I get organic chia seeds at Costco.

I hadn't thought of Costco! I'll check there later this week. Thanks, Elba1.

I buy Chia seeds from Amazon.com have been very happy with these seeds

SandyTroy
Which chia seeds have you bought from Amazon? They have several, with a variety of ratings.

I've seen them in our local Bulk Store

Two kinds of wild rice. Farmed "wild" rice and real wild wild rice. They are different.

dcarch

Have you checked at your grocery store? Ours have them, but there might not be enough call where you live. OTOH, with the internet trends move much faster, and they might be there!

I can buy chia and wild rice locally, in our small tri-city area or in nearby Louisville, KY. In bulk at a couple of stores and packaged at several. Both run $10-$15 a pound.

Just wondered about ordering on line vs buying locally.
Do most of you buy locally if you can in preference to ordering on line? Or is there a great on-line source I do not know?

How good a deal is chia and Minnesota wild rice in bulk for $10 a pound?

Dcarch--
I know of two kinds of wild rice: the Minnesota kind and a kind with larger, longer grains. Is that what you meant? Both kinds are available locally in bulk, for $11 and $14 a pound. I have a friend who brings me the Minnesota wild rice for a lot less per pound when she goes home to the northern lake country.

I buy chia at nuts.com and Lucky Vitamin. The lowest price I have found is Chosen Foods at $5.99 per pound bag sold by Lucky Vitamin.

I've purchased from on-line sources for so many years, it's nice to see them finally sold locally. I normally purchase at least 5-pounds of them every 12-18-months. My last big purchase was from Nuts.com, like so many other.

Next time:

Sam's Club - Organic Chia Seeds- $12.98 / 2-pounds (yes, that's right, TWO pounds :)

This beats the heck out of the bulk food bin at the grocery store for $13.99/per pound.

I splurged and purchased a pound of White Chia Seed from Swanson (reg. $12.99/pound but I had a 20% off coupon) to use when I don't want the dark seeds in a light-color food / baked goods.

For wild rice, a friend brings me some when she visits her daughter up north someplace. Free is a great price..... :-)

-Grainlady

Thank you, Grainlady.
I no longer have a Sam's Club membership, but I do have a Costco membership, and Elba1 mentioned getting chia seeds there. I will check that out.
I considered white chia seeds, but find I like the sprinkle of black ones in the bread where I usually use them. I do use white sesame seeds though!
Nice if they have wild rice as well! I'll post here if I find either there.
I don't know Swanson. I'll check them out.

I buy a heck of a lot of stuff online, including products that I used to be able to get at the store, which have been discontinued. :) My pantry space is limited, however, so I'd rather buy grains and seeds from the local stores' bulk bins or packages if I can get the quality I want there. There is an environmental advantage to buying locally (shipped by the pallet beats shipped by the box), but otherwise, it's all about what works best for you. I didn't realize that you were looking for online sources specifically. :)

DH no longer likes buying from bulk food bins. He is worried about contaminants from other people's hands. We have seen some fairly weird stuff. Coughing on hands then handling the scoop is the least of it.

Plllog
I am not really interested in just on line sources. I AM interested in when you folks who have a lot more experience and knowledge than I do opt for on-line and when you go to local sources.

I am lucky to have a fairly large urban area close to me. There is a lot of bulk food available. But I am also on line, where there are many choices.

I really just wanted to know what your preferred sources were and why. (I realize I neglected to ask WHY in my original post.) Is the WHY availability? Or is it quality?

I also realize that with foods like chia seeds and wild rice, freshness is not an issue. (Good storage, of course, is.) I imagine the harvest time comes once a year for both, and whether the grains are stored by me or the seller matters only if one of us does it badly.

So I am interested in where you buy grains like wild rice and chia and WHY you buy them where you do.

Edited to correct a subject/verb agreement error. Hey, we old English teachers always grade our own writing!

This post was edited by Bellsmom on Thu, Feb 5, 15 at 19:54

Our Native Americans do much of the wild rice harvesting here, and it's available all the time and just about everywhere. I usually buy it at one of the local gas stations - $9 and change for a 3# bag.

Chia seeds (as in the ubiquitous Chia Pets?) I don't know about.

The last time I bought chia seeds, I was at a local grocery store called Smith's (owned by Kroger). At the end of an aisle was is the clearance stuff which is marked down considerably with a price tag that says Woohoo. There 3 bags of chia seeds, 12.7 oz for 1.95 each. I grabbed all 3 and said woohoo myself. Otherwise, I have obtained some from bulk bins if they are on sale when I am in that store for something else (Sprouts) or I order from places like Vitacost or nuts.com. I will likely be ordering my wild rice from nuts.com.

Most of the time, my reasoning revolves around what I am already doing. For some of the specialty stores I patronize, I try to only go in when I need several things so I grab them all at that time. If I am already placing an order at Vitacost, I might look around the pantry to see what I need to bring my order up to the required amount for free shipping (I find their prices generally pretty competitive but I still pay attention to make sure I am not overpaying). I will get the rice from nuts.com because I already need to order dried mushrooms and Arborio rice. The majority of my "local" stores are still major corporations and I do plenty of other shopping at them to keep them in business.

Oh! I get it now. I wasn't trying to put you on the spot. Just trying to answer. My favorite place to buy them in smaller quantities (no more than a pound or two at a time) is whichever local grocery store I'm in, for the sake of convenience. Most often, that's Whole Foods. If there's only white in the bulk bins and I want red, I'll buy it in the package on the shelf, and usually check the verbiage for where it was grown and processed. I like the least handled stuff.

OTOH, if I have to drive any distance and search it out, I'd just as soon try Amazon (again, for convenience), and if I don't like what's there, I'll branch out farther online. I'd rather spend five minutes hanging with you guys, and more actually cooking the stuff, than save a dubious dollar (including my gas, depreciation, and time) looking for it cheaper elsewhere.

With the kinds of whole grains and seeds you asked about, I don't see a real quality difference between the brands that I've deigned to buy in the first place. With wheat, there is a protein difference, but I still persevere in making bread from the locally available bulk wheat. I have ordered large bags of the high protein wheatberries which I reserve for pizza. That's not so much a quality difference, though, as a crop difference.

The why for me is I shop local whenever I can. I don't order much on-line; only if there is something I can't find locally and/or at a price I consider reasonable.

BJ's for chia seeds,
they now carry organic seeds, 2lb container for $12.99...
last month they took $3.00 off/clipless coupon...

Bellsmom, I live in MN and as Duliuthinbloom said in her/his post above it sells for $3-4 per pound here for the farmed variety..

If you'd care to send me an e-mail with your address I would be more than happy to sen you some.

Linda