Selects: The Quinoa Revolution!
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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.com.

Hey, 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 chilly? That's the cherry on top. That's right. 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 43-minute mark. We are going to taste Soylent for the first time live on the air. Yeah. I guess I should have thought this through. I took them out of the fridge already, so we got 43 minutes for it to warm up. Should we put them back? Well, I wouldn't, you know, I wasn't going to say anything. Then I was going to say something. Should I put them back? Well, it's probably best cold, don't you think? Okay. Well, hang on, everybody.

So yes, we're going to try Soylent eventually in this episode. That's right. I'm excited. To try Soylent or to talk about quinoa? Both. Okay. So Chuck, you just kind of gave it away alongside the title. Sure. We're talking about quinoa today, not quinoa. No. Quinoa. That's right. But... It's a superfood.

Yes. Some say. Yeah. I mean, you can make a pretty good claim that it is a superfood. And what is a superfood if not a type of food that has a lot going on just in and of itself? Yeah, it's super. Yeah. Like blueberries are superfood. Or acai berries. Superfood? Yeah. Or acai berries. Yeah. Algae? I didn't know algae was. Oh, yeah. I buy that. Hemp seeds? Sure. Chia seeds? Yeah.

Yeah. A lot of nuts. Ritz crackers? I don't know. Those are just super delicious. And buttery. Yeah, with my crab dip especially. Oh, I'll bet. One day maybe I'll find out. What, you just want me to bring you crab dip? Yeah. Give me a cooking lesson. So quinoa, there are at least 120 varieties, and it is nothing new. It's been around, in fact...

We might as well delve into a little history here. Yes, let's. It's been cultivated for, geez, more than 5,000 years. I saw it up to 8,000 years. Wow, that's more than 5,000. Sure.

Well, I guess we could say more than five years. Right. More than the last six months, quinoa has been around on this planet. Yeah, and it's an Andean plant and specifically originated around Lake Titicaca in Peru. Yeah. In Bolivia. In the Altiplano. Yeah, it's wonderful. Wonderful area. Have you been? Oh, no. But just look at photos. Sure. Machu Picchu. Yeah. You're like, well, look at that place. Exactly. One day, maybe. I'd like to go for sure.

But it is, there is historical evidence of it being domesticated.

like we said, maybe as long as 8,000 years ago, and they even saw in ancient tombs, they saw little, you know, archaeological drawings and things that what they think is quinoa. Right. So people were ingesting it and using it as a superfood way back when. Yeah, and the fact that it grew up there or grows up there, and not only grows but thrives up in this high, rocky, I think pretty much arid area

plateau that's also very cold it doesn't make any sense that you'd have anything but like alpacas and llamas 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 bolivia and peru in the highlands 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 until I think the early 20th century that it really started to make its way for the first time out to the United States. I think the USDA got their hands on it and tried to get farmers to grow it here in the States. And they said, nah, let's give it another 100 years maybe, a little less. Yeah. I mean, the 21st century is when it really kind of became popular. Right. And even in the last...

geez, mid-2000s, you can even talk about it being trendy? Well, supposedly, the whole trend for quinoa, which, by the way, 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 quinoa hit the map, hit the scene? Well, in a lot of different ways. I assume you think it's one thing only. Right. Oprah. Yeah, she had something to do with it for sure. She was on some sort of cleanse diet in 2008, and she ate quinoa and mushrooms, I guess, and everybody was like, what is that?

She's like, oh, you've been calling it Kanoa. It's quinoa. And I said, well, we have to try this now. Yeah. She definitely was a factor. Oprah, her reach is wide. It is. But it doesn't reach me. Are you not an Oprah fan? No, I think she's fine, but...

I didn't learn about quinoa from her or anything else. Where did you learn about quinoa then? Just, you know, I think the first time I had it was in a restaurant. So to me it spread because chefs started using it. Because they watch Oprah. Yeah, exactly. Chefs don't serve anything unless Oprah eats it. She's patient zero. Here in the United States, you know, I talked about at least 120 varieties. You're more than likely going to be eating the red ones.

