— Robert Morgan

You know, what I will try to do is grind those items just as finely as I can, and then, you know, add it to the, the, the liquid in question, uh, to take advantage of the gelling effect, right? Of these two ingredients, uh, chia and flax. Now, if you have, uh, other flavorful items in that mix that can stand up against the flavor of, uh, these two items, then you're, uh, you're heading down the right path. But, you know, they, they do have distinctive flavors, and it can be hard to totally, you know, mask it or, you know, overwrite it with other flavors. And I find that there's gonna be some texture. Uh, again, it depends on what it's going into. Sometimes it's, it's, uh, more or less noticeable. Now, the other thing to keep in mind in, in the plant-based world in terms of thickeners, is you've got all of these, uh, refined starch thickeners like tapioca and, and arrow root and corn starch, and other examples that are commonly used. They are very simply mixed with water. It should be cold. It could be another liquid, of course, but, uh, the corn star, for example, is gonna be evenly, uh, distributed, you know, within that, uh, that water. And then that can be added to the pot, right? The, the larger pot of soup or liquid that you want to thicken, remember to bring that up to temperature, to gelatinize the starches, to activate the starches so that you get the thickening effect. And that's typically gonna be at a temperature above 170 degrees Fahrenheit. And the easiest guideline is to just bring that liquid up to a gentle boil for just a short period of time. You know, it might be a, a couple of minutes is usually adequate. Stir that pot to distribute the heat, uh, to ensure, you know, even thickening or gelatin of those starches. Okay? Uh, that's, that's a, a very common approach to using plant-based thickeners.