A Tasty Way to Get More Magnesium

I personally like quinoa, mainly for its protein, but also its many uses.  I add organic quinoa flakes to oatmeal, pancakes, and other foods.  I like it in place of rice as it is gluten free.

I guess I'd like to have Larry's Markets' recipe for their quinoa salad with oranges.  In the interim I found one one I think I'll play with, my choice is to omit the corn.  But you may like it as it is in this recipe.

Quinoa salad: 

• 1 cup quinoa, well rinsed
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
• Juice of one lemon
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 2 to 3 scallions, minced
• Salt and black pepper, to taste
• Bean salad:1 16-ounce (455g) can low sodium pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup diced tomato
• 1 Tbs apple cider
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley or cilantro
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Garnishes: Pumpkin seeds
• Black olives
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into strips

Directions

• Boil 2 cups water (480mL) in a saucepan. Add the quinoa and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. When done, fluff with a fork and transfer to a bowl. Combine quinoa with remaining ingredients for the quinoa salad.
• While the quinoa cooks, toss the bean salad ingredients in another bowl.
• To assemble, spread quinoa salad evenly on a platter. Leave a well in the center and mound bean salad into the well. Sprinkle with pumpkin seeds. Arrange olives and pepper strips around the edge. (Delicious Living)

Low magnesium linked to inflammation

The experiment revealed several findings: Fewer than half of the people in the study were getting enough dietary magnesium to meet the estimated average requirement (the amount estimated to meet the needs of 50% of people), and more than one-third had low magnesium levels in their blood.

People with low-magnesium diets had higher levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation that is closely correlated with cardiac risk.

A low magnesium diet was also associated with a higher body mass index, a number based on height and weight that is used to diagnose overweight and obesity. Scientists have found a close relationship between obesity and inflammation. CRP levels decreased in people in the magnesium group whose CRP levels were high at the beginning of the study, but increased in those in the placebo group.

“The findings show that many individuals have a low magnesium status associated with increased chronic inflammatory stress that could be alleviated by increased magnesium intake,” the study’s authors said. (Magnesium Research)

People with Diabetes (PWD) often have low magnesium levels: More on Magnesium

Quinoa is high in many health promoting nutrients, and you'll get about 90mg of magnesium from a half-cup serving.

More on Diabetes

Longest Walk 3 - Reversing Diabetes

Top Viewed articles (30+) re: Magnesium from Natural Health News

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In 1995, researchers at the University Eye Clinic in Basel, Switzerland published a study on the effect of supplemental magnesium on glaucoma patients. A dose of 121.5 mg twice daily was administered to 10 glaucoma patients for one ...

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A Few Interesting Facts About Quinoa

I can’t remember when I bought my current bag of quinoa. It might have been last summer after I hit a good stride with this blog. I had bought quinoa many years ago, so it wasn’t unfamiliar. But that bag I bought last summer, well I never did anything with it. It sat in my cupboard until recently.

Then something made me dig it out. Perhaps it was all the success I had with millet. (Note the sarcasm there, I actually did not have *any* success with millet.) Whatever it was I am so glad that I fished it out of the obscurity of the back of my closet. But, like Elmo, I want to know more about quinoa (can’t you just hear that in your head “Elmo wants to know more about quinoa, heeehehehehe).

Quinoa is NOT a grain. I repeat, NOT a grain, it is a pseudocereal and more specifically a chenopod. A cereal is a grass plant that produces an edible seed, think wheat, rice, corn, etc. A pseudocereal is a broadleaf plant that also produces an edible seed. Pseudocereals include quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat. Pseudocereals can still be ground into flour and consumed like regular grains. But chenopods are not grains at all. A chenopod is a member of the Chenopodioideae or goosefoot family. It is a group of flowering plants in a subfamily of the flowering plant family Amaranthaceae. God I wish I had studied Latin back in High School. The species are distinguished by flowers with no petals and having an achene or utricle in their fruit. In common terms for you and me, quinoa is more closely related to plants like spinach and chard.

But that is not to say eating quinoa is like having a big healthy salad of chard and spinach. You didn’t get out of eating salad yet! But it does help to explain why quinoa has such a different nutritional profile than wheat or corn or rice. For every 100 grams, or 3.5 ounces, quinoa contains 368 calories, 6 grams of fat, 7 grams of dietary fiber, 14 grams of protein (that’s quite a lot when you consider that the same 3.5 ounces of chicken has approximately 25 grams of protein), almost half your folate needs for the day, and more than half your phosphorus and magnesium intake for the day.

Quinoa seeds are coated with a saponin coating. Unprocessed seeds must be soaked for several hours, then rinsed and rerinsed to remove the soapy outer coating. In South America where cultivation is largest, these saponins can be used as detergents for clothing and washing. Boxed quinoas in grocery stores are all fully prepared and do not require soaking.

Recently I saw an interesting article making the rounds on Twitter. It was a NY Times article called Quinoa’s Global Success Creates Quandary at Home. Basically the article states that due to rising global demand for quinoa, global prices for the seed has risen substantially, almost tripling in recent years. In Bolivia, a major producer of quinoa, the grain has become more profitable to sell abroad than at home. So rather than serving as a traditional food to the native people, it gets packaged and shipped to Whole Foods here in the States. This has brought and influx of money into poor farming communities, which is usually a great thing. But like other countries that have experienced recent wealth, the young people of Bolivia would rather eat imported processed foods, and the more traditional peoples can often no longer afford their local quinoa. Quinoa consumption in Bolivia has fallen 34% in the last 5 years, according to the article. Malnutrition is farming regions is becoming a much more serious issue in recent years. But then again, if the community abroad stopped buying quinoa, the farming regions might be forced back into greater poverty. Issues of this nature are almost always complex, with no one perfect easy solution that everyone will agree upon.

Quinoa is gaining in popularity here in the US. I first heard about it maybe 7 or 8 years ago. I tried it and liked it, but I never bought much of it. I encountered it occasionally at a restaurant. But I really enjoyed it when I did. The grains are tiny and although they are soft and savory they kind of pop in your teeth. It is a very satisfying texture. I have most often seen quinoa in cold salads, mixed into raw vegetables. Years ago I tried quinoa mixed with diced carrots and celery and shredded red cabbage, topped with feta cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. I might have to make that this weekend. The nutty flavor makes it easy to mix with virtually anything. Most recently though it was a delicious recipe at the Just Food CSA Conference that made me want to try quinoa again. They served red quinoa with frisee and maybe shallots? It has been a month already I can’t quite remember. It was really good whatever it was. Since then I have been trying new things.

Quinoa with Kale and Preserved Lemon

1 cup of cooked and cooled quinoa

1-2 cups kale, shredded or chopped into thin strips

1 diced carrot

1-2 heaping tablespoons of preserved lemons, minced

Feta cheese

Make the quinoa according to your packages instructions. My package tells me to boil 1 ¼ cups of water and add in 1 cup of washed quinoa. Cover and boil for 12 minutes and then turn off the heat and let stand another 5 minutes. After the quinoa is cooled off a bit, it doesn’t need to be completely cooled, mix together all the veggies and preserved lemon. Top with feta cheese and dress with olive oil. Yum.

This post is entered in Simple Lives Thursday at Sustainable Eats (and others!)

And Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday