Amaranth-the common name for more than 60 diﬀerent species of amaranthus, which are very tall plants with large green leaves and impressively bright purple, red, or gold ﬂowers. There are three different species, but the one you may have heard of or even tasted is Amaranthus caudatus.
The name for amaranth comes from the Greek amarantos, “one that does not wither,” or “the never-fading.” True to the name, amaranth’s bushy ﬂowers retain their vibrancy even after harvesting.
Amaranth grain has a long and colorful history in Mexico and is considered a native crop in Peru. It was a major food crop of the Aztecs, and some have estimated amaranth was domesticated between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago. Annual grain tributes of amaranth to the Aztec emperor were roughly equal to corn tributes. The Aztecs didn’t just grow and eat amaranth, they also used the grains as part of their religious practices. Many ceremonies would include the creation of a deity’s image that had been made from a combination of amaranth grains and honey. Once formed, the images were worshipped before being broken into pieces and distributed for people to eat. When Cortez and his Spaniards landed in the New World in the sixteenth century, they immediately began fervent and often forceful attempts to convert the Aztecs to Christianity. They outlawed foods involved in “heathen” festivals and religious ceremonies, amaranth included. Severe punishment was handed to anyone found growing or possessing amaranth, complete eradication of this culturally important, fast-growing, and very prevalent plant proved to be impossible.
Seeds from the amaranth plant spread around the world and both leaves and grain became important food sources in areas of Africa, India, and Nepal. In the past two decades, amaranth has reached a much larger number of farmers and can now be found in many non-native regions such as China, Russia, Thailand, and Nigeria, as well as Mexico and parts of South America. It prefers high elevation to low but is impressively adaptive and can grow well in moist, loose soil with good drainage at almost any elevation and in just about any temperate climate. Once established, amaranth can continue to thrive in low-water conditions, making it especially valuable in sub-Sahara Africa where water sources are few, especially in the dry season. Looking a little closer to home, amaranth received renewed interested as a food source here in the United States back in the 1970s. Today, you can ﬁnd it growing in small amounts in some pretty surprising locations, including Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, North Dakota, and even Long Island, NY!
Information found from -Karen Hursh Graber, Senior Food Editor for Mexconnect.com,
AMARANTH’S HEALTH BENEFITS
Amaranth contains more than three times the average amount of calcium and is also high in iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. It’s also the only grain documented to contain Vitamin C. Very little research has been conducted on amaranth’s beneﬁcial properties, but the studies that have focused on amaranth’s role in a healthy diet have revealed three very important reasons to add it to your diet.
It’s a protein powerhouse. At about 13-14%, it easily trumps the protein content of most other grains. You may hear the protein in amaranth referred to as “complete” because it contains lysine, an amino acid missing or negligible in many grains. One of the ﬁrst studies to showcase amaranth’s protein power took place in Peru in the late 1980s. Children were fed toasted amaranth ﬂour, popped amaranth grain, and amaranth ﬂakes as the source of all dietary protein and fat, and as 50% of their daily energy requirements, then later fed a mix of amaranth and corn in various forms. Because researchers focused on “end results” so to speak, we’ll gloss over the details and sum up their ﬁndings with this key quote: “If amaranths were available at a reasonable cost, they could represent a major component of the diets of children in the developing world…”
Another study from the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama at Guatemala in 1993 saw similar results when amaranth was submitted to extrusion and popping processes. Using cheese protein as a reference, researchers concluded that the protein in amaranth “is among the highest in nutritive quality of vegetable origin and close to those of animal origin products.” More recently, molecular biologists in Mexico set out to study the bioactive peptides in amaranth’s protein and, in 2008, were the ﬁrst to report the presence of a lunasin-like peptide. Drawing a blank on lunasin? It’s a peptide that was previously identiﬁed in soybeans and is widely thought to have cancer-preventing beneﬁts as well as possibly blocking inﬂammation that accompanies several chronic health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
It’s good for your heart. Amaranth has shown potential as a cholesterol-lowing whole grain in several studies conducted over the past 14 years.
First, in 1996, researchers from the U. S. Department of Agriculture in Madison, WI conducted studies that showed the healthy oil in amaranth could signiﬁcantly reduce total cholesterol and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol in 6-week-old female chickens. This was great news for chickens, but what about us humans? Cut to 2003, when researchers at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada found that amaranth can be a rich dietary source of phytosterols, which have cholesterol-lowering properties. Just a few years later, in 2007, Russian researchers drew from the 1996 study to determine whether or not amaranth would also show beneﬁts for patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Patients who presented with coronary heart disease and hypertension not only showed beneﬁts from the inclusion of amaranth in their diets, researchers also saw a signiﬁcant decrease in the amounts of total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL cholesterol.
Last but not least, it’s naturally gluten-free. Gluten is the major protein in many grains and is responsible for the elasticity in dough, allows for leavening, and contributes chewiness to baked products. But more and more people are ﬁnding they cannot comfortably – or even safely – eat products containing gluten, often due to Celiac disease, an autoimmune digestive disease that damages the body’s ability to absorb nutrients from food. This makes amaranth an important grain to take note of during May, which is Celiac Awareness Month. In fact, more whole grains are gluten-free than gluten-containing! It’s just that the gluten-containing whole grains and products have been more prevalent in our food supply, but this is slowly changing. If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with Celiac disease, we hope you’ll take a moment to visit our Gluten-Free Whole Grains page – and maybe try some of the amaranth recipes we’re highlighting below!
Cooking amaranth is very easy – measure grains and water, boil water, add grains, gently boil with the occasional stir for 15-20 minutes, then drain, rinse, and enjoy! Yes, it’s really that simple. Cooked amaranth behaves a little diﬀerently than other whole grains. It never loses its crunch completely, but rather softens on the inside while maintaining enough outer integrity so that the grains seem to pop between your teeth. In fact, the sensation of chewing a spoonful of cooked amaranth grains has been compared to eating a spoonful of caviar (without the salty ﬁshiness, of course). None of our culinary experts reported any success when trying to prepare amaranth for a pilaf, but the cooked grains can be spread on a plate or other ﬂat surface to dry a bit, then sprinkled on salads, added to cookie batters, or stirred into soups.
In fact, there’s only one real rule to follow when cooking up a batch of plain amaranth – don’t skimp on the water! I suggest at least 6 cups of water for every one cup of amaranth, not because the little grains will absorb that much liquid, but because of what happens to the water that’s left. To say “your cooking liquid will thicken slightly” is putting it delicately. Our experiments with the average amount of liquid (about 2 cups) left us with about two inches of excess water that was goopy and viscous, in part due to starch being released by amaranth as it cooks. The grains hadn’t gone bad or anything, and they were ﬁne after a brief rinse in a ﬁne-mesh strainer, but it was a bit of a surprise.