
(10:12):
that's good, right? Or is it bad too? I guess
it's okay. No, it's chock full of amino acids, which
is great for your body because our body cannot make
amino acids, so we have to get them from food sources. Well,
they it can't make essential amino acids. It can make essential,
non essential amino acids, but the essential ones we have
(10:32):
to get from food. And Keenoa is in a very
small group of plants that are um complete sources of protein,
meaning that they have all of the essential amino acids
that we need in them. Yes, you don't find that
and plants very frequently. That's what helps make it a
super food exactly. Uh, it's not very high in calorie,
(10:57):
no sugar, no cholesterol, no sodium. What else? ZINCC has
a lot of potassium too. Apparently it has the most
potassium of any food plant that that is around. Potassium
is really good at regulating blood pressure because potassiums in
charge of things like fluid retention and electrical conduction throughout cells. Um.
(11:19):
I think just compared to grains, there are plenty of
other fruits with potassium. Okay, is that what it was? Yeah?
Like bananas are loaded with potassium, are they? Or is
that the work of Edward Bernice? No, bananas are really
good for you. Uh what else? Fiber, magnesium, full late, Yeah,
(11:40):
that's good free. Well that's a big one man. So
it's very commonly touted as a gluten free um food
grain UM, which is good for people who have Celiac disease.
But apparently they've tested there's at least would you say,
a hundred and fifty varieties that are like agricultural production
(12:02):
right now, and um, somebody tested a bunch of them
and they came up with like at least four that
created a Celiac response, Yeah, so you gotta be careful.
For the most part, they are gluten free, but they
there are a few varieties out there that can touch off.
The old Celiac response. Well, I think one of the
deals though, is we're not seeing those in the marketplace though,
(12:25):
which is one of the We'll get to it, but
it's one of the potential problems is we're only eating
like three or four of the varieties, and I think
those are for sure gluten free. Like if you go
to your grocery store, you're not gonna see varieties of
this stuff, you know. Yeah, you're probably right. Uh all right, Well,
(12:48):
let's take a break and we're gonna get back and
talk a little bit about cooking this delicious stuff. Oh so, Chuck,
(13:19):
you were going to lay it on everybody how to
cook quene wa. It's easy. If you can cook rice,
you can cook quene wa. Yeah. I would say, well,
it's easier than I would say it's easier than rice.
It doesn't stick like rice does. Yeah, exactly. That's probably
rice's biggest downfall, the sticky Yeah. Um, it's also what
(13:41):
makes it great though, too. Sure, depending up what kind
of rice you're getting, Um, I eat keene waite the house.
I wouldn't say a lot, but enough, like every couple
of weeks. Oh yeah, that's a lot, is it? Wait?
It is to me? So what you do is you
want to rinse it? Yeah, like you will some kinds
(14:02):
of rice. The bag you're you're buying is probably going
to say pre rinsed or pre washed or something like that.
You want to rinse it anyway, right, Yeah, they have
this um. It's actually really good for you, this coating
called sapping in um. And despite it's it's great health effects,
when you add water to it, it lathers up like
a soap. H yeah, and in fact it means it's
(14:27):
from the Latin sapo, which is soap. So you don't
want to eat it even though it's good for you know,
the plant produces it to keep like pests away from
it from eating it. Yeah, so you rinse that stuff
off get keen when once you see it, it's really tiny.
So you want to get a really fine strainer, not
like a colander. You get a calndar. Then all like
keena is gonna be where set down the drain man.
(14:50):
I hate mondays, so get like a sifter really fine,
sifter rinse it real good until it's the water is
running clear, and um, base plea cook it like rice.
It's uh one part keene watered, two parts water or broth.
Well that's what I do. I used chicken broth. You'd
be a madman is to use like water or veggie
(15:12):
broth if you're you know, weird or off the meat.
I'm just kidding. Um, beef broth if you're gross. That
doesn't pair well with keen wa. I could see it not.
