I love tasty gravy. I hate Congress.

I am unwell. Not sick, really, but unwell. I’ve got achy knees, a stiff right elbow, a drippy eye that’s not open all the way, a thumb lump, a smashed baby toe, chills and a body temperature of 95.4°. Put them all together and they spell C-R-A-P-P-Y. There’s not much I can do about it, though, aside from extra-strength Tylenol and whining at Sam when he’s around to listen. However, on the plus side ... I haven’t finished watching all my Clark Gable movies from yesterday and I just ordered a bunch of chia seeds and some juicy Kirkland roast beef in a can from Amazon.

Two important items of note:

1. This time I’m trying a different brand of chia seeds. They’re super cheap, they come in convenient jar with a FREE SCOOP, and you even get an extra half-pound of seeds just for fun. Yay, right? 
2. Kirkland (Costco’s store brand) is probably the best canned roast beef on the market if enjoy this kind of shit and it even comes with its own TASTY GRAVY. (I love tasty gravy.)

I’ve got another horror story from the annals of modern medicine. We found out yesterday that my adorable little mother-in-law is in the hospital, severely anemic and receiving blood transfusions due to an ulcer caused by SIDE EFFECTS FROM A PRESCRIPTION MEDICATION. These damn wonder drugs could kill you! Below is a nice photo taken a couple of months ago when Sam was in California. He’s going back for another visit in October and I already miss him.

Some breaking news from our Holy Crap, They’re At It Again department. In case you missed this, here’s the latest brainstorm being pushed by Einstein teabaggers in the House of Representatives: CUT FUNDING FOR OBAMACARE OR WE’LL SHUT DOWN THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT. Congress has until September 30 to pass a budget, and they think this is the best time to wage another fight — for the 41st time! — against a law that’s already helping millions of Americans, including plenty of Republicans, qualify for affordable health insurance coverage.

It’s up to Speaker John Boehner, pictured above with his signature orange spray tan, to decide if he’s going to let the useless dolts in Congress continue to play games with the federal budget. Here at the Howdygram, we’re fed up and ready to kick ass. Therefore … click the link below right now to sign a petition and LET JOHN BOEHNER KNOW THAT SHUTTING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT A VALID ECONOMIC PLAN. Thank you.

Hey. Ever wondered what Wallace Beery would look like in drag? It’s your lucky day! Apparently Beery made a bunch of silent comedies in 1914 dressed up as a character called “Sweedie.” Feast your eyes.

Thank you for reading this.

Thank you in advance from Babs and me.

Wow, everybody ... I just received an email from BARBRA STREISAND. Barbra Streisand! My new best friend — you know, Babs — asked if I would please consider contributing a little dough to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in their ongoing effort to rout the obstructionist Republicans, whose approval rating currently hovers at 16% ... the lowest approval rating EVER. So I’m thinking, holy crap, if Barbra can take a few minutes from her busy schedule of manicures, being amazing and staring at James Brolin to check in with Marcy at Howdygram headquarters, I can donate three stinking dollars to elect more Democrats to Congress. And you can, too! There’s a direct link to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the right sidebar of the Howdygram, or just click here. Thank you in advance from Babs and me.

For your possible interest, with the exception of last-minute electoral emergencies my typical political donation is $3, and I’ll give you three excellent reasons why: 1) three bucks is enough to make a difference; 2) I can contribute to a bunch of worthwhile causes all at the same time; and 3) I don’t want Sam to have a stroke. Although we share the same political viewpoint, Sam isn’t much of an activist and doesn’t get nuts about email from Barbra Streisand. So that’s that.

In other news, I ordered some cool crapola today from Amazon ... a big box of See Clear wipey things for my glasses and a hardcover copy of “The Astaires,” the best-selling biography of Fred and Adele Astaire.

FYI, most people don’t know that Fred and his sister Adele had a hugely successful 30-year dance career together before Fred got to Hollywood in 1933. Thirty years! They started as children and wound up as headliners on Broadway with the Gershwins writing musicals just for them. I can’t wait to read this book. Seriously.

Wow, it’s already after 6 p.m. and I haven’t spent nearly enough time obsessing about dinner! At the moment I’m considering low-carb biscuits, bacon, green olives and chia seed pudding. And soon, because I’m awfully hungry. Thank you.

Epic lows, two days in a row. Holy crap.

