Does Quinoa Have Lectins?

If you’re eating a low lectin diet, you may be wondering if quinoa has lectins.

Quick Answer: Generally the answer is yes. In one study, three types of quinoa were tested and showed small amounts of lectins. After preparation, however, there were no lectins detected. Read on for more info.

Scientific class: Chenopodium quinoa Willd.

Quinoa is considered both a whole grain and is technically a seed.

The types of quinoa that were looked at were red quinoa, white quinoa, and black quinoa. They showed small amounts of lectins – approximately 26 ± 6, which is quite small compared to other foods which showed in the thousands (black beans for example, showed over 20,000).

After prep however, there were no lectins detected. The black and red quinoa were both boiled for 15 minutes, whereas the white quinoa was boiled for 20 minutes.

This leads us to wonder whether there were still lectins afterwards and there were simply too few to detect.

Resources:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8618113/