Customer Reviews

Flax the Super Food!: Over 80 Delicious Recipes Using Flax Oil and Ground Flaxseed

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Flax - the Super Food - Book Review The Introduction, provides a helpful background on flax that's easy to understand. The author speaks from his experience, having developed, marketed, and distributed flax products for the health food market as well as studied flax farming and pressing techniques. Covered is the history of flax, from before Christ, to the present, including where flax is raised today. The author gives illustrations of how flax has helped both animals and humans. Flax can be a food and a medicine, both on the inside (in food and as a laxative) as well as on the outside (as poultices for healing wounds and healthy skin). There is a good explanation of the fiber, mucilage, lignans, and oil in flax and their health benefits. There are helpful consumer tips on how to purchase, use, and store flax oil and flax (both the brown and the newer gold varieties of flax.) The author stresses how to buy flax oil in small quantities, in dark containers, and "cold-expeller-pressed" as heating and refining changes the flax oil into unhealthy trans fats. The recipe section, written by two cookbook authors, features a variety of healthy, vegetarian recipes that include not only flax but also soy foods such as tofu and soy milk. Each recipe has a helpful nutritional analysis. To eliminate confusion ,it might help to explain whether a recipe calling for "ground flaxseeds" means to measure the flax before or after grinding. Some other helpful additions to the book might be: o A mini conversion chart of how much whole flax seed equals how much ground flax o A nutritional analysis of flax and flax oil, such as found on a food label, that would include the calories, fat, fiber, protein content, etc o A few more documented human research studies from places such as NCI (National Cancer Institute) to further substantiate the many health benefits of flax. o A bit more discussion by a nutritionist discussing omega 3 and omega 6 fats, including possibly a chart showing the fat composition of flax and flax oil by the percentage of each type of fat. o A list of flax resources (books, web sites) and places to get flax in the US and Canada - such as the Flax Council of Canada.

This book is a quick and easy read since only about 16 pages, the introduction, are text. The rest of the book contains recipes for using ground flaxseed and flaxseed oil. That is not to say that it's not worth the money-it will tell you everything you need to know about this essential part of the vegetarian diet. Many of us have missed the boat on flax. We have heard about omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, but it's often unclear exactly why we need them, why they are so important. This book goes into detail on that subject without being boring or difficult to understand. And it gives you over 80 ways to incorporate flax in your diet, recipes for breakfast, breads, spreads and dips, salads and dressings, soups, entrees, side dishes, and desserts. Two of the authors, Barb Bloomfield and Judy Brown, are well-known vegetarian authors. Siegfried Gursche, has a long history as a researcher and developer of flax. He is also the publisher of alive magazine and alive books and the author of Healing with Herbal Juices.

This book has a brief introduction about the benefits of using
flax seeds and flax oil. The bulk of the book consists of vegan
recipes that use either flax seeds or flax oil as ingredients.

The introduction has a useful explanation (short, not worth buying
the book for) of why you can bake with flax seeds and not lose the
health benefits of the omega 3 oils found in the flax seeds.

The introduction is very short, does not do justice to the health
benefits of flax, and seems to have a huckersterish tone to it which
turned me off.

The recipes actually use very small amounts of flax seed and flaxoil.
They look like regular recipes recycled for the book by adding a dash
of flax to the ingredients list.

People interested in making very flax rich recipes would be better
served by reading the recipes on barleans.org.

People who are interested in reading a well documented account of the
health benefits of flax seeds would be better off reading
FLAX YOUR WAY TO HEALTH by Jane Reinhardt-Martin RD, LD.

Where has this information been hiding for so long. Bloomfield has done a good job of explaining the vital importance this "super food" plays in our health. Whether it is in the form of the oil or the powder, or the lingen rich fiber. One additional thing I have learned from a site called PapaNature is the blending of flax oil and omega 3. PapaNature reinforces Bloomfield's explanations on the importance of flax in our health. It also offers a choice of products and versions of flax.

Nice, short introduction about flax, but not enough historical information. I thought I was purchasing a book with in-depth coverage of flax seeds and oil, but instead I got a brief overview of flax and a number of recipes. I would call this book a flax seed and oil cookbook with some good, basic information about therapeutic uses, nutritional value and (brief) history of flax. I would like to see a book with more historical data and medicinal uses of flax. Also authors mention a good nutritious German flax-rye bread in intro, but fail to give a recipe. Bread recipes are for yeasted breads or quick breads. Recipes seem good- some very basic- all are vegan and vegetarian.

Do you want to use flaxseed for it's wonderful health benefits but just can't find recipes for more than breakfast? This is your book (and mine)- so many recipes, for all kinds of snacks and meals. Well worth the price.