Flax Seeds 200gm

Whole flax passes straight through you

This is the most important thing on this page, and most people who eat flaxseed do not know it.

The seed coat is tough enough to survive chewing and digestion intact. Eat flax whole and you get fibre and essentially nothing else — no ALA, no lignans. Studies comparing whole against ground flax find dramatically different plasma ALA responses.

Grind it. Coffee grinder or spice grinder, thirty seconds.

And grind it fresh

Once the coat is broken, the ALA inside is exposed to oxygen and starts oxidising within days at room temperature. Pre-ground flaxmeal sold off a warm shelf has usually lost a good part of what you paid for.

Buy whole, store whole, grind for the week. That is why this is sold whole — the clock has not started.

What it carries

About 6.5g of ALA per 30g — slightly more than chia — plus roughly 8g of fibre.

And lignans, at levels around 800 times higher than most other plant foods. These are phytoestrogens, and they are where most of the serious research interest in flax sits. It is genuinely one of the more interesting foods in the pantry, and it is also not a medicine.

Using it

A tablespoon of freshly ground alsi into a smoothie, stirred into dahi, worked into roti dough, or over a morning bowl. It has a nutty, faintly toasted flavour that is pleasant rather than neutral — unlike chia, you will taste it.

Drink water with it. It is highly absorbent and fibre without fluid does the opposite of what you want.

Keeping it

Whole and sealed: six months at room temperature, a year refrigerated. Ground: one week at room temperature, four in the fridge. That gap is the whole reason to buy it whole.