Julie discovers a new food

Last night Alex (Caroline's housemate) and I had a long chat about nutrition, including but not limited to her vegetarian lifestyle. I was completely floored and amazed at how well she feeds herself. Alex eats organic, unprocessed foods and chooses to do so, if I understood correctly, due to the negative impact that commercial food processing has on our environment. Furthermore, she explained to me that she opts out of eating meat for the same reasons I do (when I omit meat, which is often): commercial farming and livestock raising practices are atrocious and completely cruel. Alex, not unlike myself, will gladly eat meat of which she knows the origin, such as a steak from a local farm. She tells me that she gets seafood and steak cravings often, but really commits herself to her lifestyle. To paraphrase a snippet of her reasoning: being a vegetarian isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle. If you don't go to yoga on one day even though you're someone who practices yoga daily, no one would argue that you shouldn't call yourself a yogi. It's the same with being a vegetarian. Sometimes I do allow myself to eat meat because I simply feel like it. It doesn't not make me a vegetarian. This is an interesting and valid take on vegetarianism. A few months ago I sampled different types of vegetarian diets, including "flexitarian," which basically means you sometimes eat meat. After having sausage in my pasta on that one day, I felt like I was cheating on my vegetarian diet. Is that what Alex refers to, except she doesn't feel guilty about it? What do you think?

Aside from really getting me thinking and digesting the thought of perhaps making a switch to a more organic vegetarian diet myself, Alex also introduced me to a new food, quinoa.

Turns out, quinoa is a superfood. A distant cousin of spinach and tumbleweed this pseudocereal is not a grain and not a rice. It is rather the edible seed of a genus of plants called Chenopodium. Different species of this genus produce different varieties of quinoa. This tiny seed has an inherent nutty flavour. It can be used as a direct substitute for rice, pasta or cousous and is mad easy to prepare. But the ultimately cool thing about quinoa that people should really pay attention to is that it is one of the rare "grains" that counts as a complete protein, meaning that it contains an ideal balance of a human's daily required dose of the 20 amino acids. As soon as I read this, I got pretty excited. I can name off all twenty of these protein building blocks since they are the bread and butter of my research (I'm currently working with data on these molecules that will utilize the unique magnetic properties of each atom in each different amino acid to help me solve the structure of a bacterial protein. Anyways enough about that...).

For comparison...

Rice: 7.5% protein, millet: 9.9% protein, wheat: 14% protein and quinoa... 16.2% protein. Some varieties even have up to 20%! Quinoa is rich in methionine, cysteine and lysine, whereas most grains are quite low in lysine and soy can be really weak in methionine and cysteine.

I took Alex's advice and made up my very first quinoa recipe, using a 1/2 cup of organic quinoa she graciously gave me to try out:

Mediterranean Quinoa Salad


1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup chicken stock
1 medium zucchini
3 small tomatoes, on the vine
1/4 cup chopped feta cheese
1 tsp chopped garlic
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
garlic powder
sugar
Greek salad dressing

1. Quinoa cooks exactly like rice, so put chicken stock and quinoa in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce, cover and simmer until all the liquid is gone, about 12-15 minutes. Let sit for 3 minutes, then fluff with a fork like you would couscous.
2. Dice zucchini into small pieces. Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Sautee in olive oil for about 5 minutes to desired tenderness. Set aside.
3. Dice tomatoes, removing the caviar. Drizzle in a bit of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Sautee in the same pan as the zucchini for 3 minutes along with the chopped garlic and a pinch of sugar. Remove from heat and add to zucchini.
4. Mix feta in with vegetables. Add the fluffed quinoa and drizzle with a bit of Greek salad dressing until moist. Do not overdress.



And there you have it! I strongly suggest that everyone give quinoa a try. Alex tells me that you can make a sweet version as well, adding apple cider vinegar, chopped apples and walnuts. You can also mix in with your oatmeal in the morning to add a bit of protein. Enjoy!