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Scientists Successfully Decode the Genome of Quinoa (bbc.com)
Gr8Apes writes: Scientists have successfully decoded the genome of quinoa, a hugely popular "super-food" because it is well balanced and gluten-free. They have pinpointed one of the genes that they believe control the production of saponins (bitter toxic compounds that protect the plant from predators) which can facilitate the breeding of plants without saponins, resulting in sweeter seeds without having to process them. The scientists also believe that the genetic understanding now gained will allow them to breed shorter, stockier plants that don't fall over as easily, and that these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification. Furthermore, the researchers believe the genetic code will rapidly lead to more productive varieties that will push down costs. "We need the price of quinoa to go down by a factor of five," said project leader Professor Mark Tester, from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. "If we get to a similar price to wheat it can be used in processing and in bread making and in many other foods and products. It has the chance to truly add to current world food production." The study has been published in the journal Nature.
Quinoa is convenient? How is it more convenient than rice?
I'm the opposite of you, I find Quinoa inconvenient (only because of the price), but is is really tasty. I substitute out about 1/3 of my rice with red/black Quinoa & add 1/3 extra water to the rice cooker & get a lovely rice with different coloured seeds scattered through it, giving it a nuttiness, crunch & depth of flavour you don't get with plain rice.
My pics.
So what? Someone already bred a low saponin Quinoa that immediately harvested by the birds. Maybe leaving in the natural pesticide that is easy to process is a good idea?
If you want nuttiness and crunchiness in your rice, add nuts.
Now if only they can filter the rocks out of it
I've been eating Quinoa regularly for years & never seen grit or sand. Change to a better brand (looked for pre-rinsed varieties)
My pics.
How is it more convenient than rice?
It doesn't taste like glue.
If your rice tastes like glue you are cooking it wrong. Try cooking it in stock or at least toss in a few bullion cubes.
quinoa, a hugely popular "super-food" because it is well balanced and gluten-free
Seriously, wtf? When and why did gluten become an evil boogeyman? Was there a recent research that found gluten causes cancer or something? Or is it just a new age hippie thing?
Gluten is just wheat protein. It's nutritious. It's how Roman soldiers were able to go everywhere and fight because they had a reliable, portable, long-lasting and nutritious food supply. Wheat is actually the first superfood.
Yes a tiny percentage of the population can't eat wheat because of celiac or wheat allergies. So what, peanut allergies are far more common and yet I don't see a lot of anti-peanut crusading.
Costco has really tasty pre-packaged packets of brown rice and Quinoa (under the brand Seeds of Change), that you can heat in five minutes,
I know what you are thinking. Pre-packaged? Brown rice? Quinoa? How could any of that be tasty?
Normally I hate packaged foods myself and always cook everything from raw. I've never liked brown rice, sometimes hated it, and while I like most Quinoa more, I only like it for particular uses.
But for whatever reason, these packets that Costco has are actually really tasty. Somehow the taste of the brown rice and Quinoa mesh together to make something very good, and something you can have with any protein instead of normal rice.
I imagine it's healthier too but I honestly do not care because I just find it tastier.
There's nothing un-pronouncable or strange in the ingredients either - brown rice and quinoa are the first two ingredients and it's just some spices after that.
Cook it in a skillet and it is great. The instructions say without water but I prefer cooking it as is, and you get some nice crunch in it. So tasty.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It tastes OK, but the additional arm it's grown on my back makes sleeping inconvenient. However, it's nice to be able to type and scratch my ass at the same time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Tell you what, take yourself to the Green Seed restaurant on Almeda St in Houston and order the Big Tex quinoa burger. It's got this toasted zucchini that tastes like bacon and is goddamn delicious. Seriously, if you've never tasted quinoa made well, you've got to try it. I'll offer a fully money-back guarantee if you don't like it. Get it with an order of sweet potato dill fries. On me.
Seriously, are people who live on ramen noodles and hot pockets really complaining about the taste of quinoa?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Please, stop apologizing for this shit: "and that these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification."
A. No it can't, selective breeding and direct genetic modification end up with the exact same result, and are both "genetic modifications" by any reasonable definition of the term.