Red, white, and blue. No, red, white, or black varieties of quinoa. And do you eat it in your home? I guess we'll get to this stuff, but I'm curious if you've cooked with it a lot. Not a lot, no. I've had it here or there. I've had it in a couple of restaurants. So this stuff is 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. Right.

Like Fruity Pebbles. That's 100% cereal, baby. They just came out with Cinnamon Pebbles. Oh, I'll bet those are good. Yeah. You could make cinnamon old shoes and put them in a cereal box and it'd be good.

But quinoa technically is a pseudo cereal. It comes from the goosefoot plant. Right. That's why it's not a cereal. Cereal is a grain that comes from a grass. Yeah. And goosefoot's not a grass. It's a plant. No, and it looks kind of weedy. And as we'll see later when you're cultivating, it looks alarmingly like some other weeds. Weed weed. It can be tricky. With a capital W. Oh, it looks like marijuana? A little bit. From afar? Yeah.

Huh. That brilliant red and brilliant yellow. Isn't that what marijuana looks like when it's growing? I'm not sure you know what marijuana is. Huh. I'll show you a picture sometime. Okay. Okay.

It is labeled a 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 talking about these things from grasses like wheat, right? Yeah. And there's such a thing as whole grain wheat. But once we process something, once we mill it or – Shell it. 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 enriched white flour, that's, you've taken a whole wheat grain and you've removed the bran and the germ and

And you've just got yourself the endosperm still. And the endosperm is what's used mostly to produce white flour. Yeah. And that's great. It's full of quick, easily digestible carbs. But a lot of the nutrients are lost. Actually, not easily digestible for many people. That's true too. Yeah. But a lot of the nutrients are lost in the process. So even if you can digest it, no problem, you're not getting most of the nutrients that were there in the first place. Right.

With a whole grain, it's got the bran, 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 flour. Yeah, and quinoa in particular is really weird. When you look at it,

It's closer, you wouldn't think so, but it's closer to chard and beets and spinach than it 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. It shouldn't grow where it grows. It shouldn't be a cereal. It shouldn't be a grain. It shouldn't be related to beets. It shouldn't be delicious. Yeah.

But it is. That's right. And it's super, super good for you. Like we're saying, it's a super food. And 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 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 quinoa in amounts? Edamame, 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, this is... It's amazing how much protein it has in it. It has like a decent amount, especially for a plant, but just not like eye-popping or anything like that, you know? You think it's hyperbole? I kind of poo-pooed that one. Okay. What it does have, unless you think it's...

not true as well. Well, I'll be the judge of it. At least 10 amino acids. And that's good, right? Or is it bad too? I guess it's okay. No, it's chock full of amino acids, which are great for your body because our body cannot make amino acids. So we have to get them from food sources. It can't make essential amino acids. It can make non-essential amino acids, but the essential ones we have to get from food. And

Quinoa is in a very small group of plants that are 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 in plants very frequently. No. That's what helps make it a superfood. Exactly. It's not very high in calorie. No sugar, no cholesterol, no sodium.

What else? Zinc? It's got a lot of zinc. It has a lot of potassium, too. Apparently, it has the most potassium of any food plant that is around. Potassium is really good at regulating blood pressure. Yeah. Because potassium is in charge of things like fluid retention and electrical conduction throughout cells. I think just compared to grains, there are plenty of other...

Fruits with potassium. Oh, okay. Is that what it was? Yeah, like bananas are loaded with potassium. Are they? Yeah. Or is that the work of Edward Bernays? No, bananas are really good for you. What else? Fiber, magnesium, folate. Yeah, that's good. Gluten-free. Well, that's a big one, man. So it's very commonly touted as a gluten-free food.

um, food grain, um, which is good for people who have celiac disease, but apparently they've tested. There's at least, what'd you say? 120, 150 varieties, uh, 120. Yeah. That are in like, uh, agricultural production right now. Yeah. And, um,

And somebody tested a bunch of them, and they came up with at least four that created a celiac response. Oh, really? Yeah. So you've got to be careful. For the most part, they are gluten-free, but 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.

