I love Flax, and you should too

There are two kinds of flax seed, golden and brown. There's no nutrient difference between the two seeds. To get the most nutrients from flax it needs to be ground. The whole seeds can just pass through your system. The brown flax is more noticeable when you cook with it, while the golden seeds tend to blend in better. If this is too long for you to read, skip to the last few (little) paragraphs.

For the last year Brien and I have been adding flax seed into our diet. We try to eat plenty of fiber and whole grains, sometimes that means in cookie form. Flax seed is high in fiber and omega-3 fatty acids. You can read about it here. At our grocery store you can by flax seed meal or whole seeds. The whole seeds are a better deal for us and they last longer than the flax seed meal. We purchased a $10 coffee grinder and use it to freshly grind the seeds before we use them. We find the best way to incorporate it in our diet is by grinding it and just adding it into our recipes. For instance if I'm making pizza dough or cookies I will reduce the flour a bit and just add some freshly ground flax seed instead. Usually it's about 1/3 of a cup, depends on what I'm making. It grinds to a nice powder, so it's not big and crunchy in your culinary creation. You can also add it to sauces or ground meats without noticing any difference. It has a slight nutty flavor, but it blends well with other ingredients. Wikipedia says you can use 1Tbls ground flax and 3Tbls water as an egg substitute, but I haven't tried that yet. If I'm making pancakes from Bisquick (read: low in fiber) then I make sure I add some flax so they have some fiber. They still taste great.

We really like our whole grains. I figure (like my smart little sister) that if your child grows up eating whole grain bread, the kids will like it. If you don't already use whole wheat flour, you should, it is so much better for you. If you don't make a big deal about incorporating whole wheat flour in your cooking and baking, then your kids and spouse might not even know you're doing it. Our flour container is a 50/50 blend of whole wheat flour and unbleached all-purpose flour. The only flax seed at our grocery store is brown, so when we make pancakes they turn out a deeper color, but that's what my baby is going to grow up with. If she goes through a stage where she wants white bread for her sandwiches I let her know she can purchase it herself. Hopefully, she will have developed an appreciation for all the flavor that's in whole grain bread and will quickly realize the blandness of white bread. (I bought a loaf of Sarah Lee's "whole grain" smooth "wheat" bread because it was in the reduced bin, it didn't taste good and had an overly long list of chemical ingredients.) If you (the cook and grocery shopper) are the one who doesn't like whole wheat flour, just start replacing a smaller amount of the over-processed flour with whole wheat, just enough so you know that you are getting a little more fiber in your diet. When I first started adding flax seed it was only a few tablespoons in a big batch of cookies, I increased the amount as I felt more comfortable with it (and realized it wasn't ruining my recipes).

Sorry if this post seems a little muddled. The short version is: Flax seed and other whole grains are good for you. Try to work them into your diet as much as you can. We still eat some food that is overly-processed, but we are at least aware of those choices when we make them.

And remember, if the package says "Whole Grain," everything started as a whole grain. You should still read the nutrition label to check for fiber content, and read the label to see if the whole grain was over processed and then enriched.