Here we go again, people. Yesterday I had a hypoglycemic “episode” following a very nice mid-day nap that resulted in a scary blood sugar low of 45. I actually felt perfectly good until, you know, I suddenly didn’t, and started shaking, slurring my words like a drunk and craving chocolate. I snapped out of it with four emergency chewable glucose thingies and a piece of pizza. Okay, two pieces of pizza.

Unfortunately, I just had another episode, and this one was even scarier. Once again it comes right after my mid-day nap and once again my blood sugar reading is 45. Except this time I don’t get the shakes, I don’t act like I’m drunk and I don’t crave chocolate ... I just meander into the study, open some email and sit here thinking this is really cool, my knees don’t hurt today. I finally decide to test my blood sugar when I start pondering dinner — meatloaf? pickles & biscuits? gefilte fish? — and how much mealtime insulin I’ll need for an injectable hors d’oeuvre.

The point is, I have to be more diligent about self-inflicted hypoglycemia crap by learning to inject less insulin at lunch-time. I get carried away. I’m one of those compulsive types that firmly believes “more is better,” but I guess that’s only true at a Chinese buffet. Holy crap.

Tonight’s big dinner decision: HOMEMADE MEATLOAF. I buy an amazing low-carb meatloaf mix online from Netrition that you blend with 1½ cups of water, two pounds of ground beef and two jumbo eggs. For a little extra hoo-hah I also throw in a package of Lipton onion soup mix and ¼ cup of Guy’s sugar-free barbecue sauce. This stuff is terrific, people.

In case you’re interested, it’s already in the oven with 20 minutes left on the timer, which means you’d better haul ass if you’re coming for dinner tonight. Also on the menu are green olives and low-carb buttered toast with chia seed pudding for dessert.

My final contribution today is this adorable cat video. Apparently the feline in question is familiar with whatever is on TV because she knows exactly when to lunge for the bird on the screen. I love this.

Thank you very much and have a pleasant evening.

Food peril in a modern world: Defending pickles & biscuits.

It probably won’t surprise any of you that the essential crapola in your refrigerator could kill you. The dangers du jour include: 1) overpriced cheese contaminated with Listeria courtesy of Whole Foods; 2) more than 50,000 pounds of ground beef at your favorite warehouse club store contaminated with E.coli bacteria; and 3) bagged salad containing the popular mix of romaine, iceberg lettuce and cyclospora parasites. Although the salad in item three has (so far) poisoned 350 people in 15 states, the FDA can’t exactly tell you which brand of bagged salad to avoid because it actually might be ALL of them.

From my viewpoint, the only safe and healthy meal left on planet earth is PICKLES & BISCUITS, my all-time favorite feast for every occasion. I refer specifically to easy little drop biscuits made from CarbQuik and water (the recipe’s on the box) and juicy Ba-Tampte half-sour pickles. If you care, I have to order my pickles from the KC Kosher Co-op because grocery stores in Dallas don’t sell anything Jewish. You can’t even find a stupid yahrzeit candle around here.

Big news, people ... I applied for my Social Security retirement benefits today! This makes it official: I’m a card-carrying, bona fide OLD LADY now, complete with a cane, corrective shoes, a monthly Social Security check and a leaky bladder. Tonight’s requisite celebration will include a bowl of chia seed pudding and the latest episode of “Project Runway.”

I’ve got a full and happy life. And (as always) another batch of new fonts.

Thank you for reading this.

I either need a hug or Chinese food.

I wonder if anybody ever notices all the teeny tweaks I make to the Howdygram on a regular basis. Today, in case you’re not paying attention, I reduced the size of the banner and lightened the color of my headlines and links from black to charcoal. Try not to get used to it, though, because I’ll probably change it back one of these days.

We did it! We sold our 2001 Saturn this morning! A really pleasant car buyer dude from TexasBuyMyRide.com showed up right on time at 10, jumped the battery, drove the car onto a flatbed truck and handed Sam a wad of cash. We didn’t even have time to get nostalgic about our road trip to Sedona in 2002 (the best vacation EVER) or wave goodbye. I think this is called separation anxiety. I either need a hug or Chinese food.