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 120 varieties. Yeah. And I think those are for sure gluten-free. Okay. Like if you go to your grocery store, you're not going to see 120 varieties of this stuff. I don't know, man. You know? Yeah. You're probably right. All right. Well, let's take a break and we're going to get back and talk a little bit about cooking this delicious stuff.

So, Chuck, you were going to lay it on everybody how to cook quinoa. It's easy. If you can cook rice, you can cook quinoa. Yeah. And I would say, well, I was about to say easier than rice. 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. Yeah.

It's also what makes it great, though, too. Sure. Depending on what kind of rice you're getting. I eat quinoa at the house, I wouldn't say a lot, but enough. Yeah. Like every couple of weeks. Oh, yeah. That's a lot. Is it? Yeah, it is to me. So what you do is you want to rinse it.

Like you will some kinds of rice. The bag 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 had this, it's actually really good for you, this coating called saponin. And despite its great health effects, when you add water to it, it lathers up like a soap. Right. And it's bitter. Yeah. And in fact, it means, it's from the Latin sapo, which is soap.

So you don't want to eat it even though it's good for you. No, the plant produces it to keep pests away from eating it. Yeah. So you rinse that stuff off. Once you see it, it's really tiny. So you want to get a really fine strainer, not like a colander. Right. You get a colander, then all that quinoa is going to be down the drain. Man, I hate Mondays. So get like a sifter, a really fine sifter. Rinse it real good until the water is running clear.

and basically cook it like rice. It's one part quinoa and two parts water. Or broth. Well, that's what I do. I use chicken broth. Sure. You'd be a madman just to use water and quinoa. Yeah.

Or veggie broth if you're, you know, weird. Or off the meat. I'm just kidding. Beef broth if you're gross. That doesn't pair well with quinoa. I could see it not. I'm just not a big beef broth guy. I love beef. I might have said beef. You did. With a T-H. Yeah. It was kind of cute. Beef broth. Beef broth. But I use chicken. I use like half chicken.

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 you. You stomp on it? Yeah.

So then you cook it like rice. Like I said, you're going to boil it, and then once it gets to a boil, cover it up, turn it down low, and wait and let it simmer until it's all soaked up. Yeah, and then this article, I'm not as acquainted with cooking quinoa 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 it's just quite obvious. It's just big and light and fluffy. You see the little seed spiral. What's neat is, and we kind of walked past it, but you said it a couple of times, that that seponin is good for you. Really good for you. Yeah. It has some amazing properties. Like it's anti-tumor, anti-ulcer, anti-inflammatory. Yeah. And so you have to imagine like,

Again, 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 nutrients and the outer coating is an anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor agent. Yeah. That you wash away. Yeah. It's kind of sad. Well, you could save it.

sip on it later. I wonder what would happen. How would you have to ingest it, you think? Would it have any anti-inflammatory properties if you drank saponin, you think? Or do you need to 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. It's a good question. I bet people know. We'll hear about that. Up in Bolivia, they know. 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 couscous or whatever. Mashed potatoes. Yeah.

Although I would eat the mashed potatoes. You could mix it with mashed potatoes, right? No, I wouldn't do that. One thing that the author of this article, I think it's Leah Hoyt, she said that she likes to mix it in instead of breadcrumbs into like meatballs or burgers. Sure. Why not? Yeah, like a quinoa burger. Yeah. So is there such a thing as a quinoa burger that's just quinoa? Could you make that or do you need something to bind it? I think you probably need binding agents. Or beef. Beef.

Yeah, beef broths. Or I don't know. I've never made a quinoa burger. And I don't make any kind of veggie burger in my home. Oh, really? So I wouldn't really know how to go about that. What do you do, turkey burgers? I do turkey. Turkey burgers are pretty good, depending on the brand. Some are just like, what is this texture? Yeah, I mean, I make them myself with my own little recipe. Oh. But...

That's just because Emily doesn't eat beef. So I've gotten so into the turkey burger that I don't even really, I mean, I'll have a beef burger out. Right. Never at home. You and I are simpatico on the home burger cooking tip. Do you grill or do you skillet? Form and grill. Oh. Yeah.

