Crops Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa)

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Common Name	QUINOA
Latin binomial	Chenopodium quinoa
Plant family	Chenopodiaceae
Names in other languages	quinoa (F), reismelde (D), arroz de Peru (E)

The quinoa plant yields a grain which has been a staple foodstuff in the Andean regions of South America for thousands of years; cultivation was maximised during the period of the Inca empire when quinoa was important culturally as well as nutritionally, but its use declined rapidly following the Spanish conquest. Interest in the crop has revived since about 1975, with increasing areas being planted in South America and markets for the grain being developed in the USA and Europe, initially as a 'health food' but also more recently as a supplier of materials for industrial uses. Quinoa is not a cereal (it is botanically related to sugar beet) and the grain has a higher protein content than cereal grains; industrial interest centres upon the small starch granules, whose properties differ from those of cereal starches, and additionally upon the saponins found in the seedcoat, which must be removed before the grain is used as a food.

This entry forms part of the publication Crops for Industry and Energy in Europe

References:

Janick, J & Simon, J E (Eds) (1990) Advances in New Crops. Proceedings of the First National Symposium on New Crops: Research, Development, Economics. Portland: Timber Press.

Janick, J & Simon, J E (Eds) (1993) New crops: Exploration, Research and Commercialisation. Proceedings of the Second National Symposium. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Langer, R H M & Hill, G D (1991) Agricultural Plants (2nd Edn) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

National Research Council (1989) Lost Crops of the Incas: little-known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation. Washington: National Academy Press.

Sauer, J D (1994) Historical Geography of Crop Plants: a Select Roster. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Siegler, D S (Ed) (1977) Crop Resources. New York: Academic Press.

Williams, J T (Ed) (1995) Cereals and Pseudocereals. London: Chapman & Hall.

Industrial Crops and Products. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science B V

Relevant EC funded projects:
AIR-1426