Hector Macdonald - Truth: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality

There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.

W ILLIAM J AMES , The Value of Saintliness

For vegetarians and coeliacs, the discovery of quinoa was a kind of miracle. Here was a gluten-free seed, rich in magnesium and iron, that contained more protein than any grain, including all the essential amino acids our bodies cannot produce for themselves. NASA declared quinoa to be one of the most perfectly balanced nutrients on Earth and considered it ideal for astronauts. Quinoa tastes great, has a satisfying, bouncy texture and is one of the healthiest foodstuffs going, raved Yotam Ottolenghi in 2007. Grown in the Andes, quinoa had a story that charmed Western consumers: the Incas prized the seed so highly they deemed it sacred and named it the mother of all grains; their emperor would sow the first seeds of the season with tools made of gold. The so-called superfood was even celebrated by the United Nations, which declared 2013 the International Year of Quinoa.

But quinoa fans were in for a disturbing revelation. Between

The story echoed around the world, causing healthy eaters a crisis of conscience. The more you love quinoa, the more you hurt Peruvians and Bolivians, claimed a headline in Canadas Globe and Mail. On social media, vegan blogs and healthy-eating forums, people asked whether it was still OK to eat the Andean miracle seed. I intend to stop eating quinoa, declared one woman:

Its a matter of principle the people for which quinoa has been a dietary staple for untold generations can no longer afford to eat it because people like me have created such a demand for its export and driven the price up We will survive without it. I will survive without it.

The idea that high quinoa prices, inflated by global demand, had disadvantaged local people in Bolivia and Peru was credible and widely accepted. But it didnt seem right to economists Marc Bellemare, Seth Gitter and Johanna Fajardo-Gonzalez. After all, a lot of foreign money was now pouring into Bolivia and Peru thanks to the quinoa trade, much of it ending up in some of the poorest parts of South America. Not many other crops grow well 14,000 feet above sea level, so surely the quinoa boom was a blessing for the region?

The economists tracked down Peruvian survey data on household expenditure and split the households into those that grow and eat quinoa, those that eat it but dont grow it, and those that never touch the stuff. They found that between 2004 and 2013 the living standards of all three groups had risen, although the quinoa farmers had enjoyed the fastest growth in household expenditure. Farmers were getting richer, and they were spending their new earnings to the benefit of those around them.

But what about that 34 per cent drop in consumption? It turns out quinoa consumption in both countries dropped slowly and steadily over a longer period than the price hike, suggesting the two trends are not significantly connected. A much more likely explanation is that Peruvians and Bolivians just wanted to eat something else for a change. Tanya Kerssen of think tank Food First said of Andean quinoa farmers, They get sick of eating quinoa, frankly, so they buy other foods.