How do the nutrition and health effects of quinoa compare to other whole grains?
“Approximately 90% of the world’s calories are provided by less than one percent of the known 250,000 edible plant species.” The big three are wheat, corn, and rice, and our reliance on them may be unsustainable, given the ongoing climate crisis. This has spurred new interest in “underutilized crops,” like quinoa, which might do better with drought and heat.
Quinoa has only recently been introduced into the Northern Hemisphere, but humans have been eating quinoa for more than 7,000 years. Is there any truth to its “superfood” designation, or is it all just marketing hooey?
Quinoa is a “pseudograin,” since the plant it comes from isn’t a type of grass. “Botanically speaking quinoa is an achene, a seed-like fruit with a hard coat,” and it has a lot of vitamins and minerals, but so do all whole grains. It also has a lot of protein. As you can see below and in a series of graphs starting at 1:05 in my video Benefits of Quinoa for Lowering Triglycerides, quinoa has more protein than other grains, but since when do we need more protein? Fiber is what we’re sorely lacking, and its fiber content is relatively modest, compared to barley or rye. Quinoa is pretty strong on folate and vitamin E, though, and it leads the pack on magnesium, iron, and zinc. So, it is nutritious, but when I think superfood, I think of something with some sort of special clinical benefit. Broccoli is a superfood, strawberries are a superfood, and so is garlic, but quinoa? Consumer demand is up, thanks in part to “perceived health benefits,” and it has all sorts of purported benefits in lab animals, but there have been very few human studies.
The first trial was a before-and-after study of quinoa granola bars that showed drops in triglycerides and cholesterol, as you can see below and at 1:53 in my video, but it didn’t have a control group, so we don’t know how much of that would have happened without the quinoa. The kind of study I want to see is a randomized controlled trial. When researchers gave participants about a cup of cooked quinoa every day for 12 weeks, they experienced a 36 percent drop in their triglycerides. That’s comparable to what one gets with triglyceride-lowering drugs or high-dose fish oil supplements.
Which is better, regular quinoa or red quinoa? As you can see in the graph below and at 2:22 in my video, the red variety has about twice the antioxidant power, leading the investigators to conclude that red quinoa “might…contribute significantly to the management and/or prevention of degenerative diseases associated with free radical damage,” but it’s never been put to the test.
What about black quinoa? Both red and black quinoa appear to be equally antioxidant-rich, both beating out the more conventional white variety, as you can see in the graph below and at 2:46 in my video.
The only caveat I could find is to inform your doctor before your next colonoscopy or else they might mistake quinoa for parasites. As reported in a paper, a “colonoscopy revealed numerous egg-like tan-yellow ovoid objects, 2 to 3 mm in diameter, of unclear cause,” but they were just undigested quinoa.
For more on the superfoods I mentioned, check the related posts below.
RYE, N.H. — An incredible video captured the moment a whale off the coast of New Hampshire capsized a boat, sending two men flying into the ocean. Two teenagers nearby, who captured video of the incident, came to their immediate rescue.
Two men thrown overboard
“You know the risk when you come out here, it’s really unusual what happened to us this morning,” said Greg Paquette, who was thrown overboard.
Paquette and his friend Ryland Kenney were fishing off the coast of Rye, New Hampshire, when a whale suddenly breached and knocked over their boat.
“Thankfully it was slow enough that I could kind of swim my way out away from it before it completely capsized,” Paquette said.
It took Kenney several frantic moments before he could even find Paquette in the water. “Not much time to react,” Kenney said. “So I took a few steps off and basically did a superman off the boat.”
A whale slammed into a boat off Rye, New Hampshire in July 2024.
Colin Yager
Two teens, Colin and Wyatt Yager, were fishing nearby when it happened. They said they saw the whale breach a few more times afterwards.
Colin had his rod in one hand and a phone in the other. “It’s just unreal. Completely unreal,” he said.
The whale leaped out of the water, cresting over Paquette and Kenney’s boat. Paquette said the whale had a mouthful of fish and crashed down on the back of their boat, sending them flying.
A Coast Guard crew from Station Portsmouth reported that the whale appeared to not be injured. The incident was reported to NOAA.
“This is their home”
Fortunately, the men were only in the water for a minute when the two boys came to their rescue.
“We are grateful to the good Samaritans for taking such quick action to rescue these two individuals. Bravo Zulu!” the Coast Guard said on X.
The men made it out safely — but their belongings not so much. Paquette lost his iPhone. The boat was salvaged, the Coast Guard said.
“That’s the one thing we got to realize, that this is their home. This is their ocean, so we’re in their way,” Kenney said.
The Coast Guard asked boaters to report whale sightings to a local USCG command center.
Mike Sullivan is a multimedia journalist for WBZ-TV. He returned to his home state of Massachusetts after reporting in the Midwest for more than ten years.
Sunday brunch is a signature thing complete with appropriate cocktails of mimosas, rosé and Bloody Mary’s. The most popular time for brunch seems to be Sunday mornings with 33% of brunch consumers say they normally brunch on Sunday mornings. 29% said they usually eat brunch on holidays or special occasions. But what about the rest of the day – what are the best Sunday cocktails?
On a Sunday you want something easy, sip worthy and doesn’t pack to strong of a punch. Also, in case you have friends and family around, you want something where the ingredient are handy. The first one is a bit more complicated, but turmeric is good to help you start some body recovery after a period of feasting. Its most active compound, curcumin, have many scientifically proven health benefits. For Sundays, it is a potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant.
Photo by Glenn Scott Photography/Quarto Publishing Company
Add all ingredients into a shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled
Strain into a highball glass over fresh ice.
Top with the soda water.
