Tag Archives: chia seeds

by | March 11, 2013 · 8:22 pm

A St. Patrick’s Day Green Smoothie – Vita-Mix

I have recently decided to up my consumption of leafy green veggies. My diet falls short in that department. I don’t make many salads, so it isn’t the easiest thing to add. I decided to go the smoothie route.

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Herewith my first attempt to consume more green leafy veggies:

One cup of apple cider, 1/4 avocado, one slice pineapple, several strawberries, one cup kale, one cup arugala, one tablespoon of chia seeds, one tablespoon of hemp seeds.

Toss it all in the Vita-mix machine, add a half cup of ice cubes and let ‘er rip.

I got lucky and it tasted lovely. I think the avocado and strawberries smoothed out and sweetened up the taste with the pineapple.

Here is the nutritional breakdown:
Calories 265
Total Fat     13.6 grams
Saturated Fat 1.7 grams
No cholesterol
Sodium   84.3 mg
Carbohydrates 47 grams
Sugar 20 grams
Fiber 12 grams
Protein 11 grams

All in all a very successful first attempt.

Tony

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by | March 10, 2013 · 6:07 am

What are Some Good Reasons for Eating Nuts?

In my own search for alternative sources of quality protein to take the place of the artery-clogging red meat I have added chia seeds and hemp seeds for starters.

Dr. Oz has some further suggestions in his blog post Three Health Benefits of Nuts.

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Some of the benefits he enumerates include:
“• The omega-3 fats in nuts, especially walnuts — which have six times as much as the next nearest nut — protect against heart disease.
• The fiber richness of nuts helps you lose weight. A small handful about 30 minutes before a mealtime fills you up enough to keep you from overeating.
• And (news flash) it turns out that these crunchy treats help tame type 2 diabetes.”

For some folks, the only downside of nuts is that their fats make them high in calories. A couple of good ways to include some nuts in your diet without knocking your calorie consumption out of the park is to find ways to add small quantities of them to your regular meals.

You can use them as a garnish on salads, adding protein and healthy fats without too many calories. Ditto your morning breakfast, I love walnuts on top of my oatmeal. Use your imagination and you can make some heart-healthy changes in your daily diet and boost your protein consumption, too.

Tony

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Filed under arterial plaque, arteries, chia seeds, Dr. Oz, fat, snack foods, Snacking, Weight

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by | February 14, 2013 · 1:02 pm

Is There a Good Chocolate Granola? Yes, Love Crunch

I have recently been in the market for a new granola. For years I used the Kashi GoLean Crunch, but when I learned that Kashi used GMO ingredients, I stopped using Kashi products. I make a parfait every day with a granola product and strawberries yogurt, soy milk , etc. You can read about my High Fiber Parfait.

Dark chocolate 0066
My search included Costco, of course, as I have had such success there on the entire spectrum of foods. Sure enough I found “Love Crunch” – Premium Organic Granola. An interesting aspect is that it is “Made with Organic Cocoa, Flax and Coconut.” The package also says, “Dark Chocolate & Red Berries.” It also states on the package back “Non-GMO Verified,” obviously a big selling point for me.

I have eaten granola on and off over the years since the 1960s, but this was the first time I had encountered chocolate. While I love chocolate per se, I don’t often like chocolate-flavored things, like ice cream. They just taste like watered down chocolate to me. Totally not satisfying. So, I had some misgivings about trying this.

I made up a batch with soy milk and strawberries and was amazed at how good the chocolate taste came out. I actually felt like I was eating real chocolate, not something with chocolate flavoring. Very impressive.

Later that evening I was drawn back to the package and weighed out another serving and simply snacked on it while reading. Excellent! A wonderful snack discovery! I could snack on this very healthy CHOCOLATE FLAVORED whole grain food. All good. Talk about win-win!

Here is the nutritional breakdown for a single 30 gram serving which comes to about 1/4 of a cup.

Calories 140
Total Fat 6 grams
Saturated Fat 1 gram
No Cholesterol
Sodium 55 mg
Carbohydrates 20 grams
Fiber 2 grams
Sugar 6 grams
Protein 2 grams

I recommend this for a lovely parfait dessert, plain for breakfast or as a healthy snack finger food.

For a health boost, I include a tablespoon of chia seeds and a tablespoon of hemp seeds. I just like to push the nutritive value up.

You can read about Are Chia Seeds Good For You? or How Good is Hemp Seed?
Tony

March 2, 2013 update. I have eliminated my nightly Hershey’s with almonds snack and substituted a bowl of Love Crunch. I get the same chocolate taste with none of the saturated fats and less calories. Keep in mind this kind of substitution can break some unhealthy eating habits.

