Someone just told me that if you eat whole flax seeds your body can’t absorb them and get any nutrients or fat from them. They said you must grind them. Why can’t your stomach and teeth grind them up? I like to just eat them whole…
[quote]sarah1 wrote:
Someone just told me that if you eat whole flax seeds your body can’t absorb them and get any nutrients or fat from them. They said you must grind them. Why can’t your stomach and teeth grind them up? I like to just eat them whole…[/quote]
Very true you cant they have a HARD outer protective layer like a bram from wheat its hard insoluable fiber. BUT this also protectes and preserves the fats etc inside.
Now it wont hurt you to eta them whole but yes you will lose the benfit aside from the fiber and being regular and well you may add to natural flax growth dwon stream somewhere LOL.
Your stomach doesnt grind LOL but the acids emzymes etc just dont get in they are not powerful enoung to penetrate the protective layer. The teeth thing sure to a point youll have to chew an AWEFUL long time to get near each seed crushed and pulverized.
just buy the flax meal,
Phill
Check this discussion for more on that topic…
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1423021&pageNo=0#1430253
Hmm…then how would you count them nutritionslly? Are you getting cals from them?
Hey, there, sarah1! Good question.
Take a look at www.nutritiondata.com. If you do a search on flaxseed, you can see how many calories different portion sizes have. What you do is measure the whole seeds (either by weight (g) or volume (T)) to determine the number of calories and grams of fat. If I remember correctly, 3 tablespoons of flaxseeds are roughly equivalent to the fat you would get from 1 tablespoon of flaxseed oil. With flaxSEEDS, though, you’re getting some extra fiber, something we could all benefit from. (grin)
[quote]Tampa-Terry wrote:
Hey, there, sarah1! Good question.
Take a look at www.nutritiondata.com. If you do a search on flaxseed, you can see how many calories different portion sizes have. What you do is measure the whole seeds (either by weight (g) or volume (T)) to determine the number of calories and grams of fat. If I remember correctly, 3 tablespoons of flaxseeds are roughly equivalent to the fat you would get from 1 tablespoon of flaxseed oil. With flaxSEEDS, though, you’re getting some extra fiber, something we could all benefit from. (grin)[/quote]
Not if they are not ground however and your taking them in Whole. check your stool and by goodness there will be whole flax seeds with all that goodness still traped in them so essentially whole seeds would be Nil and simply a bulking agent for your stool. Youll be a bit more regular
Phill
sarah1, Phill is right that flaxseeds do need to be ground if you decide to go that route instead of going with flaxseed oil. I use a little Braun coffee grinder for that purpose.
And in case I was something less than clear, 3 level tablespoons of unground flaxseeds provides you with 12g of fat, whereas a tablespoon of flaxseed oil provides you with 14g of fat. From there you would still need to grind it, though.
Enjoy! (grin)