Flax seeds are good for you. Actually, they are GREAT for you.

Flax seeds are good for so much. There is a ton of research touting the benefits of regularly including ground flaxseeds in our diet (as always, I share references and resources for you below). Flaxseeds are considered One of the Worlds Healthiest Foods.

A few items listed of what research shows Flax seeds support:

Flaxseeds are Good for Your Entire Body!

Simple Self Care Lifestyle TIP:

Add ground flax seed to your day. It’s SIMPLE and provides an EXPONENTIAL payoff!

Let’s run down a quick partial list of what research indicates flax seeds are good for:

Lowering

• Inflammation
• Excess (body fat) weight (4)
• Hypertension (2)
• Cancer risk (1)
• Cholesterol (2)

Improving your:

• Bowel Movements
• IBS (3)
• Mood/Anxiety (5)
• Insulin
• Bone health
• Arrhythmias
• Menstrual cycles
• Vaginal dryness
• Serotonin levels
• Iron Metabolism
• Immune health
• Overall, CELL FUNCTION– precisely what we revolve everything on The Simple Self Care Lifestyle around.

Below is an illustration from The Journal of Food Science and Technology showing the physiological effects of flax seed shared from the study: Flax and flaxseed oil an ancient & modern functional food. The download button provides you with a copy of the study if you’d like to read it.

What is in Flax Seeds That Provides All The Benefits?

For One, An Essential Fat

Flax seeds provide one of the Essential Fats we must consume for our body to have access to it.

What’s so important about the Essential Fat?

• It is found and needed in all our human cells.
• Higher ALA is associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, and lower serum lipids ⁽¹⁾
• It serves as a good source of phosphorous, magnesium, and calcium minerals.

Flax seeds provide Lignans

Flax seeds provide Lignans. As a matter of fact:

researchers now rank flaxseeds as the #1 source of lignans in human diets.

What’s so special about Lignans?

Lignans help protect against cancer by blocking enzymes that are involved in hormone metabolism and interfering with the growth and spread of tumor cells.

How does this work?

Here is an illustration from the study showing how flaxseed works for us. The study is provided for you as well in the resources section.

Flax seeds Are Good For The Intestinal tract

Figure 3

After ingestion, plant lignans are metabolized by intestinal bacteria, undergoing transformation to mammalian lignans (enterolactones and enterodiols (Figure 3)) prior to absorption. This apparently considerably decreases the risk of diverse types of cancer, particularly of the colon, prostate and breast.

Flax seeds are loaded with anti-oxidants

flaxseeds belong high up on our list of antioxidant-rich foods.

They are high in polyphenol antioxidants.

As a matter of fact, according to The Worlds Healthiest Foods flax seeds are higher than fruits like blueberries or olives when it comes to antioxidants!

The antioxidant benefits of flaxseeds have long been associated with prevention of cardiovascular diseases and have recently also been tied to decreased insulin resistance.

Flax seeds promote satiety.

It is very beneficial to our intestinal tract, including promoting satiety. When we have a sense of satisfaction with the amount we eat, we are better able to avoid overeating.

This is extremely helpful because overeating is often a trigger for many common chronic body symptoms, for instance: Fatty Liver and Indigestion.

Flax seeds have beneficial mucilage.

Another BIG deal when it comes to flax seeds is the healing mucilage.

Soothes the membranes of the digestive system and stimulates your own gut to secrete more mucus.

This mucilage property helps slow down the emptying of our stomach contents into our intestines.

This helps to give more time for nutrient absorption in our small intestines.

Protects you against excessive acidity and Ulcer formation.

This mechanism also protects you against excessive acidity and ulcer formation.

To explore more details on how flax seeds benefit us, I’ve linked the above list to research for you.

Plus, as always, I’ll add linked references below.

This way, we can jump to:

How much flax seed?

1 to 2 Tablespoons of ground flax is the typical recommendation.

I’ve always encouraged starting with 1 TEASPOON.

After a few days, increase to 2 teaspoons, and over the first month, work up to the daily 2 TABLESPOONS.

What to do with 2 Tablespoons of ground flax?

– Sprinkle some atop your smoothie/fruit bowl.

• I eat a bowl of plain raspberries and blueberries with flaxseed. I portion out the berries into my bowl that has a lid, sprinkle on the flax, stir, and place in the frig each morning. By later in the day, the frozen berries have melted the flax has gelled. I enjoy the taste, texture, and benefits.

Other ways I use ground flax might be appealing to you like:

• Sprinkled on Roasted Veggies
• On Baked Sweet Potato
• Summer Salads (any Salad)
• In my Smoothie drink
• To thicken Stew meal

I also use ground flax seed as a binder for my meatballs.

The ALA in flax seed (not flax oil) has been found to be stable for at least 3 hours of cooking at oven temperatures (approximately 350F)

Flax seeds are Good as an Egg Replacement too.

