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 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. 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

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

I went to see quinoa growing in the Colca Valley, an area of Peru that has been farmed since pre-Inca times. It is a beautiful cereal-like crop, with large seed heads of a deep red or rich golden colour. In this part of the Andes, quinoa is grown in terraced fields alongside unusual local varieties of corn and potatoes. The foreign demand is one hundred per cent a good thing, declared my Peruvian guide, Jessica. The farmers are very happy, and anyone who wants quinoa can still afford it. Theres been a further benefit, she explained: previously, metropolitan Peruvians had tended to regard people from her region as peasants for eating quinoa; but now that Americans and Europeans crave it, quinoa is considered fashionable. In Lima, finally, they have respect for the people of the Altiplano and our heritage.

In a remote and inhospitable area of southwest Bolivia dominated by salt flats and dormant volcanos, I was shown much-needed local development and tourism projects that had been funded by quinoa money. Subsistence farmers, who for generations had struggled to feed their families, could now start to invest in a more ambitious future. According to