Chia Seeds

In Russia, chia seeds have not yet become truly widely known, for example, the same sesame, but we believe that over time, they will appear in the closet of most housewives. Do you know why? These small, variegated gray seeds, which can swell beautifully in water, have a wide range of health benefits and are even easier to add to food than spread on a sandwich. They do not require long cooking and are almost tasteless, they go well with many products and give food an original flavor. We will tell you in simple words what chia seeds are, how and why they are eaten. Chia white, also known as Spanish sage (Salvia hispanica), is a rather tall herbaceous plant that outwardly really resembles overgrown sage and belongs to the same genus. The grass, which reaches a height of more than one and a half meters, has leaves up to 10 cm in length and clusters of flowers at the end of each stem (most often purple-violet or white). It is behind these flowers that tiny seeds, famous all over the world, are hidden, which are of a hydrophilic nature and, when soaked, absorb liquid 12 ( Chia Seeds !) Times more than their weight. In doing so, the seeds form a mucous membrane that gives chia-based drinks and desserts their characteristic gelatinous texture. Despite the fact that these seeds look like grains, officially they are not, and therefore it is customary to call them pseudo-grains. Chia is an annual plant. Having given a crop once, it becomes useless, and a new one is planted in the place of the old plant. This herb loves tropical and subtropical climates, and although today chia have learned to grow in other latitudes, the bulk of the plantations is located in the southern edges. The entire cycle from planting to seed ripening takes 3 to 5 months. The native land of chia is South America. According to historical documents, the people of Mexico and Guatemala were familiar with this plant long before Columbus discovered America. They used the seeds for food, made oil out of them, and prepared medicines. It was the Indians who gave the plant the name by which we know it now. The word “chia” comes from “chian”, which means “oily” in the Nahuatl language. However, in the scientific world, this plant is known as "Spanish sage", and this strange phenomenon has its own explanation: for the first time scientists paid attention to it seriously when it was already brought from America to Spain and took root there perfectly. The name Salvia hispanica was invented in the 18th century by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, who, while in Spain, mistook a wild plant from the New World for an aboriginal. The Mexicans were resourceful in the use of chia: they ate the seeds, created medicines based on them, used them as an ingredient for decorative paints, and even used them in ritual ceremonies (but very little information about this has survived). Chia occupied the third place in their culture after corn and beans, that is, it was an important part of the culture. In the kitchen, they used both whole seeds and flour from them, in addition, the housewives squeezed oil out of the grains. This product was of great importance in the menu of the Indians of the pre-Columbian times - both as a food and as part of a drink. In addition, the oil from these seeds was used as a lacquer base for painting clay or pumpkin vessels, and also constituted the main component of Aztec body paint. By the way, in our time, such oil is used as an emollient in cosmetics. Today, chia is grown in many countries in South America, as well as in the southern United States and Australia. A large percentage of the crop is used for oil production. Although chia is called a pseudo-grain, the benefits of these seeds are far from “pseudo” because their composition can outperform many other grains. First, chia seeds are very high in calories, but all nutrients are perfectly balanced. In terms of protein content, this product is far ahead of all other cereals, including legumes and quinoa. . There are several dozen species of the plant known as Spanish sage in the world, but there are not many of them in the food industry. The seeds of different species have a different color - from almost white to almost black with many variations of variegated gray. If you look at one grain under a microscope, it will seem to you very similar to a quail's egg - both in shape and in color. As a rule, you can see two types of chia on sale - a light variety and a dark variety. The taste differences between them https://jiji.com.gh/east-legon/feeds-supplements-seeds/chia-seeds-rGWihqiskBZhST7qy5bwhV5X.html