As many of you know I’m a big fan of chia seeds. They make an awesome egg replacer for baking, are delicious stirred into smoothies, yoghurt and porridge and are fab sprinkled over salads and in granola. So I was super excited to receive this wonderful bundle of goodies from The Chia Co to try.

Chia is the richest source of plant based Omega 3, protein and fibre and is also full of vitamins and minerals so they’re a great food to include in your diet. The Chia Co are an Australian based company growing chemical-free, sun ripened chia and as well as producing packets of the seeds themselves they also make two awesome chia-based products to go – chia pods and oats+chia.

I was sent a big packet of chia seeds, four chia pods – vanilla bean extract and blueberry flavours, and the apple spice and mixed berry Oats+chia sachets.

So starting with the seeds – I use chia a lot so I used these seeds in my recent peanut butter brownie recipe (recipe here)

I also sprinkled them in my granola, used them in my quinoa porridge (recipe here) and added them to my smoothie. The smoothie was based on this recipe here from Colette’s Fitness Kitchen – 2 large bananas, 1 tbsp cashew butter, 2 cups soya milk, 2 scoops of Pure Form Vanilla Protein Powder, 1tbsp chia seeds, 1 tsp each of cinnamon, raw cacao and coffee and a cup of ice – blitzed together! Yum! 🙂

So as you can see I LOVE using chia and these seeds from the Chia Co are fab! They’re beautifully packaged in a resealable pack and they also make them in little individual sized ‘shot’ portions which are perfect to take with you on the go!

Now on to the Chia pods! These are a serving of chia seeds, coconut milk and fruit (or vanilla extract) – all good and dairy free. I tried both flavours and although I thought I’d prefer the vanilla one the mixed berry was definitely my favourite. The vanilla one was good but I could only manage half this generous portion in one go – it was so creamy and rich.

The blueberry one though was divine! I polished that up super quick! The addition of the real fruits really made this and lightens it up. It makes a fab brekkie, pud or post workout snack. They’re in really secure portable packaging too, with a spoon, so are easy to pop in your gym bag or handbag, or lunchbox.

My absolute favourites of the products I tried though we’re the Oats+chia sachets. These are single serve sachets of chia, oats, coconut oil and real fruit which you just need to add water too. You can either add hot water directly to the contents of the pack, or you can add cold water (using the empty sachet to measure the amount needed – a feature I loved!) and then microwave it.

The portions don’t look very large when you open them so I was a little worried to begin with.

But once you add the water and let it sit for a minute as per the instructions it bulks up to a decent portion and it’s so lovely, creamy and filling that it really is the perfect amount. The apple spice flavour was delish – plenty of spices and real chunks of apple made this super tasty and filling. I had it as a post workout snack and it filled me up perfectly. I threw a blueberries on top but it would be just as nice without.

The mixed berry flavour was my favourite once again – super creamy but wig a lovely tartness from the berries. I had this for brekkie and added extra berries and toasted almonds. It really didn’t need these either but I was feeling decadent! 🙂

So all in all I’m really impressed. The Oats+chia sachets are definitely my favourite (well aside from the seeds themselves which are super useful for loads of things!). They’re a great portion size, are filling and full of flavour. They’re also really quick to make up and are so much better than other similar instant oat products which are full of sugar and artificial flavours etc. I can’t wait to try the banana and mango, and blueberry and lemon flavours! Oats+chia are available from Ocado.

The pods were fab too – especially the blueberry one. I’m hoping the mango and banana flavours will be just as yummy! The pods are available from Tescos, Waitrose, Whole foods Market, Planet Organic and some local health stores.

The seeds are available from lots of suppliers. For more info about the products and stockists check out http://www.thechiaco.com.au or http://www.facebook.com/thechiaco 🙂

Do try them and let me know what you think too! 🙂