The quest for user-friendly ground flax seed continues ...

Submitted by louiseds on April 13, 2008 - 9:34pm
Body: 

Hello all you crazy, foodie scientists out there!

I currently grind my morning flax seed in a relatively carbon-friendly granite mortar and pestle. This is nice and quiet but hard on my arms, because a lot of downward pressure needs to be used to crush the slippery little b$*%*@%s.

Enter my Braun food mill that is powered by my Braun food wand. The slippery little b$*%*@%s didn't even blink, still whole.

Poured half a cup of hot water on them, had a shower and came back to find them soft. Tried the mortar and pestle again. Water turned to slippery mucilage. Pestle can't get a grip on them. Still won't squash! Aaaarrrggghhh! Just looks like gooey egg-whitey mess. Feels like throwing up at the site of something that looks like a cat vomited it up. Do not feed flax seeds to your cat or you too might sight this spectacle.

Spent three times as long grinding these elusive little b$*%*@%s, now suspended in mucilage like commercial 'Lite Salad Dressing'. Feel more put off than five minutes previously.

DS1 says, Eeeerrrkkkk! then laughs. Grrr!

Covered the foul, possessed mix with rolled oats, almonds, apple and milk to eliminate aesthetic challenges.

Ate muesli. Plotted how to get these little b$*%*@%s to yield to my desire for easy flax meal.

Has anybody come up with something a little less offensive to the morning brain and the environment than a battery-operated coffee mill?

Cheers

Louise

granolamom

April 14, 2008 - 7:16am

never tried to grind my own flax seeds, but maybe put 'em between two sheets of parchment paper (or towels) and pound with a hammer? I dunno.
I'm sure you'll come up with something!

sng05

April 14, 2008 - 2:45pm

I know what you mean---I've tried to bite them (even when they're softened a little and it just cannot be done!!) I don't have an answer for you--I grind mine every two days in an electric coffee-grinder and keep it in a baby food jar. The rest I keep in the refrigerator in a plastic container. I think the omega-3 is not as available to your body in the whole seed form. (I buy 'Bob's Red Mill' brand. They make LOTS of whole grain and gluten-free products, etc.)

Hodgson Mills (sp?) has already ground flax-seed that comes in a box, but I've read that it's better if you grind it fresh yourself. I know you are looking for a more 'natural' way to grind it---but I'm thinking that a blender would work if you don't try to do too much at a time.

Peace,
S&G

balride

April 14, 2008 - 8:47pm

Hi

we use a coffee bean grinder....seems to work well for us.

balride

Clonmacnoise

April 18, 2008 - 5:29am

Louise,

Cuisinart makes a food grinder for about $20.00. Takes 5 seconds.

Judy

louiseds

May 7, 2008 - 8:17pm

Hi Alemama

I tried using my Kenwood Chef blender. Nice idea in theory. I only have rather large preserving jars with a lip, and the fit wasn't great. Maybe your jars are the right size to fit exactly with the thread.

There isn't very much distance between the blades and the side of the jar, so I didn't want to risk smashing the glass jar while I was holding it. How would I explain the lumps of glass embedded in my face, at the hospital? And how would I explain the blood all over the kitchen to the painter who came to rectify the chipped walls?

So I decided to use a small plastic tupperware bowl (circa 1965) that I could hold over the top of the base, well out of the way of the blades. To do this I had to remove the rubber washer that normally seals between the base and the goblet, so it didn't risk being pulverised. This meant that the surface level of flax seed in the base fell to the point where the blades only just reached the seed, so the blades only mashed a few seeds and flung the bits to the outside. These bits were crushed well, but the remainder were untouched.

Yes, a powerful blender would do the job but you would need to process maybe a cup at a time to make it work properly, which kind of defeats the purpose of doing it fresh each time. Nice idea, but NOT NECESSARILY SAFE IF THE JAR DOES NOT FIT THE THREAD or effective.

Next I tried my Braun wand blender which has a food processer thingy that you mound the wand on top of. The bottom blade is too far away from the bottom to pick up these flat little seeds.

Next I tried the wand blender inside an old plastic sauce bottle which had exactly the right diameter base to fit the wand, and was nice and high to catch the flying seeds. Even if I squashed the top of the bottle in around the stem of the wand, these aerodynamiclly perfect little blighters managed to escape through the top like little bullets, so I ended up with much of the seed all oveR the kitchen bench.

(Sigh ...)

Louise

rosewood

May 8, 2008 - 11:50pm

what's wrong with the coffee grinder? Ours plugs in btw.

Marie

rosewood

May 8, 2008 - 11:51pm

what's wrong with the coffee grinder? Ours plugs in btw.