It's pretty great. That's a buzz market in half. You watch that grease drip out of the front. And I've noticed many times like I will just be zoned out drooling grease out of my mouth. So here's my favorite quinoa dish. And I got it from a restaurant in New York that I can't remember.

But there are all kinds of variations. But I have it, I cook it and then put it in the fridge and chill it, like, overnight. Okay. So in the summer, I will get that cold quinoa and then dice up, like, some cucumber and some red onion. Okay. And, I mean, kind of anything you want, like, that fits a salad, summer salad. Okay. Like, orange pepper, like, crunchy green pepper or roasted red pepper. Oh, yeah, that's good. Garlic. Garlic.

Throw some pine nuts in there. I wish it were summer 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, a little apple cider vinegar. But the base of it is quinoa. Yeah, and you just mix up anything that you kind of, you know, might add some texture, like that crunch, and serve it alongside like a burger instead of fries. Oh, yeah. And it's really, really good. And you know me, I'm not...

I'm not into healthy foods like that a lot. Right. Which means it's good. Which means it's really good. And packed with protein, don't forget. That's right. And it's a complete source of protein. So that's my, or maybe some dried cranberry or golden raisins. I'm not big on that kind of stuff in a salad. Oh yeah? I know a lot of people like it. Not me. Yeah? No. I don't love the golden raisins, but I do like the cranberry. Do you? Yeah, yeah. I think it's nice.

All right, so that's Chuck's recipe of the week. That's pretty good. We'll do that every week, no matter what the topic is. What are you going to come up with for the tartar grade? Oh, just you wait. So here's the deal with quinoa. It's gotten really trendy. So in 2007, the United States was importing 7.3 million pounds of quinoa. Right. 2012, they imported 57 million pounds of quinoa.

And God knows what it is this year. You know, a lot of that was the direct result of a single person. Of Oprah, yeah. It all comes down to Oprah. No, there was this dude. He was a UN development worker from Bolivia who'd moved to California. And he had obviously grown up at least familiar with quinoa, if not eating quinoa. His name was Sergio Nunez de Arco. And he...

He saw that quinoa was starting to catch on a little bit. I guess he saw that episode of Oprah. Yeah. So he went back to Bolivia and he found that there were only a few indigenous producers who were putting out like retail sized bags of quinoa. Yeah. So he went around and he basically created a co-op out of all the indigenous farmers who create, grow quinoa in Bolivia. Yeah. And-

made the supply from them reliable enough and big enough to supply industry abroad, around the world. This guy basically was the flashpoint for the quinoa explosion. He helped it happen. And he made sure that it was based on the work of the people who were originally cultivating quinoa. Right. Yeah, which is a big one. Yeah, he went from, in 2005, he sold $25,000 worth of,

through his company, and these days he's selling about $26 million worth annually from his own facility and about $40 million from other facilities. So he basically went around to them and said, hey, these weekend farmer's markets are cute, but how would you like to be a part of the industrial food supply? Yeah, you put down that pan flute. We're talking business here. Did they play the pan flute? Yeah. Those Andean Highlanders, they love that. They love that junk? Mm-hmm.

Is that where Zamfir is from? No, I think Zamfir is, I think he's Mediterranean. I wanted to say Greek. Yeah, I'm 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. Yanni didn't play the pan flute, though, did he? No, no. Okay. Sam Feer is definitely master of the pan flute. Well, of course. You can't call yourself that on a CD unless Oprah has said so. Right. And it has the stamp of approval. So the price has really gone up, too, as a result, and it was not small. For a lot of years, one metric ton was...

About $500. And in 2010, that was $1,300. So that's almost threefold. And again, that was almost seven years ago. Yeah, it kept going up too. I think it peaked in 2012. Really? Yeah, 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, I guess somebody wrote an article or started digging around and they said, hey, everybody, you guys are eating all this quinoa. Guess what 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 suck 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 take hipsters down a peg, isn't it? Is it? It seems like it. 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. There's got to be blood on the hands somewhere. All right, well, let's take a break. We'll talk a little bit about what this all means and whether or not that's even true right after this.

