2009 July 31

I’ve been having fun playing with chia seeds in my food. You’d think I was doing submissions for my Weekly Food Challenge, but alas, I didn’t plan our my food-playing well enough to do so. The good news is that I plan on starting my Weekly Food Challenge back up and chia seeds will be featured in a couple weeks. If you don’t have any yet, get you some! I hear they’re hard to find.

Back to my post…

I’ve been enjoying the blueberries I picked from the farm awhile back in my morning oats. I froze all the ones I couldn’t eat immediately and have found through experimentation they cook up quite nicely in oatmeal.

General directions: Just place a handful of frozen blueberries in the bottom of a bowl (no de-frosting necessary!). Top with old-fashioned rolled oats (I use 1/4 cup) and water (I use 1/2 cup). Stir. Microwave for 2 minutes. Done-zo! Ok, not tototally done…done cooking but I add a wee bit of sweetener – sugar or agave – and some skim milk. Stir. Now enjoy!

Having loved how my chia seeds plumped up in that Chia Fizz drink, I wondered if they’d drink up the water from my bowl of AM oats, too. To this particular bowl, I added the usual handful of frozen blueberries, a pinch of golden flaxseed (I know they should be ground, but I like the texture of them whole), and a pinch of chia seeds.

Following general directions above: Top with oats and water. Stir. Microwave. Stir. Add drizzle agave and some skim milk and stir. Top with ground flaxseed. Yum!

Here’s what it looks like just after microwaving. I love how the pretty purplish-blue swirls start showing through the oats.

The end result ready to be enjoyed. Delish and nutrish!!

Oh…and the chia seeds…they did plump up quite nicely! I really enjoyed them cooked into the oats and will definitely enjoy them this way again soon!

Breakfast

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Yesterday, I found an article, “What does it mean if organic food is no healthier than regular food?“, on a news site saying organic foods are not as healthy as regular food. Since they didn’t publish any calculations or statistics on how their study resulted in this conclusion, I can’t say how they’re quantifying how “nutritious” or “healthy” the foods they researched are.

If what they mean is that an organic tomato has the same amount of vitamins and nutrients as a regular tomato, then I say, “No duh!” I don’t necessarily expect an organic tomato to have more, for example, Vitamin C than a standard tomato.

For me personally, I try to buy organic food because I want to avoid the pesticides, hormones, and whatever else can be used to grow non-organic foods. I prefer local foods because supporting local businesses supports your community and can help reduce your carbon footprint, since local foods don’t have to travel as far (or use as much gas, etc.) to get to you.

I prefer to eat locally grown/raised, pesticide-free, hormone-free foods and though they may not be more “nutritional”, as far as amounts of vitamins and nutrients, I do think they are “healthier.”

And btw, there are some other people who do seem to have opposing views from the article linked above. Here’s a post called “Fruits and vegetables yielding fewer nutrients than in the past. “