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Just like many of you, one of my patients also had a confusion regarding similarity of chia seeds and basil seeds. He asked “Are the chia seeds  and sabja seeds / basil seeds same???”

Even many of my dietician friends were also confused.

Thanks to my habit of reading extensively, I already knew the answer.

It was not long before 4 years when I first heard the name of chia seeds while many dieticians across the globe had been using it liberally. Let me share what I learned about both of these miraculous seeds.

✔️Chia seeds are grown and commonly used as food in several countries of western South America, western Mexico, and the Southwestern United States, where as Basil is native to India, and has been cultivated here for more than 5,000 years. Basil is a culinary herb prominently used in Italian cuisine, and also plays a major role in Southeast Asian cuisines of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.There are many varieties of basil the one used in Italian food is sweet basil, as opposed to Thai basil, lemon basil and holy basil , which are used in Asia.

✔️Another difference between both the seeds is their colour. Chia seeds are mottled colour (Spotted or blotched with different shades)with brown,gray ,black and white shades where as basil seeds are always jet black in colour.

✔️Both the seeds are quite different in their shape also. Sabja seeds are not properly oval but tear shaped, where chia seeds are exactly oval shaped seeds.

✔️Though both are hydrophilic (absorb water on soaking) in nature yet sabja seeds absorb more water than chia seeds that is too more rapidly.Chia seeds increase 12 times in size after soaking while sabja seeds increase 30 times in size.

✔️Both are the herbs belong to ‘Mint’ species and considered as “wonder food” with many individual health benefits.