Chia

Description

Salvia hispanica, commonly known as chia is a species of flowering plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae, native to central and southern Mexico and Guatemala. It is considered a pseudocereal, cultivated for its edible, hydrophilic chia seed, grown and commonly used as food in several countries of western South America, western Mexico, and the southwestern United States. Chia is an annual herb growing up to 1.75 metres (5 feet 9 inches) tall, with opposite leaves that are 4–8 cm (1+1⁄2–3+1⁄4 in) long and 3–5 cm (1+1⁄4–2 in) wide. Its flowers are purple or white and are produced in numerous clusters in a spike at the end of each stem. Chia is hardy from USDA Zones 9–12. Many plants cultivated as S. hispanica are in fact Salvia lavandulifolia. Typically, the seeds are small ovals with a diameter around 1 mm (1⁄32 in). They are mottle-colored, with brown, gray, black, and white. The seeds are hydrophilic, absorbing up to 12 times their weight in liquid when soaked. While soaking, the seeds develop a mucilaginous coating that gives chia-based beverages a distinctive gelatinous texture. Chia is grown and consumed commercially in its native Mexico and Guatemala, as well as Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Northwest of Argentina, Parts of Australia, and the southwestern United States. New patented varieties of chia have been bred in Kentucky for cultivation in northern latitudes of the United States. During the 1980s in the United States, the first substantial wave of chia seed sales was tied to Chia Pets. These "pets" come in the form of clay figures that serve as a base for a sticky paste of chia seeds; the figures then are watered and the seeds sprout into a form suggesting a fur covering for the figure. About 500,000 chia pets a year are sold in the US as novelties or house plants.