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.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
MORE RETALIATION: China would adopt a long-term pressure strategy to prevent other countries or future prime ministers following in Sanae Takaichi’s steps, an academic said Taiwan should maintain communications with Japan, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is to lead a revision of security documents, Taiwanese academics said yesterday. Tensions have risen between Japan and China over remarks by Takaichi earlier this month that the use of force against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Prospect Foundation president Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) yesterday said Takaichi’s stance regarding Taiwan is the same as past Japanese prime ministers, but her position is clearer than that of her predecessors Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba. Although Japan views a “Taiwan contingency” as a “survival-threatening situation,” which would allow its military to
RSS