Did your class teacher explain how 16th century Spaniards were supposed to know about this, when they had no biochemical background to assess its worth?

Any real knowledge of the "health benefits" is very modern: 21st century. It was never mentioned in any of the texts I studied in college in the early 1970s, when I was studying New World archaeology in college. Now, it's difficult to go into depth on something that didn't exist.

It's inside the 20-year-rule to discuss how the recent fad for quinoa is leaving the traditional farmers ill-fed, as they choose to sell their quinoa and live on lesser grains.

What we do know is that the Spaniards had a general policy of bringing in European fruits and grains to be grown whenever possible, so that primary-source visitors remark on how New Spain is a garden of apples, peaches, and golden wheat fields, with no mention of native plants. I found the complete lack of reference to what we consider the important east-bound portions of the Columbian Exchange shocking, especially the lack of maize.

Your class is teaching what never happened, based on what someone thinks ought to have happened, probably, based on what we know 500 years later.

I'd be interested to know how often this kind of projection happens in modern history teaching.