I’ve written about how you actually make chia gel out of chia seeds before but there’s no better way of explaining myself than on video.

I recorded this clip of me making a thick chia gel and it took 13 minutes overall. It’s simple and easy which is one of the benefits of chia seeds but it doesn’t make an interesting video!

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Flax seed are similar to chia seeds in a lot of ways. There’s plenty on this site about the benefits of chia seeds and there’s even some comparisons I’ve made between chia seeds and flax seeds.

I feel like it’s worth giving flax seeds some articles of their own. In this article I will go through flax seed oil benefits and I hope to do some more articles about flax seeds.

What are flax seeds?

Flax, which is also known as linseed is native from India to the eastern Mediterranean. Flax is an erect plant that grows to over 1 meter tall! The fruit in flax is what contains the precious flax seeds.

They are round and dry and contain several flax seeds. Like chia seeds, flax seeds also come in two variants of color. Brown and yellowish. Most variants of flax seeds have similar nutritional values except for one with the trade name Linola that’s very low in Omega 3 fatty acids.

Flax seed or linseed oil has been used for many years as a drying oil in paint and varnish!

What are the nutritional values of flax seeds?

This is what we really care about. Like chia seeds, flax seeds are unbelievably nutritious. Here’s what they’re made of:

In 100 grams of flax seeds you get (approx):

As you can see, the stuff that you can find in flax seeds are pretty amazing!
How can you eat flax seeds?

So now you know about all the good stuff you can find in flax seeds you may be considering adding them to your diet. Unfortunatly they aren’t as simple as chia seeds (where you can simply add them to your food or drink!).

You can either grind your flax seeds and then add them to foods or use flax seed oil instead. To grind the flax seeds you simply use a food grinder, once they are ground, add them to your food or eat them how they are.

You can purchase flax seed oil and add it to drinks or foods but some of the health benefits of flax seeds don’t stick around when an oil is used. This is because things like the dietary fiber is lost when extracting the flax seed oil.

As one of the sites commenters said, the percentage of healthy Omega 3 oils is higher in flax seed oil so in a way, the oil is healthier the the ground flax seeds. Picking which one to consume depends on which nutrients and minerals you want more off in your diet.

What are the flaxseed oil benefits?

As with chia seeds, the benefits of flax seed oil comes from the nutrients that’s in them. The main thing people are after when consuming flaxseed oil is the Omega 3 fatty acids.

Plant based Omega 3 is different to the Omega 3 found in fish so there are some considerations that need to be made there. There are 3 main types of Omega 3. They are LNA, DHA and EPA.

DHA and EPA are the main components found in fish oil while LNA is what’s found in plants (and flaxseeds).

It’s believed that the body benefits more from DHA and EPA and that LNA actually changes into these types of essential fatty acids once ingested. Not all of the LNA becomes DHA and EPA which is why there are debates about whether plant based fatty acids are actually as healthy as people make out.

Many studies have shown that LNA does lead to plenty of health benefits and regardless of whether that’s because it changes to DHA or EPA or not doesn’t really matter to me. The point is that it benefits our health and can improve the health of our heart, help with mood and mental disorders, lower our blood pressure, improve brain function and more.

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This is one of the first questions people have when they start with chia seeds. The answer depends on your goals. Are you replacing your snacks with chia seeds in order to lose weight? Are you simply trying to increase the amount of healthy minerals in your diet?

I personally eat chia seeds to top up on Omega 3 and some of the minerals in chia seeds. I usually eat healthy foods so I only have one table spoon of chia a day (when I actually have any, I’ve ran out at the moment). That table spoon ensures I’m getting at least some Omega 3, Omega 6, calcium, potassium and all the other good stuff every day.

When I’m talking about one table spoon of chia seeds, I’m talking about dry chia seeds and not chia gel. Here are the nutritional values of one spoon of chia seeds based on 10 grams worth:

• Calories = 49 (important if you’re using chia seeds to aid weight loss)
• Omega 3 = 1.7g
• Omega 6 = 0.5g
• Fiber = 4.2g
• Calcium = 56mg
• Zinc = 4.6mg
• Potassium = 66mg
• Magnesium = 33mg
• Iron = 0.62mg

Ideally you should figure out which minerals you want more off and taylor the amount of chia seeds you have each day to get the desired amount. You would also need to ensure you’re not having too much of one of the other minerals. They also contain antioxidants and small amounts of other healthy minerals such as Boron.

