What Is Quinoa? A Full Breakdown of Its Nutritional Value and How to Eat It
Quinoa, native to the Andes region of South America, was the main traditional food of the Inca indigenous people, with more than 5000-7000 years of history of consumption and cultivation, due to its unique, rich and comprehensive nutritional value. It nurtured the Inca people, and the ancient Incas called it “the mother of grains”. Let us take a look below at what nutritional value it has and how best to eat it.
1. What nutritional value does quinoa have?
Quinoa is a food that cooks easily and digests easily, with a unique taste and a light nutty aroma or ginseng-like fragrance. It has effects such as balanced nutritional supplementation, strengthening body functions, restoring physique, regulating immunity and the endocrine system, improving the body's stress capacity, preventing disease, fighting cancer, aiding weight loss and supporting treatment, and is suitable for all groups of people to eat, especially suitable for those with chronic diseases such as high blood sugar, high blood pressure, high blood lipids and heart disease, as well as infants and young children, pregnant and postpartum women, children, students, the elderly and people with special constitutions or irregular lifestyles. Eaten over the long term, the effects are notable.
2. How is quinoa best eaten?
1. Eaten on its own. When making porridge, boil it in rolling water for about 10-15 minutes or so, until it swells and the grains become semi-transparent, then it is ready to eat. When cooking it with rice, the heat should not be too high; if using a rice cooker, use a little more water. To make the aroma stronger, you can dry-roast the quinoa in a dry frying pan for a few minutes before putting it in the pot, stirring constantly during roasting so it heats evenly and does not burn. If steaming, it needs to be soaked for several hours in advance; quinoa is a food high in complex starch and dietary fiber, and before steaming it needs a longer time to absorb enough water before it softens easily.
2. Eat it mixed with other grains, for example: quinoa and millet porridge, quinoa and rice porridge, quinoa and rice pilaf, and white flour quinoa pancakes.
3. Cook it in soup; quinoa has a light fragrant taste and is very suitable for making soups with other ingredients, and it can also remove the fishy smell of fish and meat, for example: quinoa and abalone soup, quinoa spinach and tomato soup, quinoa and straw mushroom soup, quinoa and shredded chicken soup, and quinoa and tomato oxtail soup.
4. Quinoa tea: stir-fry the quinoa until golden brown and fragrant, put a few spoonfuls in a cup and brew it with boiling water; drinking it daily strengthens the body and improves health.