Flax is all polyunsaturated. It is expensive, yes, but for bulk family consumption monounsaturated is healthier, and you can’t fry in omega 3 oils. Also, the high oleic oils I suggested retail at $0.5-1/oz (check amazon), and they are more of a niche market than flax (so more suitable for the small farmer). in all cases, one needs a press and ways to refine the oil.
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I add ground flax seed meal to my morning oatmeal. I like that combination better than plain oatmeal. I probably eat about one lb a month of the ground flax seed. Lots of good fats.
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I used to eat flax, but first I realized that if you do not eat grains, your omega 6 consumption goes down, and it takes only a couple of cans of sardines a week to balance it (lots of papers showing that the ratio is what matters, and total consumption should be adequate but low), even less if you eat grass fed beef and butter. The other noteworthy thing about flax is that it is the only grain/legume with an estrogen content higher than soy (in fact much higher than soy).
Of the estrogen foods, I only eat soy in the japanese form natto, which is fermented. Incidentally, natto soybeans (which are very small) are a niche crop that is in strong demand (there is a single web site that sells it in the USA), yet can be harvested ready for sale with minimal equipment. They make a dramatic difference in the quality of the product.
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Is there anyone in the entire United States that presses edible oil for market from his own crops (with the exception of olive oil) on a <5000 acre scale? If anyone is familiar with any such operation, I’d like to know about it. Even “estate” olive oil (or whatever they call it) must sell for more than double the mass produced counterpart. I can’t imagine there’s any market potential at all in competing with mass produced oil, especially not including both pressing the oil and growing the oil seeds. The end product would have to be hugely more expensive than what one could be in the supermarket (even USDA organic oil in the supermarket), and who would care about the difference? The closest I could see being realistic would be a winery selling some grape seed oil to tourists that come to the winery for tastings and other touristy things, but then it would have to be sold as a gift item, not as actual food, and then what kind of winery is going to be pressing oil at grape harvest time? I totally can’t see coming remotely close to any realistic market potential as a stand-alone product (as opposed to something like a tag-along to winery tourism, and I’m pretty doubtful even that could ever be profitable.)
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I dunno. You may be right. But people are weird about their food.
I look at stuff at those premium health food stores and I’m like, “Who would buy that for that price?” But people do!
Just spitballing, I think it might be possible to make a decent profit on it if you have access to the rich, health-conscious people who will pay for it.
For example, where I used to live, there was a store called Kimberton Whole Foods. They got and sold as much as they could from local farmers, and some of it was outrageously priced, but people paid for it. It was “natural”, “organic”, “locally sourced”, blah blah blah. A big part of the reason it was successful is that they could capture a lot of the Philadelphia money that was close by.
I don’t imagine home pressed oils would ever be able to compete with those made by huge organizations on a price level. But as a niche product, for people who want to know where and how their food is grown, what was sprayed on it , etc etc I could see it being a moneymaker in the right market.
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right. the fact is that making oil at home is extremely difficult. You need large systems, for example sunflower oil is black after first pressing, and you need a number of filtering steps to make it marketable. so no oil except what you can do for the family, which will tolerate its black color. and the pulp which still contains a lot of oil goes to the farm animals.
you can’t make a living out of organic flax seed either, since it is the easiest organic crop there is. but organic soybeans for natto are not currently available in the US, and there is a clear reason to buy organic there. Legume crops are more and more sprayed with Roundup after the seed has matured, to speed the drying of the plant (also legume crops have fibrous stems that foul combines, so it saves time and repairs). non-organic legumes from the store have very high glyphosate loads. many are aware of this.
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I bow to your superior experience on this, then. Sorry if I led anyone astray.
I always thought soy was the worst when it comes to plant estrogens. We try to avoid soy as it can also affect thyroid function, and my wife is hypo-thyroid.
I used to consume a lot of flax oil and ground up flaxseed, but have since stopped. Mainly because the oil can be so expensive, like $10 for 8oz or so. I would mix the oil with cottage cheese, and add honey and various fruit, like blueberries. Made for a tasty creamy treat, but was just too expensive.
Is it the lignans in the oil that contain the estrogenic compounds? I noticed when I bought the oil, that the more pure oil (which contained very little lignans, or seed residue), was more expensive. I’ve also read that the lignans can also affect thyroid function as well.