I think that 1 table spoon is a good amount to have every day. It means you’re topping up on all the good stuff without being excessive.

I personally add the chia seeds to my juice (usually tomato juice) but people generally batch make chia gel then add them to their cereal, porridge or any other meal. Chia gel can (apparently) last for about a week in the fridge but I never keep chia gel stored for more than a couple of days simply because I don’t like the idea of drinking/eating chia gel that’s any older than that.

As I’ve mentioned before, chia seeds don’t simply make the weight drop off your body but they can be used to replace snacks and due to their high fiber and protein content, make you feel full for longer.

As one table spoon contains about 50 calories, you should replace a normal 50 calorie (or more of you want!) snack with a chia seed drink or snack. It means you have a much healthier snack and you should feel full for longer and may end up eating less during the rest of the day.

Whether you’re trying to increase the amount of healthy nutrients you consume each day or you’re trying to lose weight, a table spoon of chia seeds can do it’s part to help you reach your goals.

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I wanted to write this article as both a review and a question for the readers. Are the effects of chia seeds noticeable? Clearly some effects of chia seeds won’t be noticeable. A reduction in blood pressure is something you can measure but not something you would notice.

Other effects of chia seeds should be noticeable though. An increase in energy levels, feeling full for longer, healthier skin hair and nails. These are just a few examples of things chia seeds can do in theory.

I’ve personally been consuming chia seeds for over a month and recently I’ve been having them nearly every day. I put a spoon full into a glass of tomato juice and drink it every morning. A very healthy drink.

To make this “review” more relevant, I will tell you about my general lifestyle. I used to be much more health conscious than I am now. At the moment all the exercise I do is walking but as I live in London, I walk loads. I do eat relatively healthily most of the time but I do like a bag of crisps or a chocolate bar every so often too. I also have a couple of beers when I go to networking events in the evening once or twice a week.

So did I notice any changes once I started consuming chia seeds? Well I noticed a couple of minor effects but it’s impossible to say whether they were just a placebo. Since I started eating chia seeds I have notices an improvement in the health of my skin. My guess is that I wasn’t getting enough of a mineral that’s in chia seeds so my skin wasn’t as healthy as it could have been.

I also noticed an increase in energy levels but as I’ve said, this could all be in my head. I did not notice feeling full for longer though!

Even if the changes that chia seeds can lead to in our health aren’t noticeable, it makes me feel like I’m doing what I can to stay healthy!

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Although adding chia seeds to your food or drink can’t really get much easier, you might be interested in simply using chia seed oil instead.

The process of extracting the oil out of chia seeds involves cold pressing the chia seeds which extracts the odorless and mildly flavored chia seed oil extract.

The high fiber content of chia seeds is lost during the oil extraction process so any health benefits or side effects that are related to the high fiber in chia seeds aren’t applicable to chia seed oil.

Chia seed oil is mostly made up of Omega 3 fatty acids (about 60%). It has the highest content of Omega 3 of any plant oil. Although the Omega fats from plants are different to those from fish, the high content of Omega 3 in chia oil means that it could be used instead of taking fish oil supplements.

Chia oil also contains most of the nutrients and minerals that chia seeds have. Chia oil has more than one thousand units of antioxidants and contains boron, potassium, calcium, manganese and more.

The benefits of chia oil are mainly the same as those of chia seeds but as the content of Omega 3 in chia oil is higher, those benefits will be more concentrated. Chia oil can reduce inflammation and lower cholesterol.

The only real side effect to watch out for is the effect chia has on blood pressure. It can lower blood pressure so if you have low blood pressure already it can be dangerous.

The price of chia oil is a far amount higher than normal chia seeds and you can see examples of prices charged at Amazon.com through my affiliate link here.

Personally, I don’t think there is any benefit for the extra cost apart from the fact that chia oil may be slightly more convenient. I will personally stick to buying chia seeds rather than chia oil!

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In this article we take a look at one of the minerals that can be found in chia seeds, magnesium. In about 15 grams or chia seeds (or a spoon full) you get about 60mg of magnesium.

The recommended daily allowance of magnesium is 400 to 420mg for a healthy adult male and 310 to 320mg for a healthy adult female.