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Filed under calories, chia seeds, granola, healthy eating, healthy living, hemp seeds, portion control, portion size, protein, sodium, Weight

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by | December 25, 2012 · 6:22 am

How to Conquer High Cholesterol – Harvard

If you have been careless in your eating habits and your cholesterol has flourished, all is not lost. The Harvard Medical Bulletin Healthbeat says that changing what you eat can lower your cholesterol and improve the fats floating through your bloodstream. Some foods are better than others in bringing down cholesterol.

“Some cholesterol-lowering foods deliver a good dose of soluble fiber, which binds cholesterol and its precursors in the digestive system and drags them out of the body before they get into circulation. Others provide polyunsaturated fats, which directly lower Low-density lipoprotein (LDL). And those with plant sterols and stanols keep the body from absorbing cholesterol. Here are 5 of those foods:

This is what it looks like when you clog your arteries

This is what it looks like when you clog your arteries

1. Oats. An easy way to start lowering cholesterol is to choose oatmeal or a cold oat-based cereal like Cheerios for breakfast. It gives you 1 to 2 grams of soluble fiber. Add a banana or some strawberries for another half-gram.
2. Beans. Beans are especially rich in soluble fiber. They also take a while for the body to digest, meaning you feel full for longer after a meal. That’s one reason beans are a useful food for folks trying to lose weight. With so many choices — from navy and kidney beans to lentils, garbanzos, black-eyed peas, and beyond — and so many ways to prepare them, beans are a very versatile food.
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by | April 22, 2012 · 4:34 am

What is Chia Fresca? Cool Energy Drink

I ran across this on Huff Post. As Mr. Lazy Cook I found it totally appealing. It is a lovely energy drink that you can make in a couple of minutes.

Ingredients:

One TBSP of chia seeds

One glass of water

The juice of a lemon or lime

Sweetener to taste

Whisk the chia seeds in water and let them soak for 10 minutes of so. Stir in the fruit juice and whisk it all together. Drink up!

You can view a video of this on You Tube here.
Here are links for previous Chia seed posts. First and foremost, Are Chia Seeds Good For You? from last July.

Read the Chocolate Chia Seed Milk Shake recipe here. Check out Dr. Oz on Chia Seeds here. Here is a Chia seed Super Breakfast. Supermodel Miranda Kerr likes them too.

Tony

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by | April 19, 2012 · 2:50 pm

Supermodel Miranda Kerr Likes Chia Seeds

As if we needed another reason to like Chia seeds, turns out Victoria’s Secret supermodel, Miranda Kerr likes them, too. She puts them in her smoothies.

The latest installment of My Optum Health reports “A study in Australia, a major producer of chia seeds, conducted at the University of Southern Queensland, showed that chia seeds fed to obese laboratory rats resulted in improved insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance and reduced abdominal fat. More research is needed to see if the same is true for humans.

“Another study at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto showed chia seeds, used as a supplement to conventional therapy, improved cardiovascular risk factors in people with type 2 diabetes.
“Descriptions in the 2009 book “Born to Run” of how chia seeds fuel the legendary runners in the Mexican Tarahumara Indian tribe have enticed endurance athletes and Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice to give them a try.”

We could have run a pic of Ray Rice, but somehow we ended up with Miranda. Crazy, huh?

Anyway, we are happy to welcome La Kerr as well as Ray Rice to the Chia fan club. We love Chia seeds, too.

Here are links for previous posts. First and foremost, Are Chia Seeds Good For You? from last July.

Read the Chocolate Chia Seed Milk Shake recipe here. Check out Dr. Oz on Chia Seeds here. Here is a Chia seed Super Breakfast.

Tony

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by | April 10, 2012 · 4:41 am

Dr. Oz on Chia Seeds and Green Tea

Dr. Oz and his co-writer Dr. Roizen made a You Tube video on improving your energy. In it, Dr. Oz says about Chia seeds, “Chia seeds are a whole grain used by the Aztecs as their main energy source. Chia can help restore energy levels and decrease inflammation because of its Omega 3 fatty acids. Similar to corn starch, Chia can be used as a thickening agent and a substitute for whole grains in your diet. While grains are especially important because they help to stabilize blood sugar levels as opposed to spikes and furrows that occur when you eat sugar and refined carbohydrates.
Supermodel Miranda Kerr also likes Chia seeds.
“Go Green as in green tea. Green tea has been shown to have the highest content of polyphenols whichi have high antioxidant properties. Because green tea leaves are young and have not been oxidized it has up to 40 percent polyphenols while black tea has only about 10 percent. But, be cautious. You can’t have milk with it. The casein in milk has been shown to inhibit the beneficial effects of tea.”