I'm just not a big beef broth guy. I might
have said, beef you did with th? Yeah, that's kind
of cute beef broth beef broth. But I used chicken.
(15:38):
I used like half. So if I do the two
cups of water, I'll do one cup water, one cup
chicken broth. Oh you cut your chicken broth? Yeah, I
just kind of do half and half. I got stomp
on it. Yeah. Uh so then you cook it like rice,
like I said, you're gonna boil it and then once
it gets to a boil covered up, turn it down
low and wait and let it simmer until it's all
(15:58):
soaked up. Yeah, and then this started. Well I'm not
as acquainted with cooking keen on as you are. But
this article says that you want to look for the spirals,
the seed spirals to be prominent. What's the deal with that?
You'll see when you look at it, like before you
cook it, it looks different than afterward. And that's the
easiest way to say it. Like, once you look, it's
almost like they pop open or something. And um, it's
(16:21):
just quite obvious. It's just big and light and fluffy.
You see the little seed spiral. What's need is and
we kind of walked past it. But you said it
a couple of times that that stepping in is um
good for you, really good for you? Yeah, it has
some amazing properties, like it's anti tumor, anti ulcer uh,
anti inflammatory, And so you have to imagine, like again
(16:43):
that this plant is growing in this random place where
plants aren't really supposed to grow, and it thrives there
and it's full of all these new treents and the
outer coating is that anti inflammatory, anti tumor agent that
you wash away? Yeah, it's kind of sad. You could
save it, sip on it later. I wonder what would happen, Like,
(17:04):
how would you have to ingest. Do you think, like,
would it have any anti inflammatory properties if you like
drank sappening? Do you think or do you need to
like inject it into your eye, I don't know, or
mix it into a salve, maybe rub on your skin. Yeah,
I'm not sure. That's a good question. I bet people know.
We'll hear about that up in Bolivia. They know. Uh.
(17:24):
So you can eat it in a variety of ways.
You can just eat it as a side dish like
you would with rice or cuscus or whatever, mashed potatoes.
Although I would eat the mashed potatoes. You could mix
it with mashed potatoes, right, No, I wouldn't do that.
One one thing that the author of this article, I
think it's a Leah hoyt um. She said that she
(17:46):
likes to mix it in instead of breadcrumbs into like
meatballs or burger. Why not keen wa burger? Yeah? So
is there such a thing as a keen wa burger?
That's just keen wah? Could you make that? Or do
you need something to bind it? I think you probably
need binding agents, yeah, beef broths or I don't know.
(18:08):
I've never made a keen war burger and I don't
make any kind of edgie burger by like in my home,
So I wouldn't really know how to go about that.
What do you do turkey burgers? Or I do turkey?
Turkey burgers are pretty good depending on the brand. Some
are just like what is this texture? Yeah, I mean,
I'm making myself with my own little recipe. But um,
(18:29):
that's just because Emily didn't eat beef beef. So I've
gotten so into the turkey burger that I don't even
really I mean, I'll I'll have a beef burger out
never home. You and I are sympatico on the home
burger cooking. Yea, do you grill or do you skill it?
Foreman grill? Oh yeah, it's pretty great. Half. We watched
(18:55):
that grease strip out of the front, and I've noticed
many times like I will do on the same ling
grease out of my mouth. Uh. So here's my favorite
keen whye dish. And I got it from a restaurant
in New York, uh that I can't remember. But they're
all kinds of variations, but I have it. Um, I
cook it and then put it in the fridge and
(19:16):
chill it like overnight. So in the summer, I will
get that cold keenewa and then dice up like some
cucumber and some red onion, and I mean kind of
anything you want like that fits a salad summer salad,
like orange pepper, like crunchy green pepper or roasted red pepper, garlic,
(19:38):
throw some pine nuts in there right now, like you
get some basil, some fresh herbs. That's the way to go, man. Yeah,
like anything that strikes your fancy. Maybe a little lemon juice,
little apple cider, vinegar, but the base of it is yeah,
and you just mix up anything that you kind of
you know, it might add some texture like that crunch
and um, and serve it along. I'd like a burger
(20:01):
instead of fries. Oh yeah, it's really really good. And
you know me, I'm not. I'm not into healthy foods
like that a lot, which means it's good, which means
it's really good and packs with protein, don't forget. That's right.
