Chia Craze

My friends have all been telling me over the past few weeks that my hair looks thicker and my skin is glowing. I owe it all to chia, my latest object of obsession.

It all started with this:

I stumbled upon One Life Natural Foods store in Santa Monica about a month ago. Aside from being a virtual smorgasbord of organic and health foods, they have a deli in the back that serves up delicious items. A visit to the dairy case had me intrigued by this chocolate looking pudding with cacao nibs and strawberries on top. It was pricey, about $7 for a tiny container, but I was intrigued so I bought it. When I got home and took a bite I was in absolute bliss. It tasted exactly like a refreshing chocolate milkshake but thirty times better. I had this bizarre feeling that my whole body had suddenly awaken and as if I had been dipped in a healing bath of cleansing, ice cold water. A big fan of the mind-altering experience, I immediately went online to discover what the ingredients were in this amazing thing and found out it was highly saturated with superfoods.

I had heard of superfoods but didn't really know much about them. Apparently there is a list of things that are supposed to have the most vitamin and nutrient rich consistencies of any food you could ever eat. The list contains things like chia seeds, gogi berries, coconut, aloe vera juice, hempseed, blue green algae, bee pollen, kelp and acai - many of which were in this pudding. One bite had totally satisfied my cravings and made me feel full and I realized if all I needed were a bite a day to feel this way, I could totally justify the $7 price tag per miniscule portion.

I have been buying this now on a weekly basis and am a firm believer in the superfood concept thanks to the compliments of my friends over the last few weeks.

Another gem that came from this whole discovery has been my new addiction to chia seeds. Yes, these are the same chia seeds that made that weird pottery thing in your grandmother's windowsill grow like a small fuzzy topiary with that irritating television commercial of our youth where "Ch ch ch chia" would stick in the brain for days afterwards. I learned that putting chia seeds into your diet can greatly improve your health because the tiny black seeds grow to five times their size when absorbed in any liquid and the hair on them puffs up in this strange kind of gel that acts like a colon cleanser as it moves throughout your body. I decided to try and get a teaspoon worth of these little buggers through my system daily for great digestive health.

My favorite recipe for chia has become my morning breakfast ritual. You can buy chia in bulk at Whole Foods or the like and a ten dollar bag lasts about a month.

I take any flavor of my favorite organic yogurt, vanilla being my choice of late, and mix the teaspoon of chia seeds right into the bowl. Because the seeds grow bigger in the liquid, they turn into the taste and consistency of tapioca pearls once set in.

Then I slice up bananas, or any fruit that is fresh and ripe, into the mix. It is super yummy and super healthy and I swear it gives me a boost that gets me through a morning full of work.

And I swear, my hair is growing faster. Superfoods are super.