Do you need to grind Chia Seeds? | How to find Scientific info
A look at chia seed bioavailability. Ground/milled chia seeds? Soaked in a chia seed pudding? Whole?? How to get the most nutrition out of our chia seeds and how to locate and sift through reliable scientific information
Do chia seeds have to be ground up? This is a good question. If we eat chia seeds whole, do we get any of the nutrition or are the seeds just going for a ride in our gut?
On Google Scholar we get almost 70k results for chia seeds.
Structure of chia seed, chia seed oil, etc. Let's make the search more specific: "chia seed whole". Study on chia fed ground or whole but... in rats.
Second one talks about milled chia, that’s ground, and whole chia. "Chia seed supplementation and disease risk"
Abstract: "The study assessed the effectiveness of milled and whole chia seed. ALA increased 58%"
ALA is an essential fat that chia has a lot of. Its an omega3. So ALA increased 58% and EPA (that’s another omega3) 39% in the milled chia seed group compared to nonsignificant changes with whole chia seed. That’s what we’re looking for, comparing whole chia seeds and ground seeds.
Figure 1 shows ALA. With whole chia, before and after there’s no difference. With milled seeds you see a significant increase in ALA. We could go over how much chia they were fed and for how long. So this is saying we need to grind chia seeds to get those healthy omega3 fats. Whole chia seeds don’t do much.
What about soaked chia? When we make chia puddings we don’t grind. We soak. And the seeds look really different.
So if we search chia seed ALA water, 1st one talks about “Chia seed and placebo mixed with water and consumed after 10 minutes”. And it says something about ALA.
"ALA increased 24% in chia seed". So soaking also works
So both soaking and grinding seem to improve the absorption of omega3s from chia. One option: mix it up, have it milled on your cereal sometimes and as chia puddings other times. Last week’s video on omega 3s.
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References:
liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089...
sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Disclaimer: The contents of this video are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, nor to replace medical care. The information presented herein is accurate and conforms to the available scientific evidence to the best of the author's knowledge as of the time of posting. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions regarding any medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of information contained in Nutrition Made Simple!.
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