It's the complete source of protein. So that's or maybe
some dried cranberry or golden raisins. We're not big on
(20:21):
that kind of stuff in the salad. Oh yeah, I
know a lot of people like it. Not me. I
don't love the golden raisins, but I do like the cranberry. Yeah, yeah,
I think it's nice. All right. So that's Chuck's recipe
of the week. It's pretty good. We'll do that every week,
no matter what the topic is. What are you gonna
come up with the degrade? Oh? Just you wait? Um,
(20:45):
So here's the deal with keen wa. It's gotten really trendy.
So in two thousand and seven, the United States was
importing uh seven point three million pounds of keena. They
were imported fifth seven million pounds and who god knows
what it is this year. You know, a lot of
(21:05):
that was the direct result of a single person of
what of Oprah? Yeah, it all comes down to Oprah. No,
there's this dude. Um. He was a U N development
worker from Bolivia who had moved to California, and um,
he had obviously grown up at least familiar with keene
wife not eating keenewa. His name was Sergio Nouniez the Arcode,
(21:30):
and he he saw that keen wa was starting to
catch on a little bit. I guess he saw that
episode of Oprah. So we went back to Bolivia and
he found that there were only a few indigenous producers
who were putting out like retail sized bags of keene wa.
So he went around and he basically created a co
op out of all the indigenous farmers who create, go
(21:53):
grow keen Wa and Bolivia and made the supply from
them reliable enough and big enough too. It's to supply
industry abroad around the world. And this guy almost basically
was the flash point for the keen wa explosion. He
helped it happen, and he made sure that it was
based on the work of the people who were originally
(22:15):
cultivating keen wa. Yeah, which is a big one. Yeah.
He went from in two thousand five he sold twenty
five thousand dollars worth UH through his company, and these
days he saw him about twenty six million dollars worth
annually from his own facility and about forty million from
other facilities. So he basically went around to them and said, Hey,
(22:37):
these weekend farmers markets are cute, but how would you
like to be a part of the industrial food supply.
You put down that pamphlute. We're talking business here. Did
they play the pamphlute? Yeah? Because Andy and Highlanders they
love that love that junking. Is that where zam Fears from. No,
I think Sam Fear is. I think he's Mediterranean. I
(22:57):
wanted to say Greek and pretty sure. Okay, I don't
know if I'm getting He and Yanni confused, though, oh yeah,
maybe we are. They seem like they probably at least
go bowling together. Yanny didn't play the pan fleet, that
did he? No, No, Sam Fear is definitely master of
the pan Fleet. Of course, you can't call yourself that
on a CD unless Oprah has said so and that
(23:18):
has the stamp of approval. So um, the price has
really gone up to as a result, and it was
not small um for a lot of years. One metric
ton was about five dred dollars and in two thousand
and ten that was dollars. So that's almost threefold. And
again that was six years seven, almost seven years ago.
I kept going up to I think it picked in two. Yeah,
(23:42):
it was. The price went up quite a bit, so
you would think that's great. These farmers are making a
ton of money now right, Yes, apparently. I don't know
where it started, but somebody created um some I guess
somebody wrote an article or started digging around and they said, hey, everybody,
you guys are eating all this keen walk. Guess what
(24:03):
you did. You drove up prices so much that the
very indigenous people who have been cultivating this for thousands
of years can't afford it anymore. So. Stuck on that hipster, right,
Like the people of Fiji are exporting Fiji water, but
they're all don't have clean drinking water themselves. That kind
of same thing, right. It's basically an American pastime to
(24:26):
take hipsters down to peg, isn't it? Is it? It
seems like anything hipsters Like everybody goes to a lot
of trouble to dig around and find what's wrong with it. Yeah,
like the one thing they can trace back I just
gotta be bled on the hands somewhere. All right, Well,
let's take a break and we'll talk a little bit about, um,
what this all means and whether or not that's even true.
