Nutrition Videos

Hi! I'm Stelios Pantazis. I'm a doctor and I specialize in medical nutrition and metabolic disorders. Our subject today is a superfood, quinoa. Quinoa is a plant cultivated on the Andes for more than 7,000 years, but in Europe, we've discovered its value in the last few decades. It's considered a superfood, namely a food that in very few calories offers many nutrients. Today, we'll find out what quinoa is, why it is beneficial to our health and how you can include it in your daily life. Quinoa is nutritionally similar to cereals, but it doesn't belong to this family of plants. However, we include it in this group with the other cereals, because it has similar nutrients as well as similar use in cooking. One of the most significant advantages of quinoa is that it's gluten-free. Therefore, if you suffer from celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or try to avoid gluten for any reason, quinoa is a great alternative. There are more than 3,000 types of quinoa, but in the market you're mostly find white, red and black quinoa. Depending on the colour, the nutrients may vary significantly. For example, black quinoa has the fewest fats and the most Omega-3. This makes it really attractive. Moreover, red and black quinoa have two times more vitamin E than the white one. Finally, as we've said in a previous video, the darker the colour of quinoa, the more the antioxidants it contains. This quick analysis shows us that black quinoa is the most nutritious. But the other two are also very healthy. In the market, it's available in many forms, but the most common form is in seeds. In practice, you can use it exactly as you use rice, without changing the recipe at all. Moreover, you can find quinoa in flakes, which you can use as you use cereals for breakfast, while if you're good at cooking, at health food stores, you can find ground quinoa, namely quinoa flour, with which you can make what you would make with any flour, namely bread, rusks, pies, etc. Compared to cereals, quinoa contains 2-4 times more proteins and fibers, which makes it the most nutritious cereal, or pseudocereal, as it's called sometimes. It's also very rich in Omega-3 compared to the other cereals, and only 1 cup of quinoa, which is equal to 185 g of cooked quinoa, covers 1/3 of our daily needs in magnesium and phosphorus, 1/5 of our needs in folic acid and copper, 1/8 of our needs in iron and zinc, and 1/10 of our needs in thiamine, riboflavin and vitamin B6. In fact, all these nutrients in just 220 calories. Therefore, the replacement of as many cereals as possible with quinoa is a great idea, because this way you add more proteins, fibers, vitamins, minerals and trace elements to your diet. Besides all these vitamins, quinoa is very rich in phytochemicals, namely substances contained in the plant that are really beneficial to our health. Such substances are flavonoids, phenolics, saponins and other strong antioxidants. Let me remind you that black quinoa is richer in these substances. Besides these amazing effects and the fact that it's really rich in nutrients, one of the most significant benefits of quinoa, when it replaces the other cereals, is the effect on the metabolism of carbohydrates. Quinoa is rich in fibers, proteins and essential fatty acids, therefore, during its digestion, the carbohydrates are released more slowly, which is very beneficial to the metabolism. Quinoa's glycemic index is between the glycemic index of legumes and cereals, therefore it's a great replacement for the other cereals and rice, but it's not superior to legumes. Quinoa is useful for the replacement of cereals, not legumes. Legumes are much more nutritious than quinoa and more beneficial to the metabolism. You should bear this in mind, when you're looking for ways to include quinoa in your diet. Quinoa will improve your diet very much, if you use it to replace cereals and rice, but it will make it worse, if you use it to replace legumes. With this in mind, let's see the possible uses of quinoa in cooking. The most significant use of quinoa in cooking is the replacement of rice. You can remove the rice from a dish made with rice and add quinoa, without changing the recipe at all. So, you can use quinoa to make stuffed peppers, spinach with quinoa, leeks with quinoa, quinotto, instead of risotto, etc, In any dish containing rice, you can remove it in one go, add the same amount of quinoa, without changing the amount of water, and the dish will be the same, if not tastier. The other thing that I recommend replacing with quinoa is breakfast cereals. Here, quinoa can replace the cereals you use for breakfast, but it can also be added to the mix of cereals you eat. For breakfast, I combine quinoa, carob flour, flax and raisins. I add a little soya milk, because I'm dairy-intolerant, and I have the perfect breakfast. Unfortunately, you won't find many pastries made exclusively with quinoa in the market. You'll find many pastries that contain quinoa, but usually at a very low percentage. My attempt to find pastries from quinoa and include them in my daily diet in the last 20 years has been fruitless. I haven't been able to find a pastry with a high amount of quinoa that is tasty enough to be included in my daily diet. If you've found any pastries that are worth noting, write it in the comments, so that the rest of us can find them too. If you thought this was interesting, please give us a thumbs up. Share it with people who you think might find it interesting and subscribe to our channel in order to get notified when we upload a video. You can also suggest subjects in the comment section. Thank you very much!