The Rise and Fall of Quinoa: From Incan "Superfood" to Buddha Bowl Basic

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Quinoa is everywhere these days, the base for a million salads and grain bowls. But, until recently, barely anyone outside the nutritious seed's ancient's homeland—the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes—had ever heard of it. This week, we're telling the story of how a gorgeous spinach-like plant traditionally grown in a remote, high-altitude region of South America was transformed into one of the hottest foods on the shelves at Whole Foods. This is a tale that began with Coloradan hippies, the deliberate invention of a new Peruvian gastronomy, and beer, but truly took off when the United Nations declared that this so-called "superfood" was the secret to solving global hunger, adapting to climate change, and rescuing Andean farmers from poverty. So, did quinoa deliver? Listen in now for the story behind your next Buddha bowl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Way back in the dim and distant past, I'm talking 2011 here, a parody song went viral.
0:10.9	It was set in the Whole Foods parking lot, specifically Whole Foods on the west side of L.A.
0:15.6	He's getting real in the Whole Foods parking lot.
0:18.1	I got my steel and you know it gets sparked.
0:20.7	I'm on my grind, homie. It's on my line, got my steel and you know it gets sparked a lot.
0:22.4	I'm on my grind, homie.
0:23.5	It's on my line home. That's right.
0:24.0	These foods with footboards are looking at me like a day.
0:26.2	I missed this at the time, but apparently it was huge.
0:29.2	Ryan Seacrest tweeted it.
0:30.6	The news covered it.
0:31.6	Whole Foods wanted to like use it officially.
0:34.0	It had some really iconic lines about some pretty iconic upper middle class trends at the time, like kale salad and kombucha and driving a Prius.
0:41.6	This buster's on his iPhone talking to his friends, picking up some cayenne pepper for his master cleanse.
0:47.7	You're the most annoying dude I've ever seen, bra. Could you please move you right in front of the quinoa?
0:53.0	Oh man, don't block the quinoa.
0:55.5	How's a bra going to have a kale salad and some kombucha without quinoa?
0:59.1	And yes, quinoa is the focus of this episode of Gastropod.
1:02.6	That's right, you're listening to Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history.
1:06.8	I'm Cynthia Graber.
1:07.7	And I'm Nicola Twilly, and this episode, we're telling the story of how quinoa rose from its obscure Andean origins to Whole Foods parody wrap glory.
1:17.8	Once quinoa did burst onto the global scene, what impact did this popularity have on farmers in the Andes, the descendants of the people who domesticated it, who up until really pretty recently were basically the only ones who are eating it.
	...

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