Quinoa Production Guide:
Quinoa is a plant native of S.America, to be more precise it is spontaneous in Andean regions - grows at altitudes up to 4,000 meters ( about 13,000 feet ) - and thus has very high strength characteristics, considered the temperatures of Andean mountains.
Quinoa is a vegetable belongs to Amaranthaceae family (Chenopodioideae sub-family), and it is identified by binomial nomenclature as Chenopodium quinoa. The most diffused and cultivated is the Real one. Besides this one, quinoa has over 200 other different varieties which can be mainly classified on the basis of growing areas. Moreover, quinoa varieties are also divided on the basis of seed colour which can be white, red, light brown, light yellow or black.
Quinoa is a herbaceous plant that fructify in a sort of panicle containing small seeds, pretty similar to the millet's ones, widely used by humans for food purposes. Quinoa – although having nutritional properties quite similar to the ones of oats, barley, wheat, corn, millet, rice etc. - DOES NOT belong to cereals; in fact these latter ones belong to a different family, the one of Poaceae ( commonly called gramineae or true grasses ). In botanical terms, quinoa is much more similar to amaranth, beet, spinach and kali tragus ( the famous American shrub, the most common specie of tumbleweeds ) . Therefore, basing upon both botany and nutritional classification, quinoa is often defined a “ pseudo-cereal ” .
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