(24:47):
Right after this? Oh all right? So, Uh, if it's
(25:15):
being produced um in the Andes and prices are going up,
you would think that at some point people in the
United States might try and take a stab at it.
And that's exactly what happened, uh and is happening. Uh.
And you sent this great article is Keenwa California farmers
in New Kale because Kale had a similar explosion uh
in popularity, you know, over the past few years. Yeah,
(25:39):
I think Kale is out now, yeah, or at least
made fun of, I think for being too hipstory and hot. Yeah,
I think the hipsters kind of chewed that up and
spit it out. But it's still great. I know. People
just hate all that stuff. Yeah, you know, really just
like what's trending and what's not and what we think
(26:00):
is cool, let's write about it, right, And I've read
this really interesting article. I think it was a Mother
Jones writer, like a Mother Jones Egg writer who basically said, like, hey, dudes,
all of this stuff that you know suddenly like the
hot new super food. It's niche um food marketing. It's
the same thing as like Oreos coming out with a
(26:21):
new flavor every like couple of months that you gotta
go try or something like that, Like you're just a
sheep for kale. But but yeah, but but geared towards
people who don't eat junk food. But it's the same
exact things. It. Don't be a chump, yeah, or at
least don't get on your high horse about the other
stuff saying mass marketed or being eaten by idiots and
(26:42):
SAPs and simpletons. So the thing is the thing that
made it even even worse though, was the idea that
like the huge demand in the expanded market for keen
ua that was largely found in the United States, was
directly responsible for pricing indigenous farmers who were growing that
(27:04):
keen wah out of it, so they weren't even eating it,
was the problem and right, and what they found was
that one they couldn't afford it, they've been priced out,
or they were making the decision to where yeah, they're
making more money now, but they would rather sell all
their keen wa and buy less expensive, less nutrient dense
(27:27):
food for their families. So the very people producing keen
wah were not only couldn't afford it, they also were
being malnourished as a result of this keen wah explosion.
So it was a big deal. It made a lot
of people's second guess it, uh feel pretty bad about themselves.
And I also guarantee it had a negative impact on
(27:47):
the keen wah market as well, which would directly affect
the farmers. But what you dug up though on this
um mprs the salt I guess blog their food blog. Yeah,
that was a story about it attached to it as well.
It was pretty eye opening. Yeah, these dudes got together
and they um were trying to get to kind of
(28:08):
the root of all this, and so they got a
data source. Uh eat an a h oh. It's the
National Survey of Peru that they carry out every year,
um about just Peruvian households and all kinds of stuff
data that they're collecting, but one of them is food.
And there are twenty two thousand randomly selected households. So
they got ten years worth of this data covering from
(28:30):
before the keen Wa boom, um a few years before
through the keen Wa boom, so they could kind of
do a good comparison. And they split the households into
three groups. Uh, those who grow and eat kenwa, those
who eat it but don't grow it, and those who
neither grow it nor eat it. They say, yeah, I
(28:50):
guess there's the final householders, people that pronounce it quanila.
It's like one household in Peru. It's like, what is
this stuff? Uh? And they all three showed a clear
rise in their welfare which they measured as a total
value of goods consumed as that price of kenwa rose um.
And apparently that reflected in the increased living standards in
(29:13):
Peru as a whole too. Right, So at the height
of that boom, uh, the welfare of the growers increased
more rapidly than the other two groups though, which you
would you know that makes sense? Yeah, and so you can.
They they basically tracked a direct correlation between the keen
wa boom around the world and a rise in the
(29:34):
household welfare of keen wa farmers back in Prue. So
they conclusively proved pretty much that there there was no
um that these farmers weren't too poor to afford keenwa.
