Pingtung Djulis Story House opened on Monday featuring the traditional Aboriginal crop.
Ruby-colored djulis, the Paiwan name of a grain also known as red quinoa, was once grown extensively in southern Taiwan by Aborigines, but was largely replaced by other crops such as rice.
In the past few years, people have started regaining interest in djulis after the grain was found to be a good source of antioxidants.
The type grown by Aborigines in Pingtung County has been named “Formosan quinoa” by a red quinoa research team headed by Tsai Pi-jen (蔡碧仁), a professor of food science at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology.
The team has found that Formosan quinoa has a higher nutritional value than other grains, including rice and millet.
Formosan quinoa is 14.4 percent protein, not too far from beef’s 19.6 percent, and it has 50 times as much calcium as rice, 2.3 times the magnesium and 12 times the potassium in oats, the team said.
Centenarian Sawdhali, a Paiwan, was invited to partake in the opening of the story house.
Chang Chih-yun (張誌紜), Sawdhali’s granddaughter, said she grew up watching her grandmother plant the crop.
After reading the research about Formosan quinoa’s high nutritional value and seeing increased demand for it, Chang, 37, resigned from her position as a physical therapist at a hospital she had held for the past 17 years to keep a promise to her grandmother to cultivate Formosan quinoa on family land in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門).
Her family has more than 10 hectares of Formosan quinoa fields in Pingtung’s Sandimen, Majia (瑪家) and Changji (長治) townships, she said.
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