B. This is exactly the same as saying "and these benefits could be gained without the use of wifi!" or "without the use of satellites!" to make "radiation" schizos or flat earthers feel better about themselves. They don't deserve to feel better about themselves; they're crass, ignorant halfwits and don't need their idiotic beliefs affirmed anymore than they already are. And that goes for the stupid assed "gluten free" thing too. Almost no one on earth has celiac disease, and anyone that does can take care of that themselves.
At no point should scientific results be apologetic, the universe doesn't apologize for existing the way it does, and reporting how it exists should need no apology either.
Simply that some people feel that splicing these unrelated genes into food sources may introduce some poorly understood risk. Further, some feel that not enough research has been done or that the research isn't transparent enough to be comfortable eating those crops.
The process is different from natural cross breeding so it raises more concerns for some.
What part about it containing Saponins that are bitter and toxic didn't you understand?
Try replacing it with medium rare rib-eye. I find the taste improves significantly, and as a bonus you have all this unused, very expensive, kitty litter that your cat can avoid too.
The scientists also believe that the genetic understanding now gained will allow them to breed shorter, stockier plants that don't fall over as easily, and that these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification.
I guess plant splicing and selective breading do not count as genetic modification. Who knew? Must have meant direct genetic modification.
That's a workable issue. Plenty of foods have been bred out of more toxic wild ancestors, like the solanine removed from potatoes or the erucic acid removed from canola. Most plants did not evolve to have their roots or leaves eaten; domestication made them favorable to human consumption. Knowing how to make things better is the first step toward doing it.
Saponins I think are less of a concern, since they're usually pretty easy to wash off of commercially processed quinoa. I'd be more concerned with producing low oxalic acid varieties.
If it's got a bitter taste, are you rinsing it enough? I find bitterness can be an issue if it is not thoroughly rinsed several times before cooking. There's also some pre-rinsed brands on the market now.
Also, maybe try the red quinoa if you can. Personally, I think the red one on the market is better than the white varieties.
The point is to state things in a scary way and hope people mistake that for a rational argument. I hate those three tired tropes in the parent poster's comment. 'GMOs produce pesticides and resist poisons!' It only sounds scary to the uninformed.
First, all plants produce chemical defenses, aka pesticides. This is basic botany. An organism that can't run or swat back against the trillions of insects that want to eat it as to evolve defenses somehow. They use chemical defenses. Domestication has removed some of those defenses to make plants more palatable to humans, but that's how things work in nature. Some genetically engineered crops have a protein which kills certain types of pests. It doesn't affect humans. Hyping up that there is a pesticide in corn is just ignorant. Of course there are pesticides in corn, it's corn. Even your organic, all natural, 'Non-GMO verified' corn still has pesticides in it.
Second claim, about resisting pesticides, yes, some crops do resist certain herbicides. This enables fewer application of fewer herbicides with less need for soil degrading tillage. For all the hate this attracts, I've yet to see anyone say they want to go back to the old ways of tilling for weed control, which destroy topsoil and promotes fertilizer runoff, and of using a wider range of more toxic herbicides at different stages of crop growth. People complaining are more than free to propose better weed control methods instead of presenting basic realities of farming in a fearmongering manner with no proper context. If you can control weeds without herbicides, I'm sure farmers would love to cut that expense from their budget.
And on the topic of genes from sexually incompatible organisms, also already done. It's called embryo rescue, and it can be used to hybridize things that would not naturally be able to cross. No one complained when it was used to bring disease resistant genes into tomato. Genetic engineering is taking this a step further, yes, but merely stating that we are bringing genes in from different species is not making a point.
Honestly, I get why people think some of these things are scary, but I do wish they would spend just a little time reading up on the matter from reputable sources before assuming they see the flaws that scientists and farmers do not.
GMO = Man fucking about with genes that may or may not produce something good or bad due to a complete lack of long term studies (i.e. 50+ years).
That's a ridiculous standard. Do you also hold that Wifi and microwaves should undergo a half century of testing?
When someone can explain to me an actual reason as to why genetic engineering is fundamentally different from all the other similar things which occur in nature, then I'll consider advocating a half century of testing. However, the anti-GMO crowd has had over two decades to make their case to the scientific community though, so I'm not holding my breath.