This morning I was unusually excited about a promotion from Netrition.com advertising some new products ... specifically three new low-carb bread mixes from Dixie Diner that you can bake in your bread machine. Except thank God I read the fine print on Netrition’s website before I ordered them because you have to add a lot of insane ingredients to these things, such as five extra-large eggs and half a pound of butter. For bread? WTF! This crap may be low-carb, but THE FAT AND CHOLESTEROL WILL KILL YOU. The only time I ever added five eggs and half a pound of butter to anything was a lifetime ago when I baked a decadent recipe for BROWNIES.

Sam called from work a couple of hours ago to let me know he might be home really, really late tonight. I’m so bored. I’m also still feeling under the weather (like last night) with that hypothermic body temperature crapola, chills, joint and muscle pain and so on. I want somebody to come over and bring me something wonderful to eat. Like cookies, grilled cheese or Mongolian chicken. And chocolate milk! While I wait for all these good things to happen I’ll probably watch a couple of cute baseball movies from 1933 starring Joe E. Brown: Alibi Ike with Olivia de Havilland and Elmer the Great with Preston Foster and Claire Dodd.

Earlier today I watched another good baseball movie called Death on the Diamond (1934), a damn clever whodunit starring Robert Young and Madge Evans in which a homicidal maniac is murdering the St. Louis Cardinals one at a time ... during baseball games!

The useless Republicans in Congress are at it again. Check out this video clip from Stephen Colbert regarding typical obstructionist GOP horseshit ... this time it’s food stamp funding and the Farm Bill. No kidding, I’d like to whack some of these dickheads unconscious with my cane. TONIGHT.

I need something entertaining to do so maybe I’ll just inject insulin and eat a nice bowl of chia seed pudding. It’s a full life. Thank you for reading this.

This has been a night of frightening food cravings.

That movie I watched last night — Sincerely Yours (1955) starring Liberace and Dorothy Malone — was FABULOUS. Maybe I’m just a sucker for Liberace, but I’ve always thought he was hilarious, genuine and entertaining as hell. I saw him in concert at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1980, back when he dressed in pink fox fur and arrived on stage in a glittered Rolls Royce. Here’s a clip of Liberace from Sincerely Yours for your possible interest. (He was still pretending to be “straight” in those days.)

This has been a night of frightening food cravings. My dinner, which lasted almost two hours, included (in this exact order): 1) hot & sour soup; 2) chia seed pudding; 3) jalapeño shrimp from China City; and 4) Beanit Butter and apricot jelly on low-carb toast smothered with Splenda. I’ll consider it a miracle if I’m not throwing up by midnight.

WTF? George Zimmerman was found NOT GUILTY. American justice is insane.

I don’t think I can write any more tonight. My head hurts, my feet hurt, I’m having a spasm in my left hand and I think I need to watch something funny on TV. Maybe White Cargo (1942), a hilarious drama about hateful men working at a sweaty African rubber plantation at the turn of the 20th century starring Walter Pidgeon, Richard Carlson and — last but not least — Hedy Lamarr as a spray-painted, sex-starved native tart named Tondelayo. Cinema at its finest.

We’re expecting a lot of weather over the next few days! Apparently there’s a dumbass storm front moving across the United States in the wrong direction — i.e., east to west — that’s expected to bring thunderstorms and heavy rain to the Dallas area. Glorioski, people ... rain in Texas! The stormy crap is expected to start Sunday (along with much cooler temperatures) and continue through the end of the week. A screen shot of our forecast from Weather.com appears below in case you think I’m making this up.

Thanks for stopping by. Don’t forget to turn out the lights when you’re done here, okay?

World-class whining. Deal with it.

Know what? It occurs to me that I haven’t indulged in any world-class whining for quite a spell, and I might be overdue. So get comfortable.

The crap du jour is severe joint pain. The key word here is “severe,” because I’m arthritic and experience joint pain to some degree practically all the time, especially in my knees. Unfortunately, I’m convinced now that the culprit is CHIA SEEDS, because the same damn thing happens whenever I start consuming more than a quarter-cup a day on consecutive days. I was under the impression, from reading everything available on the Internet, that one of chia seeds’ many health benefits is their effect as an anti-inflammatory ... except MY reaction is the exact opposite! (Welcome to my world.)

So ... even though I was convinced that chias seeds were my new best friends, I guess I’ll have to cut back to that quarter-cup maximum and probably limit myself to three times a week. The alternative is really too painful to think about. My knees are so awful today that I don’t even want to stand up, and my hands feel like crap, too. Plus my right elbow. And don’t forget ... I’m still walking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame from a plantar fasciitis flare-up in my right heel. This alone would be enough to terrify an entire neighborhood, so I’ll just stay inside with “People’s Court” and pickles & biscuits.

