Eighth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Quinoa is a pseudocereal, which it grows as an annual herbaceous plant. Regarding their nutritional value, quinoa’s protein is consider of a high quality due to it has all the essential amino acids for human nutrition. Protein content of quinoa seed reaches 138 g kg-1 on average, with a high content of methionine (2.4-5.1%), tryptophan (0.7-1.0%), arginine, histidine and lysine (5.2-8.0%). Actually, 35% of the land area is arid or semi-arid affecting by water deficit causing an oxidative stress in plants and consequently irreparable damage in cell structures. There is scarce information about the effect of water restriction during quinoa development on the protein content in mature quinoa seeds. In this sense, this research used data obtained from field trials in Chile, and it was used DEA method to estimate technical efficiency level through quinoa seeds cultivars under water stress levels. The method estimated the more efficient cultivars in term of albumin and globulin protein levels as well as to define management related to water soil availability and protein levels.