But the other one was still left standing, right right,
the idea that they were selling are all their keen wa.
(29:55):
But then they were still male nurse because they were
buying less nutritionally dense Yeah, and that apparently they managed
to disprove as well. Yeah, at least that's what they're
saying in this paper. I mean, we're not saying this
is evidence, but at least this is what they dug
out after pouring over these ten years worth of of
studies Uh. They said this guy Andrew Stevens, a doctorial
(30:18):
candidate UM, focused on specifically the Puno region and the Andies,
which grows about eight of all the keen jan Peru.
And he said, this is a it's a cultural and
nutritionally important food, but it's not. I think the gist
was people are trying to make it out to be
like this is what they subsist on every day and
(30:40):
they can't afford to eat it. And he said, this
is actually a pretty small part of their diet overall,
and they're actually eating more keenwa than ever before in
that region that grows the most. That was pretty surprising.
So uh, it said they did not come cut back
their consumption between two thousand four and twenty twelve despite
a fourfold price increase. They see no signs of changing calories,
(31:03):
proteins or carbohydrates in the diet across Peru as a whole. Right,
so they kind of debunked it. Pretty cool. Hipster's rejoice,
They shall rejoice, But UM, there's still some outstanding problems. Right, So,
like you said, it was, you said that I mentioned
it was a culturally important food, so much so that
(31:23):
Bolivia UM and it's drafted two thousand nine Constitution and
shrine keen was part of their food sovereignty, which is
their right to protect culturally important food. Yeah, like, hey,
you're coming in here and you're basically taking this and
now you're gonna grow it all over the world, right,
and they recognize the importance of kima. For a very
(31:45):
long time. There was apparently a Colorado researcher who went
to Bolivia in and was shot dead trying to smuggle
keen wassies out of the country. And I guess somebody
from Colorado eventually got him out because Colorado State University
patented a hybrid keenwa based on Bolivian seeds, and the
(32:09):
government Oblivia called them bio pirates. Yeah, that's not something
you want level there at you not probably Bolivia. Uh.
The other thing too, and I think you sent me
this was that, um, because there's more. Basically there's sort
of a land grab going on. Yeah, this is where
I was going in Peru where all of a sudden
(32:31):
they realized that you know, before when it wasn't worth
that much money they I mean, sure they were producing it,
but it wasn't like it is now. So all these
people are saying, wait, this this land that was once unused,
like is anyone claiming it? And there's sort of a
rush to claim these lands. Well, there was fighting going. Yeah,
there was violence that broke out in February of I
think two thousand fifteen, maybe four sorry, two thousand fourteen,
(32:53):
where um one guy got his arm blown off by
dynamite during this battle among hundreds of farmers for some
land that had been sitting there abandoned for like decades.
And part of the problem is when you're doing good
agricultural practices, what do we talk about no till farming
in I can't remember, Well, we've definitely talked a lot
(33:17):
about that. Um and when you're using good agricultural practice
is one of the main things you want to do
is let um fields lie fallow for a year season
at a time. And they're not doing that anymore in
the Andes. And again, this is really really fragile crop
land that they're growing this stuff in, so they're not
letting it lay fallow any longer. And they're also using
(33:41):
lama's less and lamas and keen wa go together like
rice and beans, which by the way, is another complete
um protein food. But it's not just a single food,
so he can food. Yeah. Yeah, man, what was that episode?
It's totally on the tip of my tongue. We talked
a lot about no till no till farming. I can't remember.
(34:05):
I want to say I had something to do with
the dust bowl, but we didn't do one on the
dust bawl. We did. We did one on the dust
ball and desertification. Maybe it was the yeah good one.
Um yeah. So the llamas, that's one of the big issues, right,
is that they're not letting them poop everywhere. Well they're not.
