No one discovered chocho. Andean farmers bred it about 2,600 years ago. An empire rose and fell around it, a conquest pushed it aside, and Indigenous communities kept planting it anyway. For Indigenous Peoples' Day, nine photographs from 11,000 feet and the facts behind them.
The first thing you notice at 11,000 feet is the color. When chocho flowers, whole hillsides in the Ecuadorian Andes turn blue. The second thing you notice is that none of it is wild. Every row was planted by someone, from seed that someone saved.
That second fact is the whole story. The seed in these fields comes down an unbroken line of harvests roughly 2,600 years long. That line is older than the Inca Empire, and it outlasted the Spanish conquest, which brought the crops that displaced it. It is still here because, in every one of those generations, somebody chose to plant it again.
Chocho (Lupinus mutabilis), also called tarwi or Andean lupin, is the single ingredient in MIKUNA Chocho Plant Protein. It is grown at 11,000 feet in the Ecuadorian Andes and stewarded by Indigenous Kichwa farming communities. This piece is not about the powder. It covers where the plant came from, who kept it alive after it was pushed aside, and what else lives on the mountain where it grows.
Quick answer
Chocho is an Andean lupin (Lupinus mutabilis) that farmers in the Andes domesticated about 2,600 years ago, according to genetic evidence. After the Spanish conquest, European crops displaced it, and it survived because Indigenous farming communities kept planting it. MIKUNA sources chocho from the Ecuadorian Andes at 11,000 feet, where it is stewarded by Indigenous Kichwa farming communities. The word mikuna means food in Kichwa.
| Detail | Chocho and its keepers |
|---|---|
| Plant | Chocho (Lupinus mutabilis), also called tarwi, Andean lupin, and pearl lupin |
| Domesticated | Northern Peru, about 2,600 years ago (genetic estimate) |
| Oldest archaeological seeds | About 1,800 years old, central Peru |
| Grown today | Mainly Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, from 1,500 to 3,800 meters |
| Kept by | Indigenous Andean farming communities, including Kichwa communities in Ecuador |
| MIKUNA sourcing | The Ecuadorian Andes, 11,000 feet |
| Traditional preparation | Soaked, cooked, and rinsed in water over several days |
| In the soil | Fixes nitrogen from the air through bacteria on its roots |
| Meaning of mikuna | Food, in Kichwa |
| Indigenous Peoples' Day | Second Monday of October in the United States (October 12 in 2026) |
What is Indigenous Peoples' Day?
Indigenous Peoples' Day honors the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, their histories, and their living cultures. In the United States it is observed on the second Monday of October, which in 2026 is October 12. The first presidential proclamation of the day was issued in 2021.
For a company built on a single Andean seed, the reason to mark it is plain. Chocho exists as food because Indigenous farmers bred it, learned how to make it edible, and kept planting it for centuries after outside crops arrived to replace it. A day set aside for Indigenous peoples is a good day to say whose work that was.
Who domesticated chocho?
Andean farmers did. A 2016 genetic study in the American Journal of Botany concluded that chocho was domesticated once, in northern Peru, most likely in the Cajamarca region, from a wild lupin called Lupinus piurensis. The study estimates that the crop split from its wild ancestor around 2,600 years ago. The oldest domesticated seeds found by archaeologists come from central Peru and are about 1,800 years old.
From there the crop moved along the Andes. A 2019 review in Frontiers in Plant Science reports it from Colombia to northern Argentina, at elevations from 1,500 to 3,800 meters, and notes that today it is of agricultural importance mainly in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Archaeologists have recorded it in Nazca tombs and on Tiahuanaco ceramics, both older than the Inca Empire.
Domestication is slow work with no single author. Every plant in a chocho field descends from a choice: seed saved from the best plants of one season, sown the next, and handed down. Families did that, season after season, for something like 2,600 years. History kept none of their names. The crop is the record.
What does Lupinus mutabilis mean?
Mutabilis is Latin for changeable, and the plant earns the name. Chocho flowers run from white to deep violet, and a single stem can carry several blues at once.
The plant goes by several names. It is chocho in Ecuador, tarwi in Quechua, and tauri in Aymara, and in English it is sometimes called Andean lupin or pearl lupin. All of these names refer to one species. The beans are eaten in ceviche, served cold, and in salads and soups.
Why did chocho nearly disappear?