End of whining. Gracias and smooches for putting up with me.

In other news, we’ve got a handyman horsing around in the master bedroom replacing our cracked bay window, Sam is barely conscious after getting home from work this morning at 6 a.m. (holy crap) and I think I might shlep my bones into the kitchen to bake a loaf of low-carb bread so I’ll have something wonderful to eat today. Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to floss, okay?

It’s official. My clients are making me crazy.

I haven’t posted for a couple of days. I know, I know, sue me. I’ve had issues, okay? And in addition to issues, I’ve also been exceptionally preoccupied with all of the following activities.

SAM’S BIRTHDAY AT THE CHOCTAW CASINO. We drove up to Durant, Oklahoma, yesterday and celebrated Sam’s 54th with a trio of TERRIFIC NEW PENNY SLOTS and the lunch buffet that included all of my favorites: pea salad, sugar-free pie and SUGAR-FREE CHEESECAKE! Holy crap! For your possible interest the aforementioned terrific new penny slots are pictured below. We broke even yesterday, which is actually pretty cool for a big day of fun that also included lots of better-than-average food.

ANOTHER LOUSY PLANTAR FASCIITIS FLARE-UP. I had to rent an electric scooter yesterday at the casino because the pain in my right heel was excruciating and I didn’t want to scare people to death crying on my way to the buffet. I’m glad I did this because the overall experience was swell and I never realized how much fun it is to parallel park next to a slot machine.

CONSUMING LARGE QUANTITIES OF CHIA SEEDS. These adorable little things are changing my life! I enjoy a daily pudding made from two cups of Soy Slender soy milk and ¼ cup of chia seeds that poof up and turn into a tasty mucilage (read more). Please try them.

WRESTLING WITH MY WEB DESIGN BUSINESS. It’s official. My clients are making me crazy and I hate ALL of them right now. In an effort to simplify my business and retire by the end of the year, a couple of weeks ago I closed down my overpriced credit card processing account and asked my clients to pay for their website hosting quarterly by check from now on. I’m sad to report that practically nobody remembered to do this (the due date is tomorrow) even though I sent out three semi-friendly reminder emails. I want to whack all of them in the head collectively with my cane.

MY NEW LAMPS ARE HERE. You know, the ones I ordered a few days ago (see earlier post) from Kirklands.com. Sam hasn’t assembled them yet but I plan to start annoying him to death immediately after dinner.

We’re having some deliciously unseasonable weather here in the Dallas area! I’m talking COLD FRONT, people ... 15 degrees below average with temperatures mostly in the upper 80s! This is both awesome and thrilling as hell because we’re usually frying around here by the first of July. Ask anybody. Two years ago we had 70 straight days of 100+ temperatures that began before Memorial Day and killed 15% of the trees in north Texas. And all of those trees are still dead!

More local news! First, professional wrestler “Doink the Clown” died on Friday at a local hospital here in the Dallas area. Police officers said 55-year-old Matt Osborne was taken by ambulance after he was found unconscious inside his apartment in Plano. It’s entirely possible that he scared himself to death. 

Second, the Taco Bell on Broadway Avenue not far from Howdygram headquarters caught fire early Saturday morning. The restaurant was closed at the time and no burritos were injured in the blaze.

Thank you for reading this.

It’s time to grab a bathing cap and enjoy some Esther Williams movies.

With Sam out of town until next Sunday I’m primed for a great week of guilty pleasure television viewing here at Howdygram headquarters, featuring all the fantastic crap he’d never watch in a million years, such as: 1) That Touch of Mink (1962) starring Doris Day and Cary Grant; 2) The Rains Came (1939) starring Tyrone Power, Myrna Loy and George Brent; 3) In Old Chicago (1937) — the bullshit Hollywood version of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and the Great Chicago Fire — starring Alice Faye, Tyrone Power and Don Ameche; 4) The Reluctant Debutante (1958) starring Sandra Dee, Angela Lansbury and Rex Harrison; and 5) the latest episodes of “Mad Men,” “Real Housewives of New Jersey” and “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover.” Glorioski!

The Rains Came is an outstanding film with terrific performances by some A-list supporting actors, including Nigel Bruce as a Myrna Loy’s evil jerk of a husband and Maria Ouspenskaya as the chain-smoking Maharani. Incidentally, if anybody knows why Myrna Loy has arms like a fat Negro woman (see above) please send me an email as soon as possible. Thank you.

