Cheesy Quinoa Pancakes
The wife is a big quinoa fan. Recently she sent me a recipe from Yahoo! of all places to try. For a change, I followed the recipe (click here for recipe). Other than a little problem with binding, maybe because the recipe needed a tab bit more egg, it was delicious. Even though the Yahoo! article would have you believe this is a meal, it isn’t. But with a basic salad it can be.
Going back to quinoa, I recently read a piece in the Guardian (see here) on how increased consumption in the west is causing the price of quinoa to go up, leading to a decline in the consumption of quinoa by the very people in whose diet it has been a staple. Mother Jones did a follow up piece that is worth reading as well (see here).
So, what’s the key takeaway? Tanya Kerssen, an analyst for Food First quoted in the Mother Jones article said it best, “When you transform a food into a commodity, there’s inevitable breakdown in social relations and high environmental cost.”
Does that mean we stop eating quinoa, IMO, no, because that inevitably will have mostly negative repercussions. What we do need to do is be more mindful of what we eat and perhaps eat more of what is local to us instead of eating food grown half a world away on a regular basis. This may be a case for becoming a locavore perhaps?
foodydoody 