Flax Facts

Here's a great question I just received:

"But what's the deal with flax seed? Why do you use it?"

There are a lot of BUZZ words in the health industry we hear a lot. Are any of these familiar? Good fats. Polyunsaturated fats. Omega-3's. All those add up to a great little grain called flax. But let's back up...

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
Back in the 80's and 90's there popped a new food craze and ingenious marketing strategy -- FAT FREE. Fat free cookies (remember Snackwell's?), fat free frozen yogurt, fat free candy, fat free pastries... Basically, we thought that if the food was fat free, it was a get out of jail free pass to eating yummy, sugary food and staying skinny all at the same time. Sound too good to be true? Well, of course it was. If it worked, we'd all be skinny by now! The fact that our bodies NEED fat to function was totally ignored, and we all loaded up on Brach's candy and the scale continued creep up.

There are good fats and bad fats in food.

THE GOOD



Polyunsaturated fats and Omega 3 and 6
*found in fish and flax seed

Monounsaturated fats
*found in nuts, olives, peanuts, avocados (hallelujah! :), and olive and canola oils

THE BAD and UGLY



Trans or hydrogenated fats
*found in margarine, fried foods (there goes the Fried Snickers at Rodeo and the new Tornado Potato) , commercial bakery products (adios Krispy Kreme!) cookies, cakes, pies, any food with the words "partially hydrogenated oil" in the list of ingredients, and chocolate (I sincerely apologize)

A rule of thumb is the good fats are liquid at room temperature, and bad fats are solids (ew!).

Saturated fat
*fatty cuts of meat, whole milk dairy products

The benefits of eating good fats in small amounts go on and on. For health, it builds a strong heart, lowers cholesterol, fights off breast cancer, stabilizes blood sugar, regulates hormones and more.

In terms of weight loss, it increases your metabolism and results in more fat burning throughout the day. Yes, you just read that last sentence correctly --GOOD FATS SPEED UP WEIGHT LOSS!

So, the back to the question -- FLAX. This is a simple way to add those good fats into your diet. Just throw some ground flax on your cereal, yogurt, in your salad, or sneak it into healthy bread or cookie recipies and WHALA! You just got some serious Omega -3's (they're good!), big time fiber (you'll be fuller longer) and muscle building protein.

I shoot for 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed a day. WARNING: It can kill a bowl of cereal with its nutty taste, but you can split it up into smaller amounts through out the day -- like a tablespoons in your oatmeal, then a tablespoon in your smoothie.

Check out this article to find out on the benefits of flaxseed:
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/benefits-of-flaxseed