Health Benefits of Magnesium:

• Magnesium can help prevent cardiovascular deceases.
• Magnesium helps regulate high blood pressure.
• It treats migraines.
• It can be used to treat diabetes.
• It treats insomnia.
• It can also help treat depression.
• Some research has shown that magnesium can reverse osteoporosis.

These side effects, and more are usually experienced by people who use magnesium supplements rather than consuming foods that contain magnesium. Although the amount of magnesium in chia seeds is relatively low, it’s always recommended to speak to a health care professional if you have any concerns!

Overall, magnesium is a great part of chia seeds as it helps add to the huge list of benefits that chia seeds can give us.

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I know this site is all about chia seeds but I thought it might be worth doing a shout out to other super foods. After all, most people only eat chia seeds because they provide us with loads of health benefits so there may be other foods that the readers of this site may be interested in!

I’ll start with my personal favorite. Olives. Eating olives or having olive oil can cause a decrease in our bad cholesterol levels while also increasing the levels of good cholesterol in our bodies! They are also full of antioxidants and EFAS like chia seeds. The good thing about olives and olive oil being a super food is that most people already include some of it in their diets!

The second super foods I want to talk about are blueberries. Who doesn’t like blueberries? They are delicious on a fruit salad or as a juice. They have the highest amount of antioxidant levels of all fresh fruit. They also contain vitamin B, C and A.

Black garlic is a less common superfood that gives you the benefits of regular garlic plus some more. They contain twice the amount of antioxidants as regular garlic.

Those are just 3 examples of some other extremely healthy foods that you can include in your diet! Chia seeds still rule but it’s always more fun to mix things up a little every now and again!

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After writing an article on organic chia seeds, I got educated by a couple of readers. I decided to do some more research and write a short post about my findings.

It turns out that chia crop do really naturally repel insects so pesticides don’t need to be used when growing chia seeds. So why aren’t all chia seeds organic? Well, as Natalie pointed out in the comments, the growing cycle of chia seeds is really short so the land that’s used to grow the chia is often used to grow other crops too.

So pesticides may have been used with the other crops and may still be in the land. This means that although chemicals weren’t used to grow the chia seeds, they can’t officially be classed as organic chia seeds.

This is something you should consider when buying chia seeds. Organic chia seeds are usually significantly more expensive than normal chia seeds.

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Seeing as I’m based in the UK myself, I thought I would write an article about chia seeds in the UK and where’s best to buy them.

So whereas chia seeds (and even flax seeds) are becoming increasingly more popular in the US, Canada and in Australia, hardly anyone in the UK even knows what they are. No one I’ve asked (even my health freak parents) have ever heard of them.

I tried to buy chia seeds on the high street or from a supermarket and I couldn’t find any even in Holland and Barrett which sells all sorts of seeds and nuts!

I didn’t want to buy them online at first because I wanted to have a look at the seeds before I bought any (seems kinda stupid I know but that’s what I wanted).

Anyway I ended up buying them online. There were a few options but I found that the place with the most options and the cheapest prices was on Amazon. (Affiliate link!).

The prices vary depending on whether the chia seeds are white, black, organic or not. I just buy the plain old non-organic black chia seeds.

If you’re in the UK, let me know where you get your chia seeds from. Do you know of any high street stores that sell chia seeds?

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In this article I will go through a chia seeds recipe idea to try and inspire you to try and consume chia seeds in different ways.

The meal idea I will discuss today is a desert, jello. Jello and chia seeds are perfect for each other. The first reason is that chia seeds enhance the the flavor of the foods they are mixed with so they work well with many recipes. They will enhance the sweetness of the jello.

The second reason why this is such a perfect chia seed recipe is that when chia seeds are moist they become a gel themselves so this will enhance the texture of the jello!

Here’s what you need:

• Two table spoons of chia seeds. These can be black or white chia seeds.
• 5 cups of fruit juice. These can be any flavor and these will be the flavor of the jello.
• Finally, 2 tablespoons of gelatin.

So the first thing you need to do is pour the juice into a pan, put it on the stove and bring it to a boil. Pour the heated juice into a bowl and add the gelatin. Stir until the gelatin is fully disolved.

You then add the chia seeds into the mixture while it’s cooling. Make sure you stir the chia seeds so they don’t end up sticking together. Once the mixture is even, leave the jello to set. If you don’t like the look of the chia seeds in the jello, grind them into a powder before adding them to the mixture.

Let me know how you get on!

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