It was replaced. The same 2019 review states that the introduction of western pulses during the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century led to the crop's decline and marginalization. A plant that had fed the Andes for more than a thousand years was pushed to the edges of its own mountains. Spanish taxation records once counted 10,000 hectares of it. By 1980, only 5,200 hectares were being cultivated in Peru.
It did not vanish. Indigenous farming communities kept planting it, largely by hand and largely for their own tables, long after the wider market had moved on. They kept the seed, and they kept the method that makes the seed edible. The Indigenous Kichwa farming communities of the Ecuadorian Andes are among those keepers, and they steward the chocho that goes into every MIKUNA pouch.
How do Andean farmers turn a bitter seed into food?
With water and time. Straight from the pod, chocho is too bitter to eat. The seed carries alkaloids, and those alkaloids dissolve in water. So the traditional answer is patience: soak the seed, cook it, and rinse it in changes of fresh water over several days. One account of the practice describes two to four days of soaking.
What remains is a mild, pale seed. Chocho seed is about 44 percent protein and 18 percent oil by dry weight, according to the 2019 review. MIKUNA still debitters its chocho with water only, then mills the whole seed.
Nobody ran this as a study. Generations of Andean cooks identified the problem, worked out a process, and taught it to their children. The same days in water may also explain a modern lab result, covered in MIKUNA's guide to low FODMAP protein.
What is it like at 11,000 feet?
Thin, bright, and wet. At 11,000 feet, about 3,350 meters, cloud does not pass overhead. It moves through the fields at shoulder height and leaves everything damp. Chocho is at home here. The elevation sits inside the band of 1,500 to 3,800 meters where the crop has been recorded across the Andes.
How does chocho feed the soil?
Through its roots. Most crops take from a field. Chocho pays in. Like other legumes, it hosts bacteria in nodules on its roots. The bacteria take nitrogen from the air and convert it into a form plants can use, and part of that nitrogen stays in the field. The 2019 review reports that chocho can leave up to 400 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare in the soil as post-harvest residue, which benefits whatever is planted next.
There is more on this in how chocho regenerates soil.
What else lives at this altitude?
The fields are one layer of a larger place. Three neighbors are worth knowing.
Alpacas
The herds were bred in the Andes too. Andean peoples domesticated the alpaca from the wild vicuña. Genetic research supports the vicuña as the alpaca's ancestor and places domestication in the Peruvian Andes 6,000 to 7,000 years ago. The alpaca walks on broad padded feet instead of hard hooves, and livestock researchers note that this does less direct damage to plants and soil than sheep or cattle.
The frailejón
Above the fields the land opens into páramo, the high grassland of the northern Andes. One of its signature plants is the frailejón (Espeletia), which looks as if it is dressed in felt. The fine hairs on its leaves work as a mesh that traps droplets from passing cloud. The droplets merge, run down the grooved leaves to the center of the plant, and travel down the stem to the roots. What the plant does not store seeps into the soil around it.
The ground itself
From a distance the páramo reads as empty land. It never was. People have lived on this ground, and looked after it, for thousands of years. What looks like wilderness in a photograph is somebody's home.
Why does Indigenous stewardship matter beyond one crop?
Because of its scale. A 2018 study in Nature Sustainability found that Indigenous Peoples manage or hold tenure rights over at least 38 million square kilometers in 87 countries. That is more than a quarter of the world's land surface, and it intersects about 40 percent of all terrestrial protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes.
Chocho is one small example of what that stewardship produces. It is a seed with all nine essential amino acids, from a plant that also feeds the soil, kept in working order for some 2,600 years by the people who live beside it.
What does MIKUNA mean?
Mikuna is the Kichwa word for food. Kichwa is a Quechuan language of Ecuador, and a Kichwa language course titles its lesson on food Mikunakuna, the foods. The company borrowed the word for its name. The plant, the method, and the knowledge are borrowed too.
What MIKUNA sells stays close to what was borrowed. MIKUNA Chocho Plant Protein in Pure has one ingredient, chocho. One serving has 20 g of protein, 8 g of fiber, and all nine essential amino acids. The lab results are on the third-party testing page, and there is more about the plant in What is chocho?
Frequently asked questions
What is chocho?
Chocho is the Andean lupin, Lupinus mutabilis, a legume grown in the high Andes for its protein-rich seed. It is also called tarwi, Andean lupin, and pearl lupin. The seed is naturally bitter and is soaked and rinsed in water before it is eaten.