Many with egg intolerance use flax seeds in baking.

You don’t need to have an intolerance. You can use flax seeds in your baking to simply get more flax into your diet.

Flax seeds will gel when mixed with warm water- which is why they can act as an egg replacement.

It is good to keep in perspective that the flax seeds are acting as a thickener/binder and are not actually ‘replacing an egg’ and all the fluff/texture egg has to offer.

Our expectations of what gelled flax seeds can do should be realistic.

How to make the flax seed egg

I personally have always used a 1 to 2 ratio.

Looking on the internet, the most often repeated ratio I found was to 1 to 3.

I’d suggest playing around to find what suits your taste buds and texture desires.

Here are the most common directions given:

Mix

• 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed meal with
• 3 tablespoons of warmed water.

Let it sit to gel for 15 min. You can leave it longer without a problem.

The Flax seed Products I use:

All four I have listed below happen to be ground BROWN Flax seeds.

Currently, I buy Bob’s Red Mill Certified GF Brown and Golden seeds by the case. Then grab a bag of the sprouted ones as fresh purchases.

I prefer the sprouted for daily use, but keep the others on hand for use as an egg substitute or when cooking with it. For those times, I use the Bobs Red Mill Certified GF (because we are a GF household)

I will post another article on the best seeds, the difference between golden and brown, as well as how to choose and store them. The below images are links to the brands I personally use.

I hope you come to enjoy the slightly ‘nutty’ taste and the simplicity of incorporating this powerful Self Care Food into your Self Care Lifestyle.

Your CELLS will thank you, as will your intestines, your liver, and, and, and….

Scroll Further down for the References on Flax that I compiled for you.

References for you:

Body System-Specific Research

1. Flaxseeds and breast cancer. Oncology Nutrition DPG. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://www.oncologynutrition.org/erfc/healthy-nutrition-now/foods/flaxseeds-and-breast-cancer

2. Xu B, Xu Z, Xu D, Tan X. Effect of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on ischemic heart disease and cardiometabolic risk factors: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study. BMC Cardiovasc Disord. 2021 Nov 8;21(1):532. doi: 10.1186/s12872-021-02342-6. PMID: 34749668; PMCID: PMC8576934.

3. Reifen R, Karlinsky A, Stark AH, Berkovich Z, Nyska A. α-Linolenic acid (ALA) is an anti-inflammatory agent in inflammatory bowel disease. J Nutr Biochem. 2015 Dec;26(12):1632-40. doi: 10.1016/j.jnutbio.2015.08.006. Epub 2015 Aug 14. PMID: 26350254.

4. Kucukgoncu, S et al. “Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) as a supplementation for weight loss: results from a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.” Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity vol. 18,5 (2017): 594-601. doi:10.1111/obr.12528

5. Poorbaferani, Fariborz & Rouhani, Mohamamd & Heidari, Zahra & Poorbaferani, Maryam & Safavi, Sayyed. (2020). Flaxseed oil supplementation on severity of depression and brain-derived neurotrophic factor: a randomized, double blind placebo controlled clinical trial. International Journal of Food Properties. 23. 1518-6. Dybka-Stępień, Katarzyna et al. “The Renaissance of Plant Mucilage in Health Promotion and Industrial Applications: A Review.” Nutrients vol. 13,10 3354. 24 Sep. 2021, doi:10.3390/nu13103354

Wen J, Khan I, Li A, Chen X, Yang P, Song P, Jing Y, Wei J, Che T, Zhang C. Alpha-linolenic acid given as an anti-inflammatory agent in a mouse model of colonic inflammation. Food Sci Nutr. 2019 Nov 19;7(12):3873-3882. doi: 10.1002/fsn3.1225. PMID: 31890165; PMCID: PMC6924294.

General Benefit Research

Goyal A, Sharma V, Upadhyay N, Gill S, Sihag M. Flax and flaxseed oil: an ancient medicine & modern functional food. J Food Sci Technol. 2014 Sep;51(9):1633-53. doi: 10.1007/s13197-013-1247-9. Epub 2014 Jan 10. PMID: 25190822; PMCID: PMC4152533.

Kajla, Priyanka et al. “Flaxseed-a potential functional food source.” Journal of food science and technology vol. 52,4 (2015): 1857-71. doi:10.1007/s13197-014-1293-y

Parikh, Mihir et al. “Dietary Flaxseed as a Strategy for Improving Human Health.” Nutrients vol. 11,5 1171. 25 May. 2019, doi:10.3390/nu11051171

Flaxseeds. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=81

Rezaei S, Sasani MR, Akhlaghi M, Kohanmoo A. Flaxseed oil in the context of a weight loss programme ameliorates fatty liver grade in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a randomised double-blind controlled trial. Br J Nutr. 2020 May 14;123(9):994-1002. doi: 10.1017/S0007114520000318. Epub 2020 Jan 29. PMID: 31992372.