All right, so if it's being produced 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 and is happening. And you sent this great article, is quinoa California farmers new kale? Because kale had a similar explosion.

Uh, in popularity, you know, over the past few years. Kale's so hot right now. Yeah. I think kale is out now. Yeah. Or at least made fun of. I think. For being too hipstery and hot. Yeah. I think the hipsters kind of chewed that up and spit it out. Literally. But it's still great. I know. People just, I hate all that stuff.

Yeah. You know? Really, yeah. Just like what's trending and what's not and what we think is cool. Let's write about it. Right. And I read this really interesting article. I think it was a Mother Jones writer, like a Mother Jones ag writer who basically said like, hey, dudes, all of this stuff that, you know, is suddenly like the hot new superfood. Yeah. It's niche food.

food marketing. It's the same thing as like Oreos coming out with a new flavor every like couple months that you gotta go try or something like that. Yeah, like you're just a sheep for kale. But yeah, but geared toward people who don't eat junk food. But it's the same exact thing. So don't be a chump. Yeah, or at least

Don't get on your high horse about the other stuff being mass marketed. Or being eaten by idiots and saps and simpletons. Right. So the thing is, the thing that made it even worse, though, was the idea that

Like the huge demand in the expanded market for quinoa that was largely found in the United States was directly responsible for pricing indigenous farmers who were growing that quinoa out of it. Right. So they weren't even eating it was the problem. Well, supposedly. Right. And what they found was that one, they couldn't afford it. They've been priced out. Yeah.

Or they were making the decision to where, yeah, they're making more money now, but they would rather sell all their quinoa and buy less expensive, less nutrient-dense food for their families. So the very people producing quinoa were not only couldn't afford it, they also were being malnourished as a result of this quinoa explosion. Right. Right.

It was a big deal. It made a lot of people second guess it, feel pretty bad about themselves. And I also guarantee it had a negative impact on the quinoa market as well. Sure. Which would directly affect the farmers. But what you dug up, though, on this NPR's The Salt, I guess, blog, their food blog. Yeah, there was a story about it attached to it as well. It was pretty eye-opening. Yeah.

Yeah, these dudes got together and they were trying to get to kind of the root of all this. And so they got a data source, ENAHO. It's the National Survey of Peru that they carry out every year about just Peruvian households and all kinds of stuff, data that they're collecting. But one of them is food. And there are 22,000 randomly selected households.

So they got 10 years' worth of this data covering from before the quinoa boom, a few years before, through the quinoa boom. So they could kind of do a good comparison. Right. And they split the households into three groups, those who grow and eat quinoa, those who eat it but don't grow it, and those who neither grow it nor eat it.

They say, bleh. Yeah, I guess the final household is people that pronounce it Quinoa. There's like one household in Peru. It's like, what is this stuff? And they all three showed a clear rise in their welfare, which they measured as the total value of goods consumed as that price of quinoa rose. Yeah.

And apparently that reflected in the increased living standards in Peru as a whole too. Right. So at the height of that boom, the welfare of the growers increased more rapidly than the other two groups though. Right. Which you would – that makes sense. Yeah. And so you can – they basically tracked –

a direct correlation between the quinoa boom around the world and a rise in the household welfare of quinoa farmers back in Peru. So they conclusively proved pretty much that there was no, that these farmers weren't

too poor to afford quinoa. But the other one was still left standing, right? Right. The idea that they were selling all their quinoa, but then they were still malnourished because they were buying less nutritionally dense food. 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 100%

evidence, but at least this is what they dug out after pouring over these 10 years worth of studies. They said this guy, Andrew Stevens, a doctoral candidate, focused on specifically the Puno region in the Andes, which grows about 80% of all the quinoa in 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 they can't afford to eat it. Right. And he said this is actually a pretty small part of their diet overall, and they're actually eating more quinoa than ever before in that region that grows the most. That was pretty surprising. So it said they did not cut back their consumption between 2004 and 2012 despite a fourfold price increase.

