Amaranth Flower

History

• The Aztecs cultivated amaranth for use in sacrifices and religious ceremonies, according to the website versagrain.com. After Spain conquered Montezuma in 1519, the Church banned the plant in an effort to stop the sacrifices.

Varieties

• Common names for the flowers include red cockscomb, love-lies-bleeding, prince's feathers, flower gentle, flower velour and velvet flower. Some varieties produce as many as 40,000 to 60,000 edible seeds per plant according to experiencefestival.com.

Function

• Ecuadorans mix rum with water that has boiled amaranth flowers; many think it purifies the blood and helps regulate menstruation. Peruvians use the flowers to treat toothache and fever. Mexicans roast the seeds and boil or fry the leaves. Amaranth seeds, "the king's grain" in India, become gruel and chappatis in Nepal. The website versagrain.com suggest it be cooked as cereal, popped like popcorn, or added to soups and stews as a thickener. It can also be grinded to make pancakes or pasta, but not leavened bread unless you add other types of flour; amaranth has no gluten.

Nutritional Value

• The seeds are 15 to 18 percent protein and contain lysine and methionine, essential amino acids that other grains lack. The flour is high in fiber and calcium and provides iron, potassium, phosphorus, vitamins A and C and a form of vitamin E that helps lower cholesterol.

Amaranth Dye

• Amaranth flowers can be used to make natural dyes, but there is no amaranth in Red Dye No. 2, a coloring agent banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1976 as a possible carcinogen. The manufacturer named the dye after the plant because of its color range: dark red to purple.