? about flax seed

[alex57]

Reading PPLP Dr. Eades stated that flax seed oil should never be heated. What about flax seed meal? I see recipes using this in baking. I have shied away from these recipes but would like to know for sure one way or the other. Thanks for any incite on this.

[Gaelen]

Hi, alex57! Flax seed oil is very fragile, and if heated the omega fats DO break down...and yes, that happens in the flax meal as well. Microwaving just until warm is fine, but if you bake with it (exposing the flax meal to say, 400 degrees F. for 12-15 minutes), you're wrecking the beneficial oils. You'll still get the fiber benefits, but not so much the omega3 benefits. Hope that helps...welcome in!

[back2me2007]

Shucks! That means I wreck it when I make flax pancakes then.

[alex57]

Thx, Gaelen. So then it is a matter of losing benifits, not that it becomes harmful I take it.

[Gaelen]

pancakes should only need a couple of minutes, five at most, to be done...you are losing some of the omega3s, but not all.

[Mitra]

The Eadeses pointed out that many people have limited ability to convert the omega threes in flax oil (ALA) to the EPA and DHA forms that your body needs, so if you want to be sure of getting the omega 3s, then sardines or cod liver oil will give you EPA and DHA rather than just the precursor ALA. (There are several pages about this in The Fat of the Land chapter in PPLP.) I seem to remember looking up some studies on this at one point, and even when things are working OK, the conversion ratios from the flax oil version of omega three to the ones we really need aren't great.

Not cooking flax seed oil means that you avoid eating rancid fats, but it's safest not to depend on it for your essential fatty acids even if you don't heat it.