Flax. To Cook or Not to Cook

I’ve had several inquiries about whether nutrition is depleted in flax when cooked in tasty dishes like 3-Ingredient Pancakes.  The short answer: NO! Flax remains just as good for you when baked!  Yay!  Ellie over at GotFlax.com posted the following wonderfully detailed article:

A Guide to:
Cooking Flax seed and Baking Flax

Cooking Flax Seed and Baking Flax Tips~
Are you wanting to stretch your food budget and add some excellent nutrition to your family’s diet? I want to share some ideas and ways that I use Flax in Baking and Cooking.

Flax seed is easy to add, but it does take time to get used to using flax. If the first try doesn’t work out, don’t give up!

The healthy flax benefits you will get by adding flax are priceless.

Tips for Cooking Flax Seed and Baking Flax:

• It is important to be sure you are using quality flax. It shouldn’t taste or smell rancid or sour; if flax meal (ground flax) tastes or smells bad, it likely is.
  Read more about Flax seed quality here.
• Always use ground flax, not the whole seed, for eating and cooking. Otherwise it is seed in, seed out and you won’t get all the great health benefits of flax!If you use ground flax, be sure it is cold milled flax, otherwise it might be rancid (the Omega 3 oils can denature after they have been exposed to heat and stored for long periods of time); cold milled flax (like cold pressed olive oil) has not been heated up and shouldn’t taste or smell bad)
• This leads me to the question: Will cooking flax destroy all the good benefits?
  The short answer is no.The long answer:
  When Omega 3 oil (ex: olive oil or flax oil) are heated up the oils start the process of breaking down and can quickly go bad (rancid). Then your ground flaxseed or foods with ground flax will taste funny and you won’t be getting the nutritional benefits.When you cook your own food with flax (rather than buying pre-made food), you likely won’t store that food for long periods of time and expect it to stay fresh. So, if you cook with flax, you will be eating it sooner and the chances of it going rancid are minimal.In cooking flax, it is important to remember all the benefits that flax has besides just the Omega 3 oil: Flax has so much protein, fiber, lignans, potassium, magnesium, and other nutrients.When you cook with flax, it is possible that you may lose some of the benefits of the Omega 3 oils because it can start to break down, but the beneifts of the flax protein, fiber and other nutrients help make the foods we cook flax in more filling and help stretch the budget.There is acutally some research from Canada that suggests that when ground flax is cooked there is little to no effect on the flax Omega 3 -more reserach would be needed to verify this.

  This is why we recommend eating some raw flax every day and suggest ways to eat flax.

  Cooking with flax has helped us decrease our food budget because we get full faster with the extra protein and fiber from flax. We know we are getting so much added nutrition when we add flax to what we cook and bake!

• I always add small amounts to food, so that my taste-sensitive family never even knows that good HEALTHY flax is in their food!! 🙂
• Start with small amounts and experiment and allow those you cook for to get used to it!
• When cooking with flax seed, you can add a little to anything you make so you and your family will experience the wonderful benefits of flax seed ~~because it only has a light nutty flavor, they will not even know it is their food!
• You can actually use flax to substitute eggs and fat and some flour in recipes. This is fun to try! When you use flax, you add HUGE Health benefits to your food! Check out Flax Substitution Tips by clicking here.
• You can also add some ground flax (for the benefits) and some whole seed (if you like the crunch) to recipes such as breads, soups, etc!

• Try some delicious Flax recipes
• Return Home from Cooking Flax seed and Baking Flax page
• Want to know ways + Ideas of How to eat flax?
• Buy Quality Golden Flax for it’s amazing flax benefits.

Read more: http://www.ellies-whole-grains.com/cooking-flax.html#ixzz3PyCDTbSa
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