You mentioned that polyunsaturated fats are highly inflammatory. Doesn’t that really apply to omega 6 fats, like in sunflower, corn, safflower and other seed oils? I thought high poly omega 3 fats, like in sardines, salmon and other cold water fish, and flax oil, were supposed to be better for you. Yes, omega 3 fats are highly unstable, and shouldn’t be heated, but understood them to be anti-inflammatory.
We don’t and haven’t consumed any margarine for many years, because the refining and/or hydrogenation of these omega 6 seed oils is not good for health. We would rather use butter, and coconut oil instead, in moderation of course.
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Yes, flax oil is very expensive. In excess, both Omega 3 and Omega 6 can be inflammatory but in practice most inflammation comes from the very rich seed oils (corn, soy, etc.). The dose makes the poison and it is difficult to overdose with flax or salmon. You need 1-2 grams of each type (Omega 3 and Omega 6) per day, and they have to be in rough balance. I don’t know which part of flax carries the estrogen. After I discovered that, I sprouted my leftover flax seeds and ate them as sprouts. I may get into the grains business/hobby once I get more land, but I think I will limit myself to various types of corn, to be shucked by hand, and natto beans as discussed above.
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“They” say you should eat more omega 3 rich fish like salmon, tuna, etc. I would think most folks would want their fish cooked before eating it. Wouldn’t cooking fish like this destroy the beneficial properties of the oils in them? I personally like salmon or tuna sushi, but I would imagine most folks do not. Plus, I do like these fish grilled as well. I’ve always wondered about this.
I would think most folks have an overabundance of omega 6 intake to omega 3. In fact, ingesting more o-6 fat inhibits the metabolism of o-3 fat. So, that 3 to 6 ratio might need to be skewed more towards the 3 for a while until it comes more into balance. You mentioned this earlier.
Aren’t the main beneficial fats in fish DHA and EPA, fats that are even more polyunsaturated than the ALA in flax? From what I understand the older a person gets, the less able they are to convert ALA into these types of fats. So, it would make sense to ingest more fish than flax, even tho I do wonder about the contamination of Pacific cold water fish.
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There is quite a bit of non-gmo canola (rapeseed) available, both in “gardener” type quantities as well as in ag quantities. A quick search on google brings up dozen of sources. Of course planting non-gmo seed may not help much if there is a lot of gmo canola around you.
That looks like an interesting oil press Clark. Probably a lot less work then the manual one I’ve seen. I do recall seeing plans for building one’s own oil press out of a hydraulic jack (12 or 20 ton) and a frame similar to a shop press but with a perforated steel cylinder and follower. It takes A LOT of pressure to extract oil. And as mentioned, many then require further cleaning and separation.
Back when I was more active in the Biodiesel communities, there was some interest from farmers who were growing oil seed crops with the specific purpose of extract the oil themselves and using it as fuel (either directly as vegie oil or converted to biodiesel). Many such oils needed to be processed differently for the various layers of oil product they produced. Palm oil was notorious for needed three separate processes for its layers.
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I spent some time looking for a certain paper around 1995 (but I could not find it). It showed basically inflammation versus omega6/omega3 ratio for various total intakes. Basically, if you intake them in the natural range ( a few grams per day), the ratio does not matter. If however you start taking in tens of grams of PUFA, the ratio tolerance becomes tighter and tighter. The paper did quote an optimal ratio of 3/1 to 4/1. Note that our body uses EPA and DHA, which are pre-formed in animal foods. Conversion from flax seed oil ALA to EPA and DHA depends on the individual but is about 5-10% declining with age.
So basically the closer you are to a natural intake, the most tolerant you are of wrong ratios. The higher the intake the more accurate the ratio needs to be. I know that, of the fats I eat, avocado, olive oil, almond butter and lard have omega6/3 contents of about 10%/1%, and butter about 3/1. Coconut has nearly no PUFA. The high oleic oils I suggested above are also close to 10/1.
Beyond my bi-weekly fish I don’t check it, but I am guessing I am at 6/1 on average. Flax impact on health depends a lot on the individual PUFA metabolism, so one still has to test things on himself. I used to eat more fish but I see no change in health from a decrease. I used to eat flax and I saw no change when I stopped. See this nice compendium by a Univ. of Washington professor (was a graduate student when he wrote it)
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Fish is not the only source of Omega-3 fats. Grass fed and finished beef is supposed to have as high or higher levels of 0-3 than salmon (especially than farm raised/corn fed salmon).