Spelled like q-u-i-n-o-a.
Sounds like keen-wah.
Tastes like tiny cardboard balls.
In this case, good on the hipsters though. Supporting the cultivation of 'new' species is how you increase the biodiversity of the food supply, which brings all sort of benefits. It is great to see more research and funding going to the support and promotion of less commonly cultivated crops.
Now if only we could get them to stop saying things like 'these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification' as if genetic engineering is a bad thing.
This is about making the uncategorical claim that quinoa tastes good and is good for you after the summary just got done telling us that neither was the case. Now so far, you've made the case that quinoa after processing need not taste bad or be bad for you, but you've stopped before making the case that it tastes good and is good for you.
Rice is very water intensive to grow. Quinoa is no where even close.
Well, beer is both bitter and toxic, but we love it, anyway.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
Harvest the birds too, they'd taste great with a side of quinoa.
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Oh, so to disguise the taste, I have to flavor it with something else?
No thanks.
You're right man, this whole eating food cooked thing is a passing fad
Some people are "bitter" tasters.
If artificial sweeteners taste bitter to you, then you may be as well.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
That's an incredibly absurd argument that could be applied to wheat, rice, shellfish, meat etc. Lots of foods either don't taste nice or require processing to be considered edible and safe for human consumption.
The BBC article isn't clear about it, but the bitter saponins are in tiny, thin shells that are around the individual quinoa seeds. The bad-tasting saponins protect the quinoa from birds.
You can get rid of the coating, but it's messy - the shells go all over the place, and they're hard to clean up. (Maybe I do it wrong.) After you remove the coating, you cook the quinoa, and it tastes good.
You can buy quinoa whose saponins have already been removed (ready to cook), but a box of that quinoa is more expensive.
Kindergarten
O Rly?
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/world...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What, they become less poor?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How is "gluten-free" an advantage outside of the ignorant hipster circlejerk?
New-agey people think we should all be gluten free, not really any evidence that they are right. That aside, Quinoa is a lot healthier than wheat or rice and has a higher protein content, it's not just empty carbs.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Scientists Successfully Decode the Genome of Quinoa
Ugh. I know this is a primarily a tech site, but why can't we make more of an effort to use the actual scientific terms instead meaningless stupid phrases.
It's kind of like saying "Company develops new method to talk to computers" instead of "Company develops new programming language, Rust"
"Scientists sequence and assemble the genome of Chenopodium quinoa (aka "quinoa")"
There, much better. Heck, that's lifted almost word-for-word from the actual scientific article, so it's not like it requires a ton of effort.
Quinoa is 70% Carbohydrate. Wheat and Rice are about 80% Carbohydrate. In addition Quinoa only has a few percentages higher protein than Wheat and Rice.
Most people who make statements like yours don't know this and spout mindless nonsense they heard someone say without any personal understanding of what they are talking about. Quinoa like any other grain has very high percentages of Carbohydrate. If your goal is to avoid Carbs you should avoid grains entirely and get the carbs you eat from Vegetables, not grains.
The scientists also believe that the genetic understanding now gained will allow them to breed shorter, stockier plants that don't fall over as easily, and that these benefits could be gained without the use of genetic modification.
So with no genetic changes at all we will get different plants? Don't these people know that selective breeding IS genetic modification? No? Well why the hell not? Are they morons? Yes? Why the hell are we listening to them talk about science then? It's Slashdot you say? What difference should that make? Really? So these people read stupid news stories and then comment on them? Wait, what? They don't even read the stories? Wait, what?!? They don't even read the summaries of the stories?!? Well what the fuck do they talk about? Oh.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Rice isn't particularly water-intensive. It's grown in water because nothing else useful can grow in water like rice can, turning useless marshy land into productive rice farms.
It's grown in water because that's how you have to grow it. They pump water out of the ground in order to grow it in California's central valley, albeit not right now
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Additionally... Quinoa is a complete protein, it has all the essential amino acids, you don't have to mix it with a lentil or bean to get a complete protein. This is something important for someone like myself who, for medical reasons, has to limit more meat intake.
Quinoa also fares much better than rice on the glycemic index.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch