me and my chia

Gosh, it’s been a while since our last post, but that will surely change. I’ve been inspired to start posting again. This post will be a little long winded, but I am very excited and can’t help it!

These days I have been running a lot (have a half marathon in a few weeks). Unfortunately I have a tendency to run too hard, too fast, too long, too soon, and every year I end up hurting myself. This time around I want to do it right, so I started reading all kinds of running books. I hit upon a fantastic book called Born to Run. It is a wonderful tale covering all angles of running, but I don’t want to digress. Simply put, if you like running, read this book.

So, the narrator is on a mission to meet an amazing tribe in Mexico called the Tarahumara that run happily and super humanly their entire lives! He does indeed track them down and before going out for a run they give him a drink called iskiate. I won’t be able to do this justice, so please excuse me as I borrow a paragraph for ya:

Months later, I’d learn that iskiate is otherwise known as chia fresca – “chilly chia.” It’s brewed up by dissolving chia seeds in water with a little sugar and a squirt of lime. In terms of nutritional content, a tablespoon of chia is like a smoothie made from salmon, spinach, and human growth hormone. As tiny as those seeds are, they’re superpacked with omega-3s, omega-6s, protein, calcium, iron, zinc, fiber and antioxidants. If you had to pick just one desert-island food, you couldn’t do much better than chia, at least if you were interested in building muscle, lowering cholesterol, and reducing your risk of heart disease; after a few months on the chia diet, you could probably swim home. Chia was once so treasured, the Aztecs used to deliver it to their king in homage. Aztec runners used to chomp chia seeds as they went into battle, and the Hopis fueled themselves on chia during their epic runs from Arizona to the Pacific Ocean…

He then goes on to take a swig and writes: Maybe the excitement of the hunt had something to do with it, but within minutes, I felt fantastic. Even the low throbbing headache I’d had all morning from sleeping on a frosty dirt floor the night before had vanished.

Hehe…so guess what I put in my oatmeal every morning! Good thing we literally have tons in stock. Chia seeds, we all salute you!

That’s Jonathan (our summer intern) in the middle and me on left after a running race last summer.  Jonathan’s parents surround him (his dad is one of our computer whizzes) and my dad (Kenny) is proudly supporting NutsOnline on the right!