They see no signs of changing calories, proteins or carbohydrates in the diet across Peru as a whole. Right. So they kind of debunked it. Yeah.

Pretty cool. Hipsters rejoice. They shall rejoice, but there are still some outstanding problems, right? Sure. So like you said, that guy mentioned it was a culturally important food, so much so that Bolivia, in its drafted 2009 constitution, enshrined quinoa as part of their food sovereignty, which is their right to protect food.

culturally important food. Yeah, like, hey, you're coming in here and you're basically taking this and now you're going to grow it all over the world. Right, and they recognized the importance of quinoa for a very long time. There was apparently a Colorado researcher who went to Bolivia in 1986 and was shot dead trying to smuggle quinoa seeds out of the country. Yeah. And I guess somebody from Colorado eventually got him out because Colorado State University

patented a hybrid quinoa in 1994 based on Bolivian seeds, and the government of Bolivia called them biopirates. Yeah, that's not something you want leveled at you. No. Not by Bolivia. The other thing, too, and I think you sent me this, was that 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 they realized that

You know, before when it wasn't worth that much money, I mean, sure, they were producing it, but it wasn't like it is now. So all these people are saying, wait, 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— And fighting going on. Yeah, there was violence that broke out in February of, I think, 2015, maybe—sorry, 2014, where—

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 decades. And part of the problem is when you're doing good agricultural practices, what did we talk about?

no-till farming in. I was thinking that too. I can't remember. We've definitely talked a lot about that. Yeah. And when you're using good agricultural practices, one of the main things you want to do is let fields lay fallow for a year or a season at a time. Yeah. And they're not doing that anymore in the Andes. And again, this is

really, really fragile cropland that they're growing this stuff in. So they're not letting it lay fallow any longer. And they're also using llamas less. Yeah. And llamas and quinoa go together like rice and beans, which, by the way, is another complete protein food. But it's not just a single food, so you can't really call it a superfood. Yeah. Man, what was that episode? I don't know. It's totally on the tip of my tongue. We talked a lot about no-till crops.

No-till farming. I can't remember. I want to say it had something to do with the Dust Bowl, but we didn't do one on the Dust Bowl yet. We did. We did one on the Dust Bowl and desertification. Maybe it was the Dust Bowl. Yeah, good one. 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 llama farming like they used to. Llamas use a lot of grazing land, and they're like, we can use that instead to grow quinoa. Because quinoa is more valuable than llamas. Right. But llamas, again, and quinoa go together like rice and beans, and llama poop is almost like it's designed or tailored—

to fertilize quinoa. They started to use sheep poop instead, I guess imported sheep poop, and it allows a lot more pests and invasive weeds than llama poop does when llama poop is fertilizing. So the whole ecosystem is definitely being...

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 that the alto planos people are finding out. It's so weird. Or not weird, but kind of sad that it can't just be a success story. Nervous. Got to have the good with the bad, I guess. In the long run, they're also worried that... I was talking about all those different varieties of...

I saw the 120, but it says here there could be up to thousands of different varieties. Yeah. 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. Right. Or I guess just, you know, not just America. I think Europe is eating this stuff like crazy too. Are they? Yeah. But it says that those varieties are, this guy says that they're the future of quinoa.

Because they can adapt to things like climate change. And if you narrow the varieties down to a certain few and they don't adapt, then you're kind of screwed. Yeah, you're SOL. If you have 3,000 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 trying to encourage it with these Andean farmers at least.

They are working with Bolivia and Peru to develop internal markets for these threatened varieties, like with school food programs and stuff. Yeah. 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 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 fabric of a country. Yeah, and for the future, for all. Sure. 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. Mm-hmm.

In like one of the hottest places in North America, they're growing quinoa. Yeah. Well, part of the problem is quinoa is very closely related. I think it's in the same genus as something called lamb's quarters. Yeah, that's the weed. Which doesn't really matter up in the Alto Plano. But in California, lamb's quarters is a toxic plant.

toxic plant to livestock, which might accidentally graze on it because they're not thinking about that kind of stuff. And then it also carries a virus that kills alfalfa, which is very much grown in California, to feed that livestock. Man. So it's weird. It's a complex, amazing plant that shouldn't exist. Quinoa. Yeah, maybe that'll be the title. Quinoa, colon, complex, more complex than you think. Oh, that's a good one.

