Teff
Eragrostis tef
An Ethiopian tiny-seeded cereal, the injera grain. Whole-grain by necessity — the seed is too small to mill away much bran.
GROW → HARVEST → EAT → DRY → POWDER → CAPSULE → GUMMY — forms are not equivalent. Food first.
Identity
What it is
An Ethiopian tiny-seeded cereal, the injera grain. Whole-grain by necessity — the seed is too small to mill away much bran.
Edible portions
- grain
Absence of a portion from this list means it is not treated as food here — not that every other part is toxic.
Growing
- Climate. Warm season; tried as a specialty crop in some U.S. regions
- Light. Full sun
- Soil. Well-drained
- Planting. Dust-fine seed. Easy to bury too deep.
- Harvest. When plants color and seed is hard; tiny seed needs careful threshing.
Preparation and culinary uses
- Injera, porridge
Nutrition and compounds
- Minerals (qualitative). iron, calcium, protein — look up current USDA FoodData Central entries for numbers.
AAA interpretation Food first. These associations explain why a plant shows up in a nutrient conversation — they are not a supplement shopping list.
Next steps
Sources
- USDA PLANTS Database — taxonomy and range (verify current entries)
- USDA FoodData Central — nutrient profiles for foods (verify current entries; this page does not invent milligrams)
- State cooperative extension growing guides — verify for your region
Honest incompleteness is preferred to fabricated completeness. If a section is missing, no record for it is attached here — not a claim that the plant lacks that characteristic, and not that it was omitted as a secret.
Internal quality class A. Strong page: distinctive plant facts plus practical growing or kitchen use.