The nonsensical sentiment expressed in this post’s title seems to be the guiding belief among people in the United States and United Kingdom currently concerned that eating imported quinoa is harmful to the Bolivian farmers who grow it.
For the uninitiated, quinoa is a grain-like plant that grows only in the Andes Mountains and is possibly the most nutritious food on the planet. In recent years, health food enthusiasts in the United States and Europe have developed an affinity for the exotic import. The result has been a sharp rise in the food’s global price and a concurrent increase in production in Bolivia and Peru.
If you’re like me, you probably think this is a terrific outcome for the Bolivians, who can now sell their crop for three times what they could just five years ago. Major media outlets disagree. The New York Times ran a piece titled “Quinoa’s Global Success Creates Quandary at Home” that warns, “The surge has helped raise farmers’ incomes here in one of the hemisphere’s poorest countries. But there has been a notable trade-off: Fewer Bolivians can now afford it, hastening their embrace of cheaper, processed foods and raising fears of malnutrition in a country that has long struggled with it.”
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