Pseudocereal

Quinoa is not a grass. Its seeds have been eaten for 6000 years.

Pseudocereals are non-grasses that are used in much the same way as cereals (true cereals are grasses). Their seed can be ground into flour and otherwise used as cereals. Examples of pseudocereals are amaranth (Love-lies-bleeding, red amaranth, Prince-of-Wales-feather), quinoa, and buckwheat.^[1]

Common pseudocereals[edit]

The following table shows the annual production of some pseudocereals in 1961,^[2] 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 ranked by 2013 production.^[3]

Grain	Worldwide production (millions of metric tons)					Notes
Grain	2013	2012	2011	2010	1961	Notes
Buckwheat	2.5	2.3	2.3	1.4	2.5	A pseudocereal in the family Polygonaceae that is used in Eurasia and to a minor degree the United States and Brazil. Major uses include various pancakes, groats and noodle production.
Quinoa	0.10	0.08	0.08	0.08	0.03	A pseudocereal in the family Amaranthaceae, traditional to the Andes, but increasingly popular elsewhere.

Other grains that are locally important, but are not included in FAO statistics, include:

Amaranth, an ancient pseudocereal, formerly a staple crop of the Aztec Empire and now widely grown in Africa.
Kañiwa, close relative of quinoa.

^ "Glossary of Agricultural Production, Programs and Policy". University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
^ 1961 is the earliest year for which FAO statistics are available.
^ "ProdSTAT". FAOSTAT. Retrieved 26 December 2006.

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