Chias: More than Food

Fruit and vegetables should be a part of everyone’s daily diet, but when your Neopet gets hungry, don’t mistake one of these little guys for a tasty and healthy snack. These cute variations are not to be eaten and if you want to help save the Chias, then you should take a look at who’s who in the fruit and vegetable world to get a better understanding of what foods you should be checking while feeding your pets. First, let's take a look at the fruits. You have your common: Apple, Blueberry, Grape, Lemon, Lime, Orange, Pineapple, Peach, Pear, Plum, and Tomato. These little guys tend to be mistaken for food quite often, so owners, beware and protect! Now as for the uncommon ones (and I mean uncommon to some, but not all countries) you have the Durian and the Gooseberry.

When it comes to the vegetable Chias, there are not as many but they are just as important and need our help in recognizing them. The vegetable Chias include the Asparagus, Aubergine (which look a lot like eggplants if you ask this scientist), Avocado, Carrot, Chokato, Onion, Pea and Pepper. Now if you’ve been paying close attention, you will have noticed that the Thornberry Chia has been left out. Or has it? I simply did not place this special one into a category because, well as a scientist knows, all fruits have seeds which coincidentally means that some “vegetables” are really fruits (but I digress), without breaking open one of these adorable creatures, I simply do not know whether to call him a fruit or a vegetable although I have a strange suspicion that he is indeed a fruit.

Next, when deciding on what color to give your beloved Chia, we have Morphing Potions which include Purple, Blue, Yellow, Stripped, Christmas, Green, Fire, White and Mutant (aka, Transmogrification Potion). Why a morphing potion, you ask? Well, what if you have this super awesomely cool non-Chia pet already? Simply give it one of these and that’ll fix everything right up! The only thing, though, what color to paint it?! If you are lucky enough to have a large stash of NP, one of these could solve your problems. But what if there isn’t a morphing potion for the color you’ve always wanted? Then look no further than the Shop Wizard, Trading Post, or the Auction House to find just the paint brush you need. Or simply use the convenient Lab Ray to zap away for that perfect color if you already have all the pieces. But be warned, the Lab Ray is known to do all sorts of things to your pets, so take caution when using it. As a LR user myself, I have seen my beautiful pets go from level 40 back down to 1, my boys turn into girls and vice versa and a number of other crazy things...

So, you’ve narrowed it down to a Fruit or Vegetable, but you don’t want to risk the LR, so what do you do? You head on over to the Super Happy Icy Fun Snow Shop and do some master Restocking, if you manage to see a Magical Chia Pop before going insane from refreshing. Ok, so this may not be realistic for most Neopians (myself included), now what? Give up hope? No, of course not! Remember how you can obtain paint brushes and other cool items? Head on over to either the Trading Post or Auction House to locate a Magical Chia Pop of your choice, provided you have LOTS of NP as these are very expensive :( But, wait! There’s a SLIGHT catch. Your pet MUST be a Chia in order for these Pops to have an effect, or so I’ve been told, so be careful when feeding these to pets. Another thing to look out for is that unless it says “Magical (Insert fruit or vegetable here) Chia Pop”, they won’t transform your pet, so be careful and always know what exactly you are trading for or bidding on.

There is yet another way to transform your Chia into fruits and vegetables and that is through the Fountain Faerie (currently turned to Stone as I write this). If you are lucky enough to receive a FFQ, be patient if you cannot afford her item that day. This is a powerful quest that not many people receive, or receive lots of, depending on luck. Once the quest is completed you can paint your active pet any color except Msp, Royal, Sponge, Magma, Ice, Quiguki, Usuki or Robot, but all Chia colors are available.

For all other adorable colors for the Chia, head on over to the Rainbow Pool to check them out!

If you happen to be an avid Gourmet Club member, you may have even had your neopet devour Magical Chia Pops; this is a great way to increase that total for foods eaten that count while making your pet even cooler than it was before.

Now that I’ve covered the colors of the Chia, let’s take a look at the Chias in Neopia who make a difference in their own way.

Battledome Challengers:

Mutated Chia: Difficulty 40 –No longer available :/

*Chiazilla: Difficulty 500

*Highland Chia: Difficulty 58

Jelly Chia: Difficulty 125 (Visit the Gallery of Evil for more)

*Chia Clown: Difficulty 10 –Great for all the first time Battledomers.

Cave Chia: Difficulty 58

Kasuki Lui: Difficulty 38

Gormball Challengers:

*Thyassa: The loveable purple Chia competitor. In years 2 (after Brian was disqualified), 3 and 6, he won the tournament, but he has not placed within the top 3 in any other years.

Other Notable Chias:

*Sir Fufon Lui: "Rapscallion! How dare you besmirch my family's good name? En garde, you shameless reprobate..."

Hubrid Nox: Recently included in the Faeries’ Ruin Plot, Nox has made many appearances throughout the site including during the super awesomely fantastic RPG game, Neoquest II. Visit the Gallery of Evil for more on this dastardly villain.

*Mika and Carassa: The two owners of the Igloo Garage Sale Venue and stars of the game, Igloo Garage Sale.

Squire Venable: This Food Club challenger loves to eat breads and is allergic to fruits.

Minae Mitora: Team Terror Mountain in the Altador Cup

* Go visit the resourceful Neopedia for more information.

Avatars and Games:

Chia Bomber: You play as a Chia trying to save this world from invading Chias. Score high for this avatar.

Feed Florg: Your objective is to keep petpets on the table until Florg (the mutant Chia) eats them! How terrible... Send in a high score for the snazzy avatar (249 is my high score unfortunately; do you have what it takes?).

Super Pea: Equip a Super Attack Pea to your Pea Chia.

Ice Cream Machine: Play as a Chia trying to escape from giant ice cream blobs as they zoom past you. Earn a high score for this avatar.

Kasuki Lui: Defeat Kasuki Lui in the Battledome.

Igloo Garage Sale: You play as Mika, catch the sale items as Carassa throws them down to you, but be careful, there are many objects that can hurt you!

Carnival of Terror: Blast the Chia clowns and watch out for those pies in this Haunted Woods game.

Cell Block: The Yellow Knight is your opponent in Round 4 in Master Vex’s mind game.

Defenders of Neopia: Mission 3 in Series 1, you face the dreaded Cave Chia; can you save Neopia once more?

Jolly Jugglers: Play as Jolly and Olly in this epic quest to save your sister from a Mutant Chia.

Showdown Shootout: Only available during the Altador Cup each year, aim your soccer ball and try to score a goal around this Chia goalie.

Avatars with a Chia featured:

Mad About Orange: Although the orange items needed do not have to be Chia related, the avatar sports a cute orange Chia once achieved.

Valentine Chia: Send the Neogreeting, Puppyblew –I love you, on Valentines day for this avatar (again, it only pictures a Chia, but hey, this article is all about Chias, isn’t it?).

Bleh!!: View the New Layout Explanation Page.

Do Not Eat!!: Feed your pet an item with the word Carrot in it, but please, don’t mistake a Neopet for food.

From books to food, to plushies, there is something Chia themed for everyone, even if you aren’t crazy about Chias. Now that you’ve read this far, what was the point of writing this, you may ask? Well, if you check out Jules1891’s petpage and scroll down a ways, you can see that there are six fruit and vegetable Chias that I hope to own one day. Also, I believe that every pet should have its own article written about it to show how special each species of Neopians are and I just thought the Chia deserved to be written about. :)

Thanks for reading!

-Zoologynerd

PS. If you’re reading this, then yay! I made it into the Neopian Times, thank you again for reading.