The Power of Chia

In my article about a yogi breakfast, I talked about a couple of healthy items to replace your normal store-bought stuff. With this article, I like to talk about Chia seeds. I found that because of their properties these healthy seeds deserve their article. And beside some information about them, you’ll also find some great easy recipes for your breakfast at the end of the article.

Why is Chia so Amazing?

You’ve probably seen a lot of people say already that Chia Seeds are quite amazing and that you’ve got to eat them. Because of their popularity, they’re also getting cheaper! Which is good new as normally Superfoods can be quite expensive, even if they are very common.

But what makes them so amazing? Well, because you just need a small quantity of them while they offer you most of your daily needs!

Omega 3 Fatty Acids

Eating chia seeds might be great for vegetarians as Omega 3 is usually found in fish and not so much in other vegetation. And these fatty acids have a wide range of benefits. They’re a bit too much to sum up, but some of the important ones are the following:

– Prevent Heart diseases

– Cancer prevention

– Rheumatoid Arthritis

And another great thing about Omega 3 is that it is amazing for pregnant women and their non-born baby. However, you need to be careful with which type of fish you eat so in that way, chia seed may be a good solution for women during their pregnancy. There is almost no risk of getting salmonella with these seeds!

Protein

Another thing with Chia seed is that 19% of these seeds are proteins. Which is another great benefit when you are having a plant-based diet. When you don’t eat fish or meat, it might be a bit harder to enrichen your body with some protein. And it’s quite vital as well as your body’s muscles are built out of them.

For me, for example, I’ve been vegetarian for quite a while and when I first started to get problems with IBS, I couldn’t eat beans anymore. Which was my source for proteins. Besides that, nuts also aren’t the best solution as they are high in calories… So what to do? Well, if you eat a spoonful of Chia every day, that will already be a great source for proteins! Further one we will talk about a couple of nice recipes for you ;).

Another thing about proteins is that they can help you with weight loss. Proteins have the property to give you a full feeling after you had a meal. Therefore you must have a diet rich in proteins as they are making sure that you won’t be over-eating!

Vitamins

And on top of all of this, Chia seed contains also quite a lot of vitamins! Here is a list:

– Manganese: Essential for your metabolism

– Phosphorus: Good for bone health

– Copper: for the heart

– Selenium: Great for detoxing 

– Iron: For blood transport

– Magnesium: Basically for your entire body (too many functions to name)

– Calcium: For bones, muscles, and nerves

So, as you can see, these seeds can be considered as a superfood as they contain a lot of great vitamins. Especially copper and magnesium are good as in our western diet we don’t get a lot of those anymore. Therefore, it might be a great idea to add a couple of spoons of chia per day in your diet.

Dangers of Chia Seeds

I also have to mention one more thing though, for most people chia seeds are not gonna cause a lot of problems, but if you are already having problems with swallowing, it might be best to step away from the seeds.

One of the things about chia seeds is that they take a lot of moist in from whatever they come in contact with. Therefore, if you eat them dry, they might swell while you are ingesting them. I always recommend soaking your chia seeds before you ingest them. This will prevent the seeds from taking more juices when they are getting digested in your stomach.

And as well, if you’ve got an allergy for nuts or seeds, it might be good to test it first in very small proportions, just to make sure that you don’t have an allergy agains Chia seeds. If you already know that you are highly allergic to nuts and seed, it might be good to skip this one.

Besides that, like with every food, you have to be aware of how much you eat. Even if you feel like you need a bit more of all the great things I mentioned above, it’s always good to eat moderately. Your body also needs to store all those vitamins and proteins, and if it can’t, well, then they will go to waste anyway.

Saying the latter, it’s always good to ask for advice to your physician or nutritionist when you are changing your diet. They can tell you wheter or not it would be good for you to eat something that is this powerful. It’s always good to be rather safe than sorry as you are talking about potential health issues that could arise from changing your diet.

Breakfast Recipes with Chia

Applesauce-Milk Chia

This recipe is a really easy one to make and if you’re not having a lot of time you can opt for the easy solution, which is just to buy ready-made applesauce. Of course, for this article that would be too easy and let’s have a look to make an amazing apple sauce for the morning :).

These ingredients you will need for one person. So, if you want to make more in advance, just multiply the ingredients more or less by the portions you’d like to make:

Applesauce 

– 1 large apple (or a couple of small ones)

– A little bit of water

– Pinch of cinnamon

– A sweetener like honey or agave syrup or sugar

Chia

– One tablespoon of Chia seeds

– 1/3 cup of milk (you can choose whatever milk you’d like)

Preparation

So, first of all, we have to begin with the Chia pudding as that one needs to be stored in the fridge overnight to soak. This will make that the chia seed will take all of the liquid. They can taste a bit slimy, which is why it’s always nice to combine them with something that has a bite to it. Of course, if you like pudding, then you can just eat it like that as well.

1. To create the chia pudding is easy. You just have to put the seeds and the milk together and put them in the fridge overnight. After that, we make the applesauce which also goes into the fridge, but that’s for the next step.

2. Peel the apples and remove the core of the apple.

3. Cut the apple into pieces (The thickness depends, you can make them into cubes as big as dices if you’d like to have a bite, or you can cut them smaller to have a smooth apple sauce)

4. Put the apples with a little bit of water in a pot and let them boil until everything is soft.

5. If you haven’t used sweetened milk, you can add a sweetener. I always use honey as this also is good for your throat.

6. Add the cinnamon and stir well

7. Let it cool.

And that’s about it, now you just have to make sure that when you want to start your breakfast that you put the two of them together. The creaminess will go very well together with the smoothness of the applesauce. And the Chia seeds will be even yummier!

As I said, if this is all too much, you can also buy some applesauce from the supermarket, just make sure that it’s organic as apples take a lot of pesticides in when they are sprayed.

Lemon Chia Water

This recipe is really easy to make and I was inspired a bit about my tea article for this one. Sometimes you just don’t have the time to make yourself a proper breakfast (however, it might be good to take breakfast anyway), and then a simple drink comes in handy. I always make my tea a bit before, which means that I just have to heat it again in the morning. You can just make the mixture at night and have a sip in the morning (you can even put it in the microwave to speed up the progress).

Ingredients

– 1 tablespoon of Chia Seed

– Half a lemon

– 1 teaspoon of honey

– 1 cup of water

Preparation

This isn’t a very difficult recipe. You have to boil the water, after that, you squeeze the lemon and put the juice in the water, finish off with some honey and that’s about it! Oh yeah, when the water is warm, you can also put in the chia seeds. They don’t have to be soaked this time as the hot water speed up the process.

I do have to say that it’s a bit of a weird taste in the beginning, but this is a really easy way to get a few chia seeds in your diet without doing a lot of work. The honey isn’t mandatory, but my stomach doesn’t like a lot of acids, which is tempered by the honey. It’s up to you what you’d like in it :).

Conclusion

That’s about it considering chia seeds, can you see now why I wanted to have this powerful superfood what it deserved? I’m still trying more recipes with this great product, so come back now and then to see if we have something new for you!

Nama-stay wonderful!