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Not that I’m going to change my eating habits because of it, but I’m curious, are Omega 3’s just in grass-fed beef or grass-fed milk and butter, too?
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Have you tried Japanese/barnyard millet? It is mainly grown in the US for wildlife food plots, but it is edible, and if you google “barnyard millet” you will get some hits from Eastern specialty foods sellers where you can buy it for food purposes.
It is a favorite of ducks and the National Wildlife Refuges often seed it by air into wetland areas. My dad plants it for the same purpose, around the 4th of July. It grows in wet ground, and has about a 45 day season. It seems pretty easy to grow.
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I might have grown some Japanese millet just for erosion control once after I did some ditch work. Or maybe that was browntop? Or maybe browntop is another name for or type of Japanese millet??? I haven’t ever grown it for grain in any case. Some of the types of millet apparently require more work dehulling the grain, and I don’t have any special equipment to help with that.
I’ve basically just avoided grains that need dehulling so far. As much talk as there is about spelt (and einkorn and emmer) among people that are into specialty grains, I wonder if anyone grows his own spelt for table use, and if so, how anyone would deal with the hulls.
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, which is one of my favorite seed sources, especially for seeds well adapted to the Southeast, sells yet another totally different species of millet, but they seed they had a crop failure and don’t have any seed to sell this winter. I can’t remember the name of it, but if they sell it, maybe that’s what I should try for millet.
Yes, I would think there would be more o-3 fats in the milk (and subsequently butter) of grass fed cows. I do know that free range chickens that are allowed to run free and eat bugs, grasses, etc as opposed to those that are caged and fed grains, have more o-3 in their yolks.
We get lots of free free-range eggs from our rural neighbors, and difference in taste compared to store bought regular eggs is noticeable. Actually store eggs don’t really have much flavor at all.
But, again, I ask the question, unless you eat these meats or eggs raw, wouldn’t cooking the meat render these fragile, unstable fats toxic, or at least useless?
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My chickens had pumpkin orange yolks. I suspect from all the grasshoppers.
We have tried two sources of free range eggs from our neighbors. The ones who lived next to us (they’ve since moved up the road about 3 miles), their eggs had a stronger flavor compared to our usual source. Don’t know what the difference is, maybe the first source fed more on grass and bugs than the second? I assume they would both get a bit of corn once in a while. It could be different breeds of chickens, too, I don’t know.
We have an old chicken coop a stone’s throw down the hill from us. My wife has wanted chickens since we moved here, but I’ve hesitated. The coop needs a lot of work, and I prob would have to run electric out there to provide a heat source for cold nights. I’ve also asked her who would look after them if we were gone for any length of time? They’d have to be let out once in a while to run about.
We have a lot of other things that need tended to before we get any chickens. It sounds like a good idea, but it does take some time and resources. But, I do think having some would be a good source of entertainment, they are comical to watch sometimes.
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@subdood_ky_z6b that’s a good question and probably one for a biochemist (which I am not, and don’t even play one on TV).
But from what I have read, changing the % of o-3 really is just a matter of getting away from corn-fed food. If you are eating a conventional diet, almost all the animal products you eat (farm raised meats, dairy, eggs, and fish) are fed a corn based diet. Corn is high in o-6 so that pushes the balance/ratio that way. To the extent that you can put these foods back into your diet from non-corn fed sources, you should push up the o-3 percent.
I think that how one cooks these foods probably does make a diff, but unless you go to an all raw diet most folks are not going to change their cooking habits that much. Maybe some or even much of the “good” stuff is lost by cooking. But if its not there to begin with, there is no chance of getting it. I basically figure that the cooking styles are not likely to change much, but the quality of the raw input can.
BTW, not clear that you would need to have power in the coop, for heat at least. In our area, which is usually much colder than yours, heating the coop is a controversial thing. Many folks do not heat their coop because they think it makes the chickens stronger and better able to handle the cold weather. As long as the coop is draft tight, and you have breeds which are not cold susceptible, chickens generally do OK even when it drops below 0F outside. Of course, without power you will be changing the chicken’s water out as it freezes in frigid weather.
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