Maca in Peru

In Peru, maca is a food. At the Third Annual Maca Festival in Churin, Peru, we sampled numerous products made with the sex-enhancing root. Peruvians make cookies, cakes, hot porridge, chips and blender drinks with maca root, which has a pleasant flavor similar to graham flour.

The Importance of Maca in the History of Peru Maca's cultivation goes back perhaps five millenia. It was an integral part of the diet and commerce of the high Andes regions. When they controlled that particular South American area, the Incas found maca so potent that they restricted its use to their Royalty's court. Upon overrunning the Inca people, conquering Spaniards became aware of this plant's value and collected tribute in maca roots for export to Spain. Maca was used as an energy enhance and for nutrition by the Spanish Royalty as well. But eventually knowledge for maca's special qualities died out, being preserved only in a few remote Peruvian communities. In the 1960's and later in the 1980's, German and North American scientists researching botanicals in Peru, rekindled interest in maca through nutritional analyses of what was designated as 'the lost crop of the Andes'. The publication of a book by that name introduced maca to the world. At an international conference in 1991, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United nations recommended that Peruvians should return to eating traditional, native Andean foods. Maca was included in the FAO list as a means of combating nutritional problems being caused by people switching to processed foods and high-sugar drinks. The reintroduction of maca has established healthy eating once again in the Peruvian diet.