Changes

In Western countries amaranth seed is recommended as a health food. The protein is characterized by the high lysine content (3.2–18%). The oil has antioxidant properties. The starch consists mainly of amylopectin; the very small starch granules make grain amaranth an attractive raw material for industrial uses. The significant amount of squalene (4–11% of the oil portion) means that grain amaranth may find a market niche for industrial production of products such as lubricants in the computer industry and in cosmetics and health foods.

Annual herb, erect or less commonly ascending, up to 2 m tall, often reddish tinted throughout; stem stout, branched, angular, glabrous or sparsely to moderately densely furnished with multicellular hairs. Leaves arranged spirally, simple, without stipules, long-petiolate; blade broadly lanceolate to rhombic-ovate, 2–18 cm × 2–15 cm, attenuate or shortly cuneate at base, obtuse to subacute at apex, mucronate, entire, glabrous to sparsely pilose, pinnately veined. Inflorescence stiff with thick branches, large and complex, consisting of numerous agglomerated cymes arranged in axillary and terminal spikes, the terminal one up to 45 cm long, usually with many lateral, perpendicular, thin branches. Flowers unisexual, subsessile; bracteoles 3–5 mm long and always longer than the tepals; tepals 5, lanceolate, 1–2 mm long with one equal to or longer than the fruit, the other 4 shorter; male flowers with 5 stamens c. 1 mm long; female flowers with superior, 1-celled ovary crowned by 3 thick, spreading stigma branches about 1.7 mm long. Fruit an obovoid to rhombic capsule 1.5–2 mm long, circumscissile, with a short beak, 1-seeded. Seed obovoid to ellipsoid, compressed, c. 1 mm long, whitish to yellowish or blackish. Seedling with epigeal germination; hypocotyl 10–12 mm long; cotyledons about 18 mm × 5 mm, fleshy, petiolate.