How old is chocho as a crop?
About 2,600 years, by genetic estimate. A 2016 study traced chocho to a single domestication by Andean farmers in northern Peru, from the wild lupin Lupinus piurensis. The oldest archaeological seeds are about 1,800 years old.
Is chocho the same as tarwi?
Yes. Chocho and tarwi are two names for the same plant, Lupinus mutabilis. Chocho is the common name in Ecuador, and tarwi is the Quechua name.
Who are the Kichwa?
The Kichwa are Indigenous peoples of Ecuador who speak Kichwa, a Quechuan language. Kichwa farming communities in the Ecuadorian Andes steward the chocho that MIKUNA sources.
What does mikuna mean in Kichwa?
Mikuna means food in Kichwa, a Quechuan language of Ecuador. MIKUNA took its name from the word.
When is Indigenous Peoples' Day?
In the United States, Indigenous Peoples' Day is observed on the second Monday of October. In 2026 it falls on October 12. The first presidential proclamation of the day was issued in 2021.
Why is raw chocho bitter?
The raw seed contains bitter alkaloids. They dissolve in water, so the traditional Andean method is to soak the seed, cook it, and rinse it in fresh water over several days.
Why did chocho decline after the Spanish conquest?
European pulses introduced during the conquest in the sixteenth century displaced it, according to a 2019 review in Frontiers in Plant Science. Indigenous farming communities kept growing it, which is why it survives.
Where does MIKUNA source its chocho?
From the Ecuadorian Andes, at about 11,000 feet (3,350 meters), where it is stewarded by Indigenous Kichwa farming communities.
Is chocho good for the soil?
Chocho is a legume that fixes nitrogen from the air through bacteria on its roots. A 2019 review reports that it can leave up to 400 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare in the soil as post-harvest residue.
Theirs
The seed, the method, the mountain. Next season the fields at 11,000 feet will be planted again, from seed saved out of this one, as they have been for some 2,600 years.
On Indigenous Peoples' Day, and on the other 364 days of the year, the credit goes where the knowledge lives, with the Indigenous farming communities of the Andes and with the Indigenous Kichwa farming communities who grow MIKUNA's chocho.
There is more about where MIKUNA comes from in Our Story.
Sources
- Atchison G, Nevado B, Eastwood R, Contreras-Ortiz N, Reynel C, Madriñán S, Filatov D, Hughes C. Lost crops of the Incas: Origins of domestication of the Andean pulse crop tarwi, Lupinus mutabilis. American Journal of Botany. 2016;103(9). https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.1600171
- Gulisano A, Alves S, Martins JN, Trindade LM. Genetics and Breeding of Lupinus mutabilis: An Emerging Protein Crop. Frontiers in Plant Science. 2019;10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.01385
- Patino L, Simpson S. Tarwi: A forgotten gift from the Andes. Plants & People, University of Southern California. 2022. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/plants-and-people/tarwi-a-forgotten-gift-from-the-andes
- Garnett ST, Burgess ND, Fa JE, et al. A spatial overview of the global importance of Indigenous lands for conservation. Nature Sustainability. 2018;1(7):369-374. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0100-6
- Kadwell M, Fernandez M, Stanley HF, et al. Genetic analysis reveals the wild ancestors of the llama and the alpaca. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 2001. https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/63914/
- Gerken M. Use of South American camelids for management of European landscapes and possible animal welfare problems. LSIRD Nafplio Conference. https://macaulay.webarchive.hutton.ac.uk/livestocksystems/nafplio/gerken.htm
- AskNature, The Biomimicry Institute. Water capture via trichome mesh. https://asknature.org/strategy/water-capture-via-trichome-mesh/
- The White House. A Proclamation on Indigenous Peoples' Day, 2021. October 8, 2021. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/08/a-proclamation-indigenous-peoples-day-2021/
- Mushuk Muyu, Kichwa basic course. Chapter 13: Mikunakuna (Los alimentos). https://www.kichwa.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mushuk.muyu_.basico.cap13.pdf
Written for Indigenous Peoples' Day, October 12, 2026. Photographs from the MIKUNA archive, the Ecuadorian Andes. Nutrition values are per serving of MIKUNA Chocho Plant Protein, Pure, and may vary slightly by lot.