In addition to all of the above, TCM will show its entire Esther Williams film library on June 13 and 14 and I recommend that you make plans to record a few of her movies! My personal favorites are Thrill of a Romance (1945) with Van Johnson and Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) with Victor Mature. Grab a bathing cap and enjoy the show, okay? A portrait of Esther and Van from Thrill of a Romance appears below. (In case you haven’t heard the news, Esther Williams died a few days ago. I’ll be sitting shiva in the bathtub.)

Know what I bought today on Amazon.com? Another two-pound sack of chia seeds and a Kohler Flipside showerhead ... advertised as FOUR SHOWERS IN ONE! Four!

According to Kohler’s promotional crapola, the Flipside showerhead “allows you to enjoy the spray that best fits your needs. Koverage is a full spray that is perfect for everyday use, while Kotton releases a dense, soft downpour that resembles a spa spray. Komotion and Kurrent are ideal for massaging the body, with Kurrent offering a targeted massage spray and Komotion delivering a full-face spray in an exhilarating, circular pattern that relaxes and refreshes.” I don’t know about you, but this thing sounds freakin’ INCREDIBLE.

Just in case you didn’t know, this month it’s been SIX YEARS since I quit smoking. There’s a secret to quitting: You’ll never do it unless you absolutely, positively WANT TO. I smoked a pack a day for 42 years (starting when I was 14 years old) and couldn’t answer the phone or sit down in a restaurant without lighting up. I finally quit cold turkey in 2007 when Sam and I bought Howdygram headquarters and I swore I would never turn our dream house into a nicotine pit. The day we wrote the check for our down payment I threw my More menthols into the dumpster and never looked back. I didn’t get the shakes, I didn’t try to rip anybody’s head off, I didn’t crave a cigarette, I didn’t need nicotine patches or nicotine gum or hypnosis or support groups or Sara Lee cheesecake. Six years later I’m still smoke-free and our house smells like those little lilac Yankee Candle electric air freshener thingies. For decades I was the only smoker in my family and the last smoker in my circle of friends. If I can do it, people, ANYBODY can do it. Hooray for me and thank you for reading this.

Let’s talk chia seeds!

Chia seeds are an ancient Aztec “superfood” with a ton of soluble fiber and more protein than any other grain, more omega-3 fatty acids than any other plant food (including flax) and contain three times the calcium of milk, twice the potassium of bananas, three times the iron of spinach and three times the antioxidants of blueberries. They’re great for hydration and absorb 10 times their weight in water, they slow how the body converts carbs into simple sugars (fantastic for diabetics like yours truly), they lower your blood pressure and they contain a complete amino acid chain on par with meat or eggs. Holy crap, right?

As a bonus, chia seeds are adorable and look like poppy seeds (see inset, below). They poof up in liquid and turn into a gel that’s similar to mucilage.

My favorite way (so far) to eat these little treasures is in an easy homemade pudding that reminds me of tapioca. Here, for your possible interest, are several different chia seed recipes, but all of them use the same basic directions, which appear at the end.

Pudding for One
Moosh together 2 tablespoons of chia seeds, your favorite sweetener and 
1 cup of liquid. You can use any kind of plain or flavored milk (soy, almond, cow), lemonade or fruit juice.

Nice Fake Tapioca
Use 2½ cups of plain soy or almond milk, ½ cup of chia seeds, your favorite sweetener, 
½ teaspoon of cinnamon 
and ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
. Try very hard not to eat this all at the same time. Trust me.

Raspberry Chia Seed Jam
Thaw and drain 12 oz. of frozen raspberries and mix with 2 tablespoons of honey and 3 tablespoons of chia seeds. Refrigerate for at least half an hour. As a diabetic I don’t eat fresh fruit (too many carbs) or honey, but this recipe sounded so damn good I thought I’d include it, anyway, in case you’re interested. 

As promised, here are the basic directions:

Whisk everything together in a bowl or jar and then repeat the process after about 15 minutes so the seeds don’t clump at the bottom. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or overnight.

