chia seeds

I've been using chia seeds for about two years.  Now and then, I have a day without eating chia seeds and I really notice the difference.

Chia seeds are high in omega 3, providing enough Omega 3 in one ounce for a week. They are high in fiber and protein, too.

My favorite thing about chia seeds is how slowly the body metabolizes them, leaving me feeling sated for a couple more hours than a meal without them.

I put them in my grain-free breakfast muffins. I put them in my heavenly banana-egg-cinnamon-chia seed pancakes (almost no carbs! good for my glucose).

Eating chia seeds helps me need less insulin. Insulin is a tricky medicine. I need it to live, since as a Type I Diabetic, my pancreas is shutting down its ability to make insulin. Yet taking insulin tends to make it very hard to lose weight, a major goal of mine. I continue to steadily lose but it is a lot harder with all the insulin. Chia seeds help me eat less, eat less carbs and, happily, need less insulin.

My chia seed supply is low. I have to reorder but have to wait until the first. I am completely out of money until December first. No turkey dinner buffet from Whole Foods for me this year.  For years, I have gone to WF the day before Thanksgiving to buy a plate of traditional Thanksgiving, and also for Christmas, meal. Not this week! Perhaps it is just as well for I would surely have taken a scoop of stuffing -- carbs, carbs, carbs.

My organic baker pal said to me, yesterday (she lives in Santa Cruz), "Even if you don't have a family, you should be able to find a family of friends to have holiday meals with."

"I know, you'd think so. But I have spent all holidays alone since my daughter left me. I used to ask friends to invite me. People who do family things don't seem very comfortable including an Elisiah or two in their family meals."

Then she said "But many people have gatherings of friends, take in friends who would be alone. Seems to me Berkeley would be a great place for such hospitality."

"I think it is but something about me blocks me."  I didn't go into my sorrow. 

I deliberately kept my head down and did my best to ignore the holiday season, which I took to calling the holiday hellhole when 'Rosie left me. I haven't used the phrase holiday hellhole for a couple years. That's some improvement, altho in recent weeks, with holiday jingles feeling more assaultive than usual, I have heard myself thinking "Hunker down, babe, and keep to yourself, avoid the hell of the holiday hellhole."  The hole is no daughter.

One thing I really hate:  when a friend brings up the holidays, maybe just to say "Happy Thanksgiving" my heart uncontrollably leaps with hope, thinking  maybe they are going to ask me what I am doing and when they hear I will be alone, they'll invite me". I fell for that leap of hope for years. Now I hate it when friends mention 'the holidays'.

I don't celebrate 'the holidays'. I stay home alone, eating a raw green smoothie with chia seeds this year.

At least I have chia seeds. Actually I have plenty of food in the house. Wild salmon, squash. For some reason, I bought two butternut squashes yesterday. Visions of a curried swuash soup danced in my head. If I keep feeling better, I might actually make that soup. Otherwise, I'll just bake the squash.

rambling, eh?