Alice & Oscar’s is a new brand of organic Quinola. This is a version of the South American grain quinoa (pronounced “keen-wa”). The man behind the brand is James Livingstone-Wallace, who is a descendent of the 19th-century Scottish explorer, Dr David Livingstone. He has set up a Fairtrade partnership with the Cabaña Farming Co-operative just north of Lake Titicaca. The Quinola brand now offers pearl, red and black Peruvian quinoa in the UK.
He says, “In Peru, where quinoa has been eaten for thousands of years and was the sacred mothergrain of the Incas, it is considered an essential part of the diet. Not only is quinoa a ‘complete protein’, meaning that it contains all the essential amino acids our body needs, it is also gluten-free and easily digested.”It’s also low GI so it helps with good diabetes blood glucose levels by avoiding sugar spikes.
The brand is named after his children who, he says, both love the taste and texture of quinoa, especially the black quinoa, which has a crunchy texture and is hard to source in the UK. To underline its importance as a grain, the United Nations has designated 2013 the International Year of Quinoa. It is even NASA’s food of choice for astronauts on deep space travel. A real superfood.
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