8/2/2023 0 Comments Amaranth seedlingsThe leaf amaranth flowers are usually much smaller, and creamy or greenish in colour. You probably won't find leaf and grain amaranth seed in your local garden centre (you should find amaranth flowers), but online seed retailers who specialise in heirloom seeds, organic seeds, vegetable seeds or anything similarly sensible usually carry them.ĭon't expect the cultivated leaf amaranth species to look as stunning as Love Lies Bleeding or some grain amaranths. It's much easier to grow amaranth and cut it as needed. Local farmer's markets may offer bunches of amaranth greens, but those don't keep at all so you'd have to use them quickly. Amaranth leaves are an excellent source of carotene, iron, calcium, protein, vitamin C and trace elements. Or twenty times more calcium and seven times more iron than lettuce, which simply isn't all that nutritious.Īmaranth is much closer genetically to its wild ancestors than our over developed and nutritionally depleted typical vegetables. But I can tell you that amaranth cereal is delicious.Īmaranth leaves are nutritionally similar to beets, Swiss chard and spinach, but are superior (as is usually the case when you compare "wild" plants to highly bred commercial varieties.) For example amaranth leaves contain three times more calcium and three times more niacin (vitamin B3) than spinach leaves. I never tried the flour (I don't cook or bake much, if at all). You can find amaranth grain in health food stores or the health food aisles of supermarkets in the form of amaranth flour and the popped seeds as amaranth cereal. Most people get their lysine from meat.)Īmaranth seeds are also high in potassium, zinc, vitamins B and E and can contain over 20% protein (depending on the variety). (Grains are usually low in that, corn has none. Amaranth is not related to the Graminae, the real grains.Ĭompared to other grains amaranth seeds have a much higher content of the minerals calcium, magnesium, iron and of the amino acid lysine. The amaranth family ( Amaranthaceae) includes the previously separate family of the beets and spinaches, the Chenopodiaceae. Technically amaranth is a seed not a grain.
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