Quinoa

For thousands of years, quinoa has been grown on the Andean Altiplano and served as a staple food for its people. It grows in hostile weather conditions, in arid and saline soil, at high altitude and in low temperatures. The Incas regarded it as a holy plant and worshipped its seeds, referring to them as “Chisiya mama" in Quechua, meaning "mother of all seeds". It is said that quinoa’s high protein and amino acid content played a major part in the spread of this traditional civilization. Quinoa was discovered in the 1970s by westerners and the seed has since been eaten for its exceptional nutritional benefits.