They're not lama farming like they used to. Laun Llamas
use a lot of grazing land and they're like, we
(34:27):
can use that instead to um grow keenwa because keene
was more valuable than lama's right, But lamas again and
keen wa go together like rice and beans, and llama
poop is almost like it's designed or tailored to fertilize keenewa.
They started to use sheep poop instead, I guess imported
(34:48):
sheep poop and it allows a lot more pests and
invasive weeds than lama poop does. When lama poop is fertilizing.
So the whole ecosystem is definitely being um altered. Yeah,
and not necessarily in good ways because of this huge
demand and this huge influx of cash. It's basically more money,
more problems. Yeah, the the Alto planos people are finding out.
(35:13):
It's so weird. We're not weird, but kind of sad
that you can't you know, it can't just be a
success story never, you know. I guess in the long run.
They're also worried that um I was talking about all
those different varieties. Um I saw the twenty but it
says here there could be up to thousands of different varieties,
(35:35):
and farmers are abandoning most of these to concentrate on
the ones that they can sell to you know, ship
out to export to American markets or I guess just
you know, not just America. I think Europe has eating
stuff like crazy too. Yeah, but um it says that
those varieties are This guy says that, um they're the
(35:56):
future of keenwa because they can adapt to things like
climate change. And you narrow the varieties down to a
certain few and they don't adapt, then you're kind of screwed.
You're s o l if you have three thousand to
choose from to try to adapt to changing climate, then yeah,
you're way better off. So crop diversity is pretty important.
But yeah, that's getting erased as well. Yeah, well they're
(36:18):
trying to encourage it with these Andean farmers at least. Uh.
They are working with Bolivia and Peru to develop internal
markets for these threatened varieties, like with school food programs
and stuff like, not necessarily to sell, but to use
like within the country at hospitals and schools. They said
they've been fairly successful with some of that stuff, so um,
(36:40):
hopefully that continues. See that. To me, that's what government
subsidies are for stuff like that, for like small indigenous
farmers who are protecting thousand year old varieties of crops
that are part of the cultural um fabric of a
(37:00):
country for the future. For all. They are growing in
California though that article you sent this dude is growing
it in in the Sonoran Desert, crazy in the Imperial
Valley below sea level, in like one of the hottest
places in North America. They're growing keena. Yeah, and well,
part of the problem is keena is very closely related.
(37:22):
I think it's in the same genus as um, something
called Lamb's quarters, which doesn't really matter up in the
Alto Plano, but in California, Lamb's quarters is a toxic,
toxic plant to live stock which might accidentally graze on
it because they're not thinking about that kind of stuff.
And then it also um carries a virus that kills alfalfa,
(37:46):
which is very much growing in California to feed that
live stock. So there's it's a it's a weird, it's
a complex, amazing plant that shouldn't exist. Yeah, maybe that'll
be the title quene wa olan complex more complex than
you think. That's a good one. Or maybe it should say, well,
(38:07):
never mind, I'll figure that out. Should we just brainstorm
some more? And let's show title. Are we gonna try
the soilent? Yes, let's um and then do listener mail. Yeah,
let's do that all right? So, uh, here we are.
We're gonna try this. Yeah, soilent. It's in a white bottle.
(38:28):
We called a lot of flak about not having tried
it and still done something. I'm like, well, here we go.
Then I'm not iridescent, but I've done an episode on iridescent.
Give me a break, people, I think you should probably
shake well, right, I think so, I don't know. We
gotta go back and listen to the episode against been
a while. People also thought that that was a sponsored
(38:49):
episode by Soilent, and I was like, I think we
said enough bad things about the taste. You should have
figured out that it was not. All right, here we go,
So this is us trying. So we also want to
say thanks again to Don Kent for sending this in.
It smells like, this is a nice kind of nice smell.
What does that smell like? It smells like cereal milk.
