Introducing Chia De Gracia

Chia De Gracia is Finnish horse supplement company that has taken over the Finnish equine world by storm. One by one, nearly all of my horsey friends have been converted into Chia lovers, and the Chia seeds have thus been named as an "equine superfood" over here. Chia De Gracia followed me on Instagram and checked out my blog, and then contacted me asking if I would be interested in trying out Chia seeds on Vallu or any of the other horses. As I've said, literally every horse owner in Finland swears by these, so of course I wanted to try it out.

What I love about the idea of Chia seeds is that it is all natural and contains a ton of vitamins and minerals. Having done the Coursera online course on Equine Nutrition, I've been very interested in reading up about Chia. Chia has vitamins A, B, B1, B2, B3, B9 and B12, vitamin C and E, calcium, phosphorus and iron, so basically a whole bunch of goodies to make your horse feel better!

"Chia Seed is an ancient wonder food—a whole food source of balanced ratios of vitamins, minerals and Omega oils."

Chia has wide range of benefits: (* marks what I think would be helpful for Vallu)

- shiny and healthy coat *

- faster growth and stronger hooves *

- prevention of laminitis and insulin disorders

- boost for the immune system and resistance to disease *

- is good for respiratory system *

- calms hot and nervous horses *

- facilitates and regulates estrus cycle of mares

- promotes healing of joint and connective tissue damage *

- stimulates the nervous system, brain, muscles and bone development *

- repairs and maintains cell walls *

- anti-inflammatory effect *

- promotes wound healing

- supports heart function and blood flow *

- reduces effect of allergies

- increases metabolism *

In a 100g of Chia seeds, there is 400mg of magnesium, something which I have been feeding Vallu for well over a year now, just to take the edge off him. Magnesium also helps with the horses's muscles so that they don't get cramps after intense training periods (e.g. lessons and competitions) And the high amount of Omega 3 fatty acids is also meant to help with "calming the nervous system" so I'll be rather interested to see if it has any effect on him.

For those who can read Finnish 

So the product is promising a lot. If the Chia seeds happen to help Vallu with even some of these, then I will take my hat off to Chia De Gracia and start preaching to everyone about these.

I'll come back in a month and tell you guys if it's worked its wonders.

If you want more to read go check out Chia De Gracia's website HERE and here are some other articles that are rather interesting:
Holistic Horse article
Natural Horse Network