Healthy and fit with Chia

Nutrition expert Barbara Simonsohn explains what makes the miracle seeds so valuable for us

The sacred oilseed of the Aztecs is no longer an insider tip for marathon runners, but everyone can benefit from its advantages. The high concentration of nutrients makes people healthy, keeps them physically and mentally fit and gives healthy people even more energy, stamina and a good mood.

Chia Power – increasingly popular
Superfood is very trendy. And so the little power seeds of the chia plant have long since come over to us from across the pond with the health and fitness wave. Not only organic shops or health food stores, but even discounters now have the power grains, which originally come from Central America, in their range. Recently, many bakeries have also started offering chia bread, which contains a veritable cornucopia of nutrients in addition to its pleasant nutty taste.
One of the first people to recognize and publicize the potential of chia in Germany was the well-known health author Barbara Simonsohn. Her book "Chia Power" (Windpferd-Verlag), published in 2014, is now considered a standard work on the subject. The new compact guide from Mankau-Verlag summarizes all the essential information and results of scientific studies on chia as a food and medicinal product and inspires you to create your own creations with delicious recipes and suggestions for muesli, smoothies, soups or salads with chia.

The forgotten superfood
The cultivation of "chia", which means "strength, power, energy" in the Aztec language, has been documented since 3500 BC. For the indigenous people living in what is now Mexico and Guatemala, chia was more than just an important staple food: whole chia seeds were used by the Aztecs as medicine for easier births, for pneumonia, sunburn and many other illnesses, as an energy source for long-distance runners, messengers and warriors, and were also processed into flour. In addition, baked goods made from chia were consumed in religious rituals and sacrificed to the gods. This kind of "devil's stuff" was eventually banned by the Spanish conquerors from Christian Europe, so that for a long time chia could only be cultivated secretly and was almost forgotten.
It was not until the end of the 20th century, when Tarahumara Indians from Mexico, who traditionally ate chia, won marathons in the USA, that it began its triumphant march around the world. The plant was rediscovered thanks to a US research and development aid project that originally aimed to research the living conditions of various crops in detail. At that time, the total area of ​​chia cultivation had shrunk to just over 250 hectares. Due to this centuries-long suppression, chia has hardly been cultivated, and so today we can share in its original vitality and nutrient density, just like the Aztecs and Mayas.

High-performance food for more joy in life
In the USA, chia has been a hit with fitness and health fans since the 1990s. But it's not just stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Orlando Bloom who swear by the concentrated power of the small seeds. Athletes, women, managers, parents, seniors, children and young people - they all benefit from the power seeds, which contain precisely the substances that our modern diet is increasingly lacking: fiber, valuable omega-3 fatty acids, high-quality protein, minerals, vitamins, antioxidants and bioflavonoids or plant-based substances. Chia thus protects against burnout, heart disease, depression, dementia, diabetes, obesity and premature aging processes. The body and brain finally get high-performance food.
"With chia, we eat in a way that is appropriate for our species and our brain, and in doing so we are doing justice to our species, which has evolved successfully for millions of years," says the holistic health expert. Nutritional studies have found that chia is the richest source of omega-3 fatty acids and fiber in the entire animal and plant kingdom. In addition, this superlative plant contains six times as much calcium as milk, 14 times as much magnesium as broccoli, seven times as much vitamin C as oranges, five times as much folic acid as spinach, three times as much vitamin E as olive oil, twice as much protein as soybeans, eight times as many minerals as rice and more iron than beef liver. It's no wonder that chia not only improves nutrition in the long term, but simply gives you more vitality and zest for life.

Book tip:
Barbara Simonsohn: Chia. Compact guide. Fit and slim with the power food of the Aztecs. With delicious recipes. Mankau Verlag, 1st edition May 2016, paperback, full color, 95 pages, 7.99 euros (D) / 8.20 euros (A), ISBN 978-3-86374-296-6.

Link recommendations:
More information about "Chia. Compact Guide"
To the reading sample in PDF format
More about the author Barbara Simonsohn
To the Internet forum of Mankau Verlag