(39:10):
We got that a lot. A lot of people said
it smells like or it tastes like cheerios milk. It's
totally what it smells like. Can we say cheerios? Or
is this an episode for Cheerios? Now? All right, I'm
gonna should we do the same one. I thought we
were chucking the whole thing. No, oh, that's that's not bad.
(39:31):
It is It's not bad at all. A cheerio cereal milk.
I think I'm I would have come up with that
even if somebody hadn't said it. This is good. Yeah,
I mean it's sort of Bland's definitely it's not nearly
a sweet. It's not like a honeynut cheerio milk. No,
that's true for cinnamon toast crunch milk. It's not bad.
I was dreading this. I thought it was gonna be
(39:53):
awful from all the comments. But that's not bad at all.
I like it. I can see how you would kind
of start to crave it because it's got that like
almost a fatty mouth feel to it, you know what
I mean, Like it really gets on the tongue. All right, Well,
there it is. I should probably stop. It's pretty got
a lot of calories in it. Yeah, I mean that's
(40:15):
twenty if you're a daily nutrition Well thanks again and
don Kent, thanks again to everybody who wrongly called us
out for doing an ad for soilent. The aftertaste is
a little bit like milk of magnesia. I'm not getting
map like my Lanta. Yeah no, I know you mean
kind of chalky. I don't have that. Hm uh oh.
If you want to know more about soilent, go listen
(40:36):
to soil lamp sub. In the meantime, if you want
to know more about keen Wa, type that word q
U I n O A into the search far how
stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar,
it's time for more Soilent, I mean it's time for
listening now, all right, I'm gonna call it. Yeah. I
definitely don't like the aftertaste. It sound it sort of
(40:58):
chalking up on my throat and tongue. I kind of
like this stuff. I like food more, but that's not bad.
Sure Like if somebody said should I drink soil It,
I'd say why not? All right, I'm gonna call this, uh,
just a nice email from this lovely Australian woman. Hey guys,
been a long time listener, first time writer, currently living
(41:20):
in Sydney, Australia, though I grew up in Tennessee and
uh now I'm a Florida resident all over the place,
so maybe she's not a strong I've been listening to y'all.
Y'all since I was in college at U t K
Go Balls, and I even brought you along with me
while spending a year living in France. If you do
end up reading this on the air, which I don't expect,
(41:43):
I would be so thrilled. If you give a shout
out to my little sister LB, currently in Portland and
so up. LB she's used a little reverse psychology, Yeah,
she did. Anytime we make a road trip, we put
on stuff you should know, which incites a groan from
her every time. It's the chit chat that bugs her.
We just gave her a shout out. YEA, well, she's not.
(42:04):
She's not the only person to feel that way, all right.
To get to the point, I was listening to the
Dictator's episode and was so excited to hear you talking
about Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In fact, that's my grandmother's maiden name.
We pronounced it Suela, but whoever knows if that's the
true pronunciation. Her family is from southern Italy and immigrated
(42:26):
from Naples about a hundred years ago. She recently went
on a trip to Italy and studied up on her
ancestors sella uh and even visited a lot of the
sites inscribed with his name. It's amazing to see a
piece of your family history show up on your favorite podcast,
even if it is about dictators. Gave me a chuckle.
Thanks for keeping me entertained. This recently caught up to
(42:46):
all the episodes on iTunes. I know, I know there
are much more on your many more on your website. Wow,
she's a listener. She is, and that's Sarah right now
in Sydney. Thanks a lot, Sarah appreciate that. Um so,
wait is she from Ustara? She's just living in Australia
now I think she's just living there. Okay, got uh.
If you want to let us know about your world
(43:09):
travels and all that jazz, like Sarah did, you can
tweet to us at s y s K podcast or
josh um Clark. You can hang out with Chuck at
Charles W. Chuck Bryant on Facebook or it Stuff you
Should Know on Facebook. You can send us an email
of the Stuff podcast to how Stuff Worse dot com
and there's always joined us at our home on the web.
Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
(43:36):
and thousands of other topics. Does it how Stuff Works
dot com
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