[pct-l] Chia seeds

[Scott Williams]

Great idea to keep some dried lemon with the Chia Marcia.  I also have chia
in my morning cereal.  Mine is not a drink, but I learned it from Smiles, a
Swiss mountaineer and a vegetarian who is the strongest person I ever hiked
with and one of the few people who did not lose weight over the summer on
the PCT.  I'm not a vegetarian, but her diet showed me you can do it very
well on a vegetarian diet.

Breakfast is soaked in a ziplock bag overnight and is ready to eat in the
morning with no cooking:

2 oz mixed rolled grains, oats, barley, wheat, spelt, kamut and rye or
whatever else I can find rolled.
2 oz mixed nuts
2 oz mixed dried fruit
1 Tablespoon chia seeds
cinnamon
fresh yogurt cultured from Nido begun the day before.

I kept the yogurt culture going all the way to Montana on the CDT and then
needed to start with some fresh yogurt as it was starting to taste a bit
like milk wine.  Wild yeasts will eventually contaminate the lactobacillus
bacteria.

The fruit adds a wonderful sweetness and like Terry, it's so filling and
delicious I usually make it to lunch with no need for a snack.  Rolled
grains, seeds, fruit and nuts are all full of fiber and chunky in nature,
all of which helps slow down the body's ability to break them down and get
the calories out of them, hence a really slow release of energy all morning
long.  No highs and lows, just a steady burn.  It's also the only meal I
never got tired of.  It's delicious.

Back in the '60s, I found Edward K. Balls' book, *Early Uses of California
Plants*, in which he states that the native population of the West could go
all day long on marches with only a tablespoon of chia per day.  I always
carried it on backpacking trips after that, but never put it into my
regular meals until reading Born to Run and like Marcia, it's been a daily
part of my diet ever since, on and off trail.  I don't think I'd make it on
a forced march on one tablespoon, but it was an impressive enough claim to
keep me interested in chia ever since.

Shroomer



On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 8:14 PM, GottaWalk <gottawalk at pacbell.net> wrote:

> I first read about chia seeds in "Born to Run". The Tarahumara runners in
> Copper Canyon Mexico mixed chia seeds, water and lime juice for a drink on
> their ultra long runs.
>
> On thru hikes when the temperature of the air and my drinking water exceed
> my body temp I cannot slake my thirst regardless of the amount of water I
> drink. This last summer I added about a teaspoon each of chia seeds and
> lemon juice to my 18 ounce water bottle. The texture of the  mixture was
> sort of like bubble tea in that the seeds had a slippery texture but there
> weren't enough to thicken the water. What a refreshing drink even when it
> was hotter than body temp!
>
> I want to use this mixture on the PCT next summer. The easiest lemon
> addition that I have tried is to zest the peel of a lemon, dry it and carry
> the crumbs in with the chia seeds and add both at the same time to my water.
>
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