And now ... a word of caution. From everything I’ve read about chia seeds the recommended daily portion is about two tablespoons. As you might expect with an undisciplined food addict like yours truly, on day one I made a huge quantity of chia seed pudding (3 cups of Soy Slender chocolate soy milk with ¾ cup of chia seeds) and ate the whole damn bowl watching “People’s Court.” Two hours later this resulted in a weird hypoglycemic episode — VERY low blood sugar — and severe joint pain, although I eventually determined that my joint pain was due to weather conditions that included tornado warnings and thunderstorms.

Chia seeds are relatively cheap and you can buy them online at Amazon.com. Thank you for reading this.

The only things a Smart Stick can’t do? Shmear cream cheese on a bagel and turn on the dishwasher.

I can’t sleep. I woke up at 4:45 for my old-lady-middle-of-the-night shlep to the bathroom and never went back to bed because I’m really excited about FOUR MAJOR EVENTS. These are: 1) the Howdygram’s makeover; 2) discovering chia seeds; 3) an appraiser is coming over this morning regarding our re-fi; and 4) you don’t want to miss Behind the Candelabra this Sunday on HBO.

To celebrate all of the above I just ordered a stainless steel Cuisinart Smart Stick immersion blender from Amazon. Glorioski! The Smart Stick does practically EVERYTHING and includes a chopping attachment and a whisk attachment. The only things it can’t do are shmear cream cheese on a bagel and turn on the dishwasher, but how much can a person expect for $39.95?

I watched one of my all-time favorite movies yesterday. It’s Night Must Fall, a thriller from 1937 starring Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell and Dame May Whitty. Holy crap, people, it’s FANTASTIC. Every time I watch this film I get so sucked into the suspense that I can’t even finish my gefilte fish. I think this was probably the best performance of Robert Montgomery’s career. Dame May Whitty was really swell, too.

It’s after 7 a.m. and I’m officially hungry and thirsty, a clear indication that it’s the perfect time for a sightseeing trip to the kitchen. Thank you for reading this. In the meantime, stay tuned for the whole scoop about chia seeds in another post later today. (With pictures.)

If I could figure out how to sleep and eat at the same time life would be perfect.

I decided not to write a Howdygram post yesterday to wish you a happy Mother’s Day because I’m not your mother. I’m not anybody’s mother. Basically, I spent the entire day involved in one of the following fulfilling activities: 1) sleeping; 2) eating things; and 3) watching Tiger Woods win the Players Championship on TV. Tiger appears below, holding a wad of crystal that’s either an ugly trophy or a pretty good vase. You pick.

After Tiger’s big payday — $1.7 million for four rounds of golf — Sam and I watched Tormented (1960), a shlocky one-star movie starring Richard Carlson and a supporting cast of nobodies. The plot involves an island with a few decent beach houses and a ghost named Vi who was once a sleazy nightclub singer with big pointy boobs. Vi comes back to haunt her “ex,” a jazz pianist played by Richard Carlson (inset, below), by leaving a trail of seaweed, her wristwatch and wet footprints everywhere she goes. (I’m serious.) None of this falls into the “horror” category by any stretch of the imagination and is frightening in no way whatsoever. Tormented should have been named Holy Crap, This Is Unbelievably Stupid.

It’s 10:45 Monday morning and Sam is on his way to Costco to buy a cartload of our biweekly favorites. These include a gigantic tub of pistachios, fresh raspberries, sushi, havarti cheese, peeled hard-boiled eggs and a dozen breakfast burritos. Our Howdygram food-fest is scheduled to commence as soon as Sam gets home although I’m almost too tired to eat right now and might have to choose sleep before food. If I could figure out how to sleep and eat at the same time life would be perfect.

As long as I’m discussing food, please allow me to utter two words that can change your life: CHIA SEEDS. Chia seeds are a high-fiber (and almost zero-carb) “superfood” loaded with Omega-3 fatty acids that lower your blood glucose and blood pressure, optimize your digestive system and stimulate the growth of kinky green hair. (I’m probably kidding about that last part.)

You can sprinkle chia seeds on cereal, yogurt, muffins and oatmeal, but the number one best way to eat them is to make your own CHIA SEED PUDDING because they expand in liquid and poof up like huge, gluey tapioca pearls. The best recipe I’ve found involves two cups of chocolate Soy Slender soy milk, ¾-cup of chia seeds and a few squirts of liquid Splenda all mooshed up in a jar and left in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning you get a pile of fluffy chocolate mucilage, and I LOVE FLUFFY CHOCOLATE MUCILAGE! 

Thank you for reading this.