Healthy Habits: Seeds!

Have you ever heard of someone you knew eating or drinking something that contains chia seeds, hemp seeds, or flax seeds, for example, and wondered why???

Many of these seeds, like Chia, were used in ancient times to sustain those going through long periods of travel without food or to keep them energized while they were outside doing work. 

I use chia and hemp seeds regularly. I will sometimes add chia seeds into my daily bottle of water or sprinkle them into Ava's yogurt. I also LOVE to add them into the overnight oats that I make for Mark, myself, and Ava. They get soft and open up into gel-like little beads. Since they are pretty tasteless, you can add them into anything and reap the benefits for your body's health. 

As you can see, I try and find a way to add them to whatever I am making...

Photos taken from my Instagram account  

@christinamcguire 

Chia added:

To my bottle of water 

Smoothies 

Lettuce wraps

Mango avocado salad:

Added to toast:

As for hemp seeds, I find that they are soft and have a light sunflower seed-like taste.  I like to sprinkle them onto salads, into a sauce, into my smoothies, onto my toast with almond butter... Or basically, anything. 

Hemp added:

Sprinkles of hemp seeds on my veggie patty salad. 

Hemp added: (center with the spoon) 

The serving size of chia seeds is about

1 tbsp. 

The serving size of hemp seeds are 

3 tbsp. 

Just thought I'd share this little 

info-graphic for you to look at incase you want to start learning and adding some additional nutrition to your diet. 

Chia contains five times more calcium than milk

It contains three times more iron than spinach

Chia contains seven times more vitamin C than oranges

It contains twice the potassium content of banana

Chia seeds also make a great source of protein but don't have any cholesterol like animal protein. The protein is a complete protein with all 8 essential amino acids

It contains 20% Omega 3 ALA, making it a super food for the brain and heart. Chia has eight times more Omega 3 than salmon!

It is super high in dietary fiber, making it great for digestion and healing digestion issues.

It has a positive impact balancing blood glucose levels (making it awesome for diabetics)

Chia makes a great egg replacement. Just combine with water to form a gel, and add it to recipes that call for egg

Chia is gluten free

It is food for healthy skin, hair and nails

Once you buy a bag of any of these seeds they will go a long way since you use very little each day. I can't remember right now, but I think a bag of chia is usually about $8- $10? And about the same for hemp seeds. 

-Whole foods has all kinds of seeds 

-I've seen and bought chia seeds at Publix in the organic section 

-Costco has a great deal on both hemp and chia seeds!  (big bags for the same cost as other retailers) 

And remember, if you can: always buy organic seeds! 

That's all I have for now! 

XO

Christina