Chia Power

Chia Duck Eye

NEWS from 2009: According to Sarah Enriquez, Lifemax Distributor in Orlando, her pet duck, Mingming, has made a miraculous recovery from an eye infection with the help of chia seeds! She says, "I noticed her right eye wasn't moving. It was shut close for a few days and when she finally opened it, it won't see a thing. It won't respond to any movements and it looked as though there was a clear film on it." 

Sarah learned of the reports of ophthalmic uses of chia seeds among native Californians:

"...seeds were dropped into the eye, and rolled around or left in overnight.  The Cahuilla tribe used chia seeds in this fashion to remove sand in the eyes acquired from sandstorms encountered after a long day of hunting . Seeds were sometimes mashed with a rock or hammer and placed in the eye overnight The film that resulted from the gelatinous seeds in either method absorbed any foreign body or irritant and helped to ease inflammation." (This is from a  USDA document on Golden Chia)

So Sarah sprinkled some MILA (ground chia seed) on Mingming's eye and says, "the next morning, the clear film was gone. Her eye is still not as good as the one on the left but it really did get better with MILA. I will put more tomorrow so it will completely heal."

P.S. Sarah has also used MILA to heal her chick's broken leg!

I Sold Chia Seeds to Educators and Scientists at a Botany Conference in 2007

(From my 7/7/2007 blog.)

Call me crazy, but I'm in Chicago for the largest gathering of plant scientists in years!  It's the Botany & Plant Biology 2007 Joint Congress.

My goal here is to promote the use of chia seeds for fun and food, so I've just spent 30 minutes bagging up seeds.

I feel like a traveling salesman or drug dealer (I call the 150g size my "nickel bag" because it sells for $5).

I've bagged up 20 free samples, ten 1oz bags, and 2 nickel bags. My goal is to get rid of about half of them today, along with 15 business cards and some literature.

More important than selling the seeds is sharing the information.

 

 

 

A nice video showing attempts at growing chia for seed.

 

Teacher Training with Chia DAY 3

Day 3 was Friday, and our seeds had been growing since Monday.

Experiment 1. What growing medium is best for chia seeds?
Click on the thumbnail to see the partial results:

The "flower picture" was painted with chia seeds on a paper towel. Those seeds grew almost 1/2 inch in 4 days. But the seeds in the dish of soil, pictured here, also grew very well. The sponges must have contained an antiseptic substance which prevented growth of bacteria (and seeds) because the seeds failed to grow.

Experiment 2. What concentration of salt is lethal for chia seeds?

We were hoping to find the salt solution in which 50% of the chia seeds would die. Why? Because teachers of AP Biology need to offer their students a demonstration of the concept of LD50  but they would rather not cause the death of animal subjects.

Results: we narrowed it down somewhat. All seeds failed to germinate at concentrations of 2% and higher. At 1% they all germinated, but growth was stunted.

We tried concentrations between 0%, 1% and 2%, but our results were not conclusive.

Experiment 3. How much water can chia seeds absorb, and over what time period?

This photo compares chia seeds with alfalfa seeds, placed in a flask of water and stirred frequently. Chia seeds are #2.

This result came in less than 30 minutes!

We had hoped to quantify this by draining the water and weighing the drained seeds. However, we ran into technical difficulties because the chia seeds simply couldn't be separated from the water. Next time we'll try using a filter paper and funnel.

Experiment 4. Microscopic studies

We had access to a dissecting microscope fitted with digital imaging software, so we grabbed a couple of photos.

This is how 2 day old seedlings look.

And these images show what happens to dry seeds as they begin to absorb water over a 25 minute period:

 

Teacher Training with Chia DAY 2

On the second day of the workshop (Wednesday), we discussed nutritional aspects of chia seeds along with the origin of our important food crops.

I presented a little review of the biochemistry of the 3 macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats), and then we watched a brief video in which a famous actor discusses the desert foods of the Tohono O'odham people of the Southwest. The hour long video, hosted by Alan Alda, is from a 2001 PBS series on obesity. You can view it here: The Desert's Perfect Foods at a link found here at Scientific American Frontiers.

And yes, near the end of the clip, there is a chia tasting!

Later, I provided a copy of the USDA's  nutritional content label.pdf which verifies some of the amazing claims for chia seeds.

Teacher Training with Chia DAY 1

In July 2009,I introduced a small group of Long Island teachers to the idea of using chia seeds in the classroom.

The workshop, entitled Try Chia: Classroom Experiments with a Rediscovered Miracle Seed, was held in wonderful laboratory space at Stony Brook University.

DAY 1: The teachers designed at set up these 2 experiments:

1. What growing medium is best for chia seeds? soil, florists foam, paper towel, chia pet, Perlite, polyacrylamide, or a cleaning sponge (Note: seeds were grown in  good light and a humidity controlled environment: inside a plastic bag)
2. What concentration of salt is lethal for chia seeds? They tried 5 solutions from 0 to 5% salt and planted the seeds on paper towels in clear plastic egg cartons.