in the kitchen: chia seeds: a superfood you should be eating. what are they + how to eat them

Ever since I spotted a bag of white chia seeds at Homesense a while back I’ve been obsessed. Yes, take note: HomeSense has an awesome selection of natural foods if you didn’t already know! These little seeds are incredibly versatile and are perfect for packing in extra nutrients. They’re also a pure, unprocessed, pesticide free natural growing seed! It’s no wonder they’ve been named a superfood – they pack the maximum amount of nutrients in a minimal amount of calories.

There’s not much difference between white and black chia seeds. They both have 3x the iron of spinach, 6x the calcium of milk, 2x the potassium of bananas, 2x the protein of any other seed or grain, 3x the antioxidant strength of blueberries and 15x the magnesium of broccoli.

Per 2 tablespoons you’ll get:

– 100% of your recommended Omega 3 daily value

– 7 grams of fiber

– 4 grams of protein

– antioxidants, minerals, vitamins C and B all in a gluten-free product

These teensy little hard seeds have a crispy crunch but when left in liquid they turn into a sort of jelly tapioca texture since they can absorb 8-12 times their volume in water.  The nice thing about them is they don’t have to be ground (like flax seeds) and if you need an egg replacer or thickener in place of flour it works perfectly.

If you follow me on instagram you’ll see that I add them to my green smoothies almost every time. My children have them in their yogurt, smoothies, sprinkled on fruit…you name it they’re either eating something with chia seeds or hemp hearts on it.

To make them a sort of “jello pudding” since this isn’t something they ever have, I added 2 tbsp of chia seeds to about 1/2 cup of unsweetened organic apple sauce. The result was “apple sauce pudding”. Or thickened up apple sauce that both my boys enjoyed. Just add the chia seeds to the applesauce and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour to allow the seeds to gel up and it’s done. SUCH an easy way to get extra fiber and protein into my boys in the morning!

You can also add them to regular fruit juice to create a juice pudding, add them to a bottle of water with lemon for a pumped up lemon water or just start sprinkling them on anything! Prices vary depending on where you’re buying them from but you don’t have to pay a lot. I pay about $7/lb (equals about 30 tablespoons) and use about 1-2 tbsp a day.

Do you eat chia seeds?