I have written favorably about Chia seeds several times on these pages. You can read Are Chia Seeds Good For you?, Chia Seeds Super Breakfast with Oat Flakes, Chia Seeds Chocolate Milk Shake Recipe, among others. You can find them all by Searching for Chia seeds in the Search box on the right.

For St. Patrick’s Day there is Green Tea for St. Patrick’s Day – and Every Day. There is also Green Tea Helps to Fight Flu. What is Chia Fresca?

Tony

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by | February 28, 2012 · 10:04 pm

Does Eating Fish Help Memory?

A diet lacking in omega-3 fatty acids, nutrients commonly found in fish, may cause your brain to age faster and lose some of its memory and thinking abilities, according to a study published in the February 28, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“People with lower blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids had lower brain volumes that were equivalent to about two years of structural brain aging,” said study author Zaldy S. Tan, MD, MPH, of the Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research and the Division of Geriatrics, University of California at Los Angeles.

For the study, 1,575 people with an average age of 67 and free of dementia underwent MRI brain scans. They were also given tests that measured mental function, body mass and the omega-3 fatty acid levels in their red blood cells.

SelfNutrition Data says the following are foods high in Omega-3 fatty acids: In order of importance: based on 200 calorie serving:
Flaxseed oil is the highest with 12,059 mg.
Flax seeds have 8,543 mg.
Fish oil, salmon contains 7828 mg.
Chia seeds yields 7164 mg.
Agutuk, fish with shortening has 6851 mg.
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by | February 19, 2012 · 12:36 pm

Chia Seeds, Oat Flakes and a Peanut Butter Flavor for Breakfast? Part 2

After my first go-round with the Chia-Oat Peanut Butter Flavor Brfy, I tried a few tweaks. Mr. Lazy Cook never rests.

Here is the original recipe:
1/3 c dry oats
2/3 c lowfat vanilla soy milk, 
1 Tsp Chia Seeds, 
1 Tsp PB2 
Add Stevia to taste
1/2 banana diced in the overnight mixture and the other 1/2 diced fresh in the a.m.

I doubled the amount of PB2 to one tablespoon for more robust flavor. I also decided to forego including the banana into the fridge mixture. I put it in the next morning fresh. Finally, I doubled the Chia Seeds to a full tablespoon, because I thought that one teaspoon seemed skimpy.

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The result was a big improvement. The additions beefed up the flavor and I liked the fresh banana on top.
Here are the increases in nutrients:
One tsp of PB2 comes to: 45 calories, 1.5 grams total fat, no cholesterol, 94 mg of sodium, 5 carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber and 5 grams of protein.

One half tablespoon of Chia Seeds yields: 27 calories, 1.7 grams total fat, 0.2 grams saturated fat, no cholesterol, 0.8 mg of sodium, 2.3 grans of carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber and 0.8 grams protein.

Feel free to share your opinions and experiences with these recipes. Suggestions are always welcome.

Tony

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by | February 4, 2012 · 8:51 pm

Chia Seed Super Breakfast – With Oat Flakes

I picked this breakfast idea up while surfing the web for Chia Seed recipes. Mr. Lazy Cook’s version is simplified somewhat from the original which was from a vegan website.

How good are Chia Seeds for you? Find out here.

Actual prep time is very short, but then you put it in the fridge overnight to set. So you need to remember to fix one before you go to bed if you want it for breakfast, which I recommend strongly. Very nutritious. There are 16 grams of fiber and 16 grams of protein.

This is how it looks without the berry or nut toppings

Start with 3 tablespoons of Chia Seeds
1/3 cup of oats flakes
1 cup of vanilla soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Stevia (or your preferred sweetener) to taste.
Mix together in a bowl and place in fridge.

The next morning you can add any of the following:
1 chopped banana
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup strawberries
1/8 cup Broken walnuts

Here is the nutritional breakdown:
Calories 360
Fat        14 grams
Sat Fat    1.6 grams
No cholesterol
Sodium 100 mg
Carbohydrates 41 grams
Fiber 16 grams
Protein 16 grams

This breakdown does not include any of the optional toppings. The 1/8 cup of walnuts will add 8.2 grams of fat, no cholesterol or sodium, 1.7 grams of carbs, 1 gram of fiber and 2 grams of protein.

I have had this breakfast once, this morning. I liked the taste and texture. I also found that it gave me a nice fueled feeling that lasted for several hours. I ate it plain the first time. Tomorrow I plan to add blueberries and walnuts.

Please share your experience with us if you try it out.

The original recipe is from the Choosing Raw website. It used quinoa flakes which I didn’t have instead of the oat flakes which I did have.

If you want to satisfy your sweet tooth later in the day, try our Chia Seed Chocolate Shake. Also, Supermodel Miranda Kerr likes Chia seeds, too.

What is Chia Fresca?

Tony

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