Or maybe it should say, well, never mind. I'll figure that out. Or should we just brainstorm some more on show titles? Let's do it. Are we going to try the Soylent? Yes, let's. And then do Listener Mail? Yeah, let's do that. All right. So here we are. We're going to try this. Yeah, Soylent.

Is it a white bottle? We caught a lot of flack 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 iridescence. Give me a break, people. I think you should probably shake well, right? I think so. I don't know. We've got to go back and listen to the episode again. It's been a while. People also thought that that was a sponsored episode by Soylent. And I was like, I think we said enough bad things about the taste that you should have figured out that it was not. All right.

Here we go. So this is us trying Soylent. We also want to say thanks again to Don Kent for sending this in. It smells like... Oh, that's a nice kind of a nice smell. What does that smell like? It smells like cereal milk. We got that a lot. A lot of people said it smelled like or it tastes like Cheerios milk. That's totally what it smells like. Can we say Cheerios or is this an episode for Cheerios now? All right. I'm going to... Should we do it at the same time? Three, two, one. I thought we were chugging the whole thing. No. No.

Oh, that's not bad. It is. It's not bad at all. 100% Cheerio cereal milk. Yeah. I think 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. Oh, it's definitely bland. It's not nearly as sweet. It's not like a Honey Nut Cheerio milk. No, that's true. Or Cinnamon Toast Crunch milk. That's not bad. I was dreading this. I thought it was going to be awful from all the comments, but it'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 mouthfeel to it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like it really gets on the tongue. Huh. All right. Well, there it is. I should probably stop. It's pretty, it's got a lot of calories in it. Yeah. I mean, that's 20% of your daily nutrition. Well, uh, thanks again to Don Kent. Thanks again to everybody who wrongly called us out for doing an ad for Soylent. The aftertaste is a little bit like milk of magnesia. I'm not getting that. Like Mylana. Yeah, no, I know what you mean. Kind of chalky. I don't have that. Uh,

Oh, if you want to know more about Soylent, go listen to the Soylent episode. In the meantime, if you want to know more about quinoa, type that word, Q-U-I-N-O-A, into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for more Soylent. I mean, it's time for Listener Mail. All right, I'm going to call. Yeah, I definitely don't like the aftertaste. It sounded sort of 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 Soylent? I'd say, why not? All right. I'm going to call this just a nice email from this lovely Australian woman. Hey, guys. Been a long time listener. First time writer. Currently living in Sydney, Australia, though I grew up in Tennessee.

And now I'm a Florida resident. All over the place. Wow, so maybe she's not Australian. I've been listening to y'all, y'all, since I was in college at UTK, go Vols. 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...

I would be so thrilled if you gave a shout out to my little sister LB, currently in Portland. What's up LB? She just used a little reverse psychology on you there. 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. Well, she's not the only person to feel that way.

All right. To get to the point, I was listening to the Dictators episode and was so excited to hear you talking about Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In fact, that's my grandmother's maiden name. We pronounce it Suella, but whoever knows if that's the true pronunciation. Her family is from southern Italy and immigrated from Naples about 100 years ago. She recently went on a trip to Italy and studied up on her ancestor Sulla. Mm-hmm.

and even visited a lot of the sites inscribed with his name. That's pretty cool. It's amazing to see a piece of your family history show up on your favorite podcast, even if it is about dictators. It gave me a chuckle. Thanks for keeping me entertained. Just recently caught up to all the episodes on iTunes. I know, I know, there are much more. Yeah. Many more on your website. Wow, she is a listener, huh? She is, and that's Sarah right now in Sydney. Thanks a lot, Sarah. Appreciate that. Yeah.

So wait, is she from Australia or she's just living in Australia now? I think she's just living there. Okay, got it. If you want to let us know about your world travels and all that jazz, like Sarah did, you can send us an email to thestuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.