Chia and Flax seeds??

I LOVE chia seeds. Right now, my go to is a light, low sugar vanilla Greek yogurt with a tablespoon of chia seeds. You can add them to lots of stuff. Oatmeal, salads, sprinkle them on peanut butter sandwiches. One thing to note is that they expand in liquid. You can make a "pudding" using an unsweetened almond coconut milk and chia seeds. They thicken the milk up. They're an easy add, but you still need to watch calories. 60 calories in 1 tablespoon. Happy eating!

In baking they are used as a binding agent. Other than that feel free to add them to anything you desire.

Flax seeds need to be ground while chia seeds do not. Once flax seeds are ground, they do have a short shelf life thereafter as the oil can quickly become rancid.

Personally I prefer chia seeds as I can add them straightaway to my food. They have no flavor but provide a pleasant crunch and they are visually appealing like poppy seeds. Walmart sells them in little 1 oz. baggies for $1 if you just want to try them out.

Here's a nutritional comparison article:

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/natural-health/flax-versus-chia-the-ultimate-showdown/

I use both, but tend more toward chia seeds as they can be added to just about anything.

I like to make chia pudding. There's tons of recipes online, but you basically just mix chia seeds with the milk and sweetener of your choice and let it set up in the fridge overnight. It forms a sort of gel that's similar to tapioca pudding, only way higher in protein and fiber. Then, you top the pudding with nuts and berries and all other kinds of yummy stuff.

As for the flax, it's better that you grind them before you use them. Otherwise, you don't digest them, and they just serve as a source of insoluble fiber. When ground, they can be used as a replacement for eggs in baking, blended into smoothies, or be used to comprise part of the flour in recipes. Just make sure that you store the ground flax in your fridge/freezer since the omega-3's in it are pretty fragile and prone to going rancid.

I would definitely suggest buying a smallish package to start... I don't normally have texture issues with food, but something about soaked chia seeds (like in pudding recipes) completely puts me off.

I sprinkle flax seeds on my oatmeal in the am. Helps keep things moving. They will also help lower your cholesterol if you grind them (I just sprinkle whole - they pass mostly undigested).