Garnish with a grapefruit twist
*Turmeric tea: Add 1 teaspoon ground turmeric powder and 2 cups water to a medium pan, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, then strain.
Bourbon and Rye are as American as apple pie. In fact, the native spirits have been distilled here since this country was merely a collection of colonies. And despite the modern popularity of American whiskey, in many ways the industry that crafts it has been notoriously stuck in the past. Siddharth Dilawri is helping to change that. As founder of Filibuster Distillery, the first generation immigrant from Delhi, India is challenging stubborn norms of what a whiskey maker ought to look like or where they ought to come from.
He joins the ranks of folks like Fawn Weaver and Victoria Eady Butler of Uncle Nearest; Marsha Milan and Heather Greene of Milam & Greene; Kaveh Zamanian of Rabbit Hole—to name but a few notable examples. Together they’re making sure that those benefitting from the success of American whiskey are more emblematic of the diverse nation it supposedly represents.
As for Dilawri, he never really set out to accomplish anything more than following his passion: to craft great spirits in the hills of northwest Virginia which he calls home. Originally laying down liquid in 2014, Filibuster sources all of its corn, rye, and barley from neighboring Shenandoah Valley farms. Ever since, Dilawri has been tinkering with creative barrel finish combinations to accentuate these ingredient-minded distillates. In so doing, the self-taught distiller is also expanding the parameters of what great American whiskey can taste like. He just so happened to stumble upon the American Dream along the way. He shares his journey with Forbes in an exclusive interview below.
Siddharth “Sid” Dilawri, founder of Filibuster Distillery
Filibuster
What led your family to the United States?
Siddharth Dilawri:“I moved to the U.S. with my parents in 2008 for a better living. America is a dream country for anyone who lives in a Third World country. We saw it as a land of opportunity, but it didn’t really start off great for me. I was looking for a job in computers, but I didn’t find a job in that field. So, I started working in a liquor store, which was my first real exposure to spirits. I’d seen my dad drink scotch, but I knew nothing about brandy, cognac, whiskey, Irish whiskey, or bourbon. Yet I became fascinated and wanted to learn more.”
How did you become educated about spirits?
SD:“I had all these questions that I asked the guys I worked with at the store. They were super knowledgeable and taught me about how to taste whiskey. That intrigued me to learn more and soon I was learning about a vast industry and the science and art and passion behind it. Eventually, my father started a liquor store, and while I was finally working in IT, I worked for him also. We really enjoyed the business, so we opened up another liquor store, Modern Liquors, in Washington, D.C.”
But your love of the spirits business really took a jump with bourbon, right?
SD:“It did. And at our second store is where our passion for it really came forward. We wanted to know about everything we sold, and our bottles were really hand-selected. Things really changed for me when we went to Four Roses to pick a single barrel in 2014. We met Jim Rutledge there, he took us to lunch, and we picked a barrel from five single barrels there. That was my first experience of seeing a barrel! It was also my first chance to hold a whiskey thief, to feel that in my hands and watch the way the whiskey came out. It was then that I had a strong sense that this is what I wanted to do with my life.”
A woman painting a view of the Shenandoah Valley from the Skyline Drive, near an entrance to the … [+] Appalachian Trail, Virginia, 1940. (Photo by Jack Delano/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Selling packaged liquor is very different from distilling. What led you to that leap?
SD: “With decades of experience in specialty spirits in retail, we’d tasted and sold almost everything from super-aged single malt to wet-behind-the-ears American craft. With all that knowledge, it seemed a shame not to throw our own hat into the distilling ring. We knew it would be hard work, though. When we first started on the distillery, I bought our whiskeys from MGP (Multi-Grain Products in Lawrenceburg, Ind.). They’re great people and the distillery is massive and absolutely fascinating. I was on a tour there and the CEO of the place saw us and just joined in. He led me on a tour of the entire facility—the CEO! As we walked around and I started talking about my plans, he introduced me to the master distiller. I shared with them my passion I had for the work, and they encouraged me to keep building on it.
Was that a formative moment for you?
SD:“You have to understand this: I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I was a guy working an $8-an-hour job in IT. and also in a liquor store—getting to pick a barrel and talking to the CEO of MGP in his office! I felt like I’d arrived, that I could talk to somebody who knows something about this industry and really do something about it! We started the distillery in Maurertown, Virginia in 2013, but we began distilling our own in 2016. We have a 12-inch column still and a doubler that produces three barrels of whiskey per day. I really want to run the still 24-7, and that could happen now that we’re adding a chiller for the mash.”
Who taught you how to run a distillery?
SD: “We hired a gentleman who came from a bigger distillery and help train us. He did that for almost four months before coming to me and saying, “This is a very small operation, and I’m used to doing what I do in larger facilities,” and he left! I’m standing there thinking, ‘I have this massive amount of investment! What exactly am I going to do? Wait for someone else to come in and do it?’ I knew that wasn’t the answer. I’m one of those guys who will take a risk, and I decided I was going to run the still—me, who’s never run a boiler in his life is going to run a still! I know it sounded crazy, but when I told my wife about it, she backed me up.”
How did it go?
SD:“I went in there, turned on the boiler and turned on the stills, and successfully started distilling it. The first barrel I distilled in 2014 won a double gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. We eventually hired a master distiller to do the job and we make 100 percent of our own whiskey now using my recipes. I also do all the blending. I take pride in that.”
Why did you name the distillery Filibuster?
SD: “We have our liquor store business in Washington, D.C., just a few blocks from Capitol Hill. So, naturally spirited conversation is in our blood. We also aren’t afraid to speak up. Also, our innovative approach to blending and finishing reflects our homage to freedom of expression. That’s the essence of what makes this great land so special.”
The full range of Filibuster spirits, which also includes barrel aged gins.
