we all know quinoa,the allowed pseudo grain ,and talking to a friend the other day found there is a common garden weed related to it
looking up goosefoot we find
Animal Feed
As some of the common names suggest, it is also used as food (both the leaves and the seeds) for chickens, hens and other poultry. However, the nitrates in the plant can be converted very efficiently to nitrites in the rumen of cattle, leading to changes in haemoglobin and reducing the ruminants' oxygen binding capacity.
so it seems to be a paleo food
and there is this
ADMIN NOTE: corrected spelling in subject field.
Quinoa (play /ˈkiːnwɑː/ or /kɪˈnoʊ.ə/, Spanish: quinua, from Quechua: kinwa), a species of goosefoot (Chenopodium), is a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal, or grain, as it is not a member of the grass family. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beets, spinach, and tumbleweeds.
looking up goosefoot we find
Chenopodium album is a fast-growing weedy annual plant in the genus Chenopodium.
In Britain the plant is considered a weed, and is known there as fat-hen[1][2] or goosefoot,[3] though these names are used for other Chenopodium species; or, more specifically, as white goosefoot,[3] lamb's quarters,[4] nickel greens,[citation needed] pigweed,[4] or dungweed,[citation needed]. (The name "fat-hen" or "fat hen" is also used for smearwort, a plant from a different genus.)
The plant is extensively cultivated and consumed in Northern India as a food crop,[5] and in English texts it may be called by its Hindi name bathua or bathuwa (बथुआ).[6]....The leaves and young shoots may be eaten as a leaf vegetable, either steamed in its entirety, or cooked like spinach, but should be eaten in moderation due to high levels of oxalic acid.[14] Each plant produces tens of thousands of black seeds. These are high in protein, vitamin A, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium. Quinoa is a closely related species which is grown specifically for its seeds.[15] It is also used as a medicinal plant in traditional African medicine.
Archaeologists analysing carbonized plant remains found in storage pits and ovens at Iron Age and Roman sites in Europe have found its seeds mixed with conventional grains and even inside the stomachs of Danish bog bodies.[16]
In India the leaves and young shoots of this plant are used in dishes such as Sarson Da Saag, soups, curries and in Paratha stuffed breads, especially popular in Punjab. The seeds or grains are used in phambra or laafi, gruel type dishes in Himachal Pradesh, and in mildly alcoholic fermented beverages such as soora and ghanti.[17]
Animal Feed
As some of the common names suggest, it is also used as food (both the leaves and the seeds) for chickens, hens and other poultry. However, the nitrates in the plant can be converted very efficiently to nitrites in the rumen of cattle, leading to changes in haemoglobin and reducing the ruminants' oxygen binding capacity.
so it seems to be a paleo food
and there is this
worth growing even just as a feed for chooks and pigsSome of the species cultivated by Indians for food are today considered undesirable weeds. Another name for marsh elder is sumpweed; chenopods are derisively called pigweed, although one South American species with a more attractive name, quinoa, is a health food store favorite. The reason for the unattractive names of former American food plants is probably because they are the colonizers of disturbed soil, the first fast-growing weeds to spring up when a natural or man-made event, such as a fire, leaves a bare patch of soil.
The process of domestication of wild plants cannot be described with any precision. However, Bruce D. Smith and other scholars have pointed out that three of the domesticates (chenopods, I. annua, and C. pepo) were plants that thrived in disturbed soils in river valleys. In the aftermath of a flood, in which most of the old vegetation is killed by the high waters and bare patches of new, often very fertile, soil were created, these pioneer plants sprang up like magic, often growing in almost pure stands, but usually disappearing after a single season, as other vegetation pushed them out until the next flood.
Indians, probably women, learned early that the seeds of these three species were edible and easily harvested in quantity because they grew in dense stands. C. pepo was important also because the gourd could be made into a lightweight container that was useful to a seminomadic band. Chenopods have edible leaves, related to spinach and chard, that may have also been gathered and eaten by Indians. Chenopod seeds are starchy; marsh elder has a highly nutritious oily seed similar to sunflower seeds.
In gathering the seeds, the women undoubtedly dropped some in the sunny environment and disturbed soil of a settlement, and those seeds sprouted and thrived. Over time, women learned to sow the seeds and to clear the ground of any competitive vegetation. The seeds which germinated quickest (i.e. thinner seed coats) and the plants which grew fastest were the most likely to be tended, harvested, and replanted. Over time, first through a process of unconscious selection and, later, conscious selection, the domesticated weeds became more productive. The seeds of some species became substantially larger and/or their seed coats were less thick compared to the wild plants. Conversely, when Indians quit growing these plants, as they did later, their seeds reverted within a few years to the size they had been in the wild.[11]
By about 500 BCE, seeds produced by six domesticated plants were an important part of the diet of Indians in the middle Mississippi River valley of the United States.[12]
[edit] The introduction of maize
The indigenous crops were replaced slowly by other more productive crops developed in Mexico: maize, beans and additional varieties of squash. Maize, or corn, was a relative late comer to the United States. The oldest known evidence of maize in Mexico dates from 6,700 BCE.[13] The oldest evidence of maize cultivated in the United States was found in Tornillo shelter New Mexico, forty miles north of El Paso, Texas. It was dated about 1,000 BCE.[14]
Maize was first grown in the eastern United States around 200 BCE, and highly productive adapted strains became widely used around 900 CE. The spread was so slow because the seeds and knowledge of techniques for tending them had to cross inhospitable deserts and mountains, and because new varieties of plants had to be developed to suit the cooler climates and shorter growing seasons of the northern regions of the continent. It seems that maize was adopted first as a supplement to existing agricultural plants, but gradually came to predominate as its yields increased. Ultimately, the Eastern Agricultural Complex was thoroughly replaced by maize-based agriculture;[15] Most EAC plants are no longer cultivated, and some of them (such as little barley) are regarded as pests by modern farmers.
ADMIN NOTE: corrected spelling in subject field.