Chia Seeds 200gm

Almost nothing on its own, which is the point

Chia has very little flavour of its own. That is not a shortcoming — it is why it works in a lassi, in overnight oats, in a pudding, in water with lemon. It takes on whatever it is thickening.

What it actually carries

Around 18g of alpha-linolenic acid per 100g — the highest of any common seed, and roughly eighteen times what sabja carries — plus about 34g of fibre and 17g of protein.

The ALA is plant omega-3. Your body converts it to EPA and DHA inefficiently, so chia is not a replacement for fish or an algal supplement, but for a plant food it is unusually dense.

Why chia keeps when flax does not

This is the practical difference between the two seeds people treat as interchangeable.

Chia's ALA sits inside an intact seed coat with a substantial load of natural antioxidants around it. Whole chia resists oxidation for months. Flax must be ground to be useful at all, and once ground it begins going rancid within days.

So chia is the low-maintenance one. You can keep a bag, eat it whole, and it will still be doing its job in six months.

Using it

Soaked, one to two tablespoons in water, thirty minutes, stirred once at the ten-minute mark or it clumps into a lump at the bottom. In milk or yoghurt overnight it becomes a thick pudding.

Dry, it can go straight into a batter, a salad or a smoothie and hydrate from whatever is around it.

Start at half a teaspoon if you are not used to fibre. Thirty grams of chia is about 10g of fibre arriving at once.

Peru

Andean-grown, cleaned and sorted. Tip some onto a white plate before you trust any seed: chaff, stem fragments and fine grey dust are the signature of a lot cleaned in a hurry.

Keeping it

Airtight and dark. Twelve months sealed at room temperature, longer refrigerated. Fresh chia smells of almost nothing — anything sharp or paint-like is oxidised fat, and soaking will not fix it.