Perspectives presents abstracts of select articles by well-known practitioners and academicians. Readers are welcome to contribute their own thought-provoking pieces or those of others that they have come across. Please send three typewritten copies of the article to Professor Ranjit Gupta. Amaranth was once one of the most important food crops of the Americas. But under the repressive programme launched by colonizing Spaniards to eradicate the Aztec culture and rituals, the plant was banned with a death penalty for those who cultivated it. It soon fell into disuse and obscurity. Four hundred years later, scientists are rediscovering the myriad virtues of amaranth. Its protein contains nearly twice as much lysine as wheat, three times as much as corn, and it is very close to the lysine content of milk, the standard of nutritional excellence. Amaranth is but one of the hundreds of plants that have received a raw deal either because of ill-informed colonial proselyting, plain ignorance, or even deliberate neglect of traditional practices. To concentrate on a mere handful of varieties to feed a hungry world is both unwise and dangerous. Plants like amaranth, winged bean, black walnut, and the buffalo gourd are among the 54 potential new crops identified by the National Science Foundation for even a developed country like the United States. Indeed amaranth is among the 36 “most underexploited tropical plants.”