What's The Next Superfood? It's The Chia Plant

It seems that every time you turn around nowadays there's a new "superfood" in the news. The definition of a "superfood" (at least in the media) is food that has more health benefits than just being nutritious.

Most of the time this means that it has a lot of antioxidants. Antioxidants cut down on nasty little impurities in the body called "free radicals." Free radicals are the byproducts of a process that takes place in the body called "oxidation." That's what happens when we convert food into energy.

The first superfood was actually a vitamin, vitamin C. After that a few others vitamins, like vitamin E, were in the media light. Then we started looking at some bizarre (and sometimes little known) foods from exotic places like the Acai berry. The berry comes from a palm tree that grows in South America and the name means: "fruit that cries."

But there are a few more well known foods that also qualify as a superfood. Blueberries took center stage for a while. They were not only shown to be excellent sources of antioxidants, but brain enhancers as well, just like fish, which was considered to be the original brain food.

But blueberries have been recently upstaged by the noble pomegranate. The pomegranate originated in China and parts of the middle east and was then brought to California and Arizona, where most of the pomegranate that we now consume comes from. The pomegranate is rather difficult to eat, the meat of the plant is comprised of small, juicy seeds.

Now the pomegranate may be displaced by the chia seed. The chia, or Salvia hispanica, is a flowering plant that is native to Mexico and parts of South America. The chia is also used as a toy. The seeds are attached to little clay sculptures. You water the seeds and a grassy covering appears on the figurine. The original chia pet was an animal, but now there are a wide variety of chias including one of President Obama.

So, what are the health benefits of this amazing plant? Chia seeds contain a healthy dose of antioxidants as well as being a good souirce of fiber, vitamins, and plant-derived omega 3 fatty acids.

When you put chia seeds in water they form a paste because of the souluble fiber that they contain. Consuming this paste may help you to lose weight because they make you feel full. But further research is needed.

Some other ways to use chia seeds are to toss a handful on your cereal in the morning or combine them into yogurt or a smoothie. And if worse comes to worse, you can always harvest them from the head of your President Obama chia pet.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/expert.q.a/04/28/chia.seeds.jampolis/index.html