Marie

louiseds

May 9, 2008 - 5:13am

Hi Marie

Ours is an old style wind the handle job that is bolted to the wall, and is used every day for coffee. It is too difficult to clean it between uses. I don't (yet) have an electric one, and I hate the noise they make.

Cheers

Louise

mom30

May 9, 2008 - 5:59am

I saw Martha Stewart say that if you take a slice of white bread that it completely cleans the coffee grinder out. I tried it, and it does work. I have the electric one that plugs in.

sng05

May 9, 2008 - 9:49am

I've been checking out websites that sell whole grain products because I live in a very small community (one grocery store in town and the next nearest two stores are a fifty mile round trip) and I have trouble finding the products I'm looking for sometimes.

I noticed while visiting these sites (one very good one is www.bobsredmill.com) that several of them have seed/grain grinders that you can order---made specifically for what we're discussing here---and I imagine they have all the bases covered (ease of cleaning, ability to grind the smallest of seeds, etc.) My coffee grinder is VERY old (1960's!) and when it bites the dust I'm going to get one of these.

I understand it's an extra expense and most likely still electric---but the older I get, the more I realize that I only get one body and one lifetime's chance to keep it healthy---so my priorities about what's "expensive" are ever changing.

My coffee grinder does make 'noise'---but I only grind enough seed for a single use, and so the actual time I have to listen to it usually amounts to less than ten seconds (push the button very quickly, once or twice and it's done.) Now the vacuum cleaner---there's a long-lasting noise I could do without!!~smile~

I finally got up the "courage" to try the flax seed again---this time in chocolate milk in the middle of the day--not close to the time I take any supplements, etc. (as was so kindly suggested when I posted about the painful gut problems I began to experience after about a month of starting the flax seed.)

And guess what?!?!? NO PROBLEM!! I'm SO happy!! I thought I was going to have to give it up! I suffered big-time this month with a severe cluster headache and such bad hot flashes I actually ran a low-grade fever for several days. (I only get the flashes pre-menstrually---and not at ALL when I'm using the flax seed regularly.) I should have known---even though it was about a week early---it was the peri-version of crazy-pause symptoms!! Within 24 hours after I 'start'---I feel like a new woman.

I'm very relieved---I thought I was actually 'sick' and was ready to go to the doctor thinking I had a sinus infection. I guess mother nature decided to tweak my cycle (early) to spare me from believing my body was truly ill. And believe you me---I will be drinking my flax seed in Ovaltine/skim milk EVERY day so that next month I can skip the torturous symptoms.

Am I the only one who gets "ill feeling" the few days before my period starts? I've ALWAYS been this way---I get seriously nauseous, debilitating migraines, and now that I'm in peri-menopause---the hot flashes. Even as a teen and young woman (was I, ever?) I remember getting 'have-to-lay-down-in-a-dark-room' sick and then I'd start bleeding and feel perfectly fine. No cramps, or any of that stuff---just the awful "before syndrome." (I'd like to think there are some other women who know what I mean...)

As always, thank you for being here. It's wonderful to be able to openly talk about our female-ness and all that comes with it--good and bad. It's very empowering to be able to discuss who we are and how we feel. (Our hormones are WAY more powerful than I'd ever imagined!!)

Peace,
S&G

granolamom

May 9, 2008 - 11:22am

finally! It has a name! thank you s&g
and yes, I am that way too. I only made the connection shortly after finding this site, I guess I started paying more attention to my body adn cycles.
about a week before my period starts I start to feel generally unwell. fatigued, rundown, etc. sometimes its so bad I start to wonder if I'm pg. and then its all gone as soon as the bleeding starts.
I haven't had cramps or headaches since giving up caffeine (august will be three years!), but I used to get those premenstrually too.

can the flax seeds help with this 'before syndrome'?
and why do you think it is that the flax oil capsules aren't as effective? they are so easy......

louiseds

May 9, 2008 - 10:12pm

Hi Gmom

That makes sense to me. There are women I know who know the moment they are pregnant because they start throwing up. Not sure if that is when implantation happens, or some other change related to fertilisation. I can remember feeling nauseous the morning after I had sex the first couple of times. Maybe a similar thing?

The time between ovulation and a period is really just like between ovulation and lochia, except for the nine months in the middle. (!)

The human body is quiet wierd in many ways. Nothing would surprise me.

Louise

sng05

May 11, 2008 - 11:28am

Granolamom...

You asked if the flax seed could help with this 'before syndrome.' So far as I can tell---yes!! I won't know for SURE until I've used it regularly for several months, but last month (while I was using it every day) I had pretty much NO symptoms. (That's why I was so VERY disappointed that I started having problems with it!)

I was ready to ask the doctor for some bio-identical progesterone for the cluster headaches (Dr. Christiane Northrup says menstrual migraines are caused by lack of progesterone.) I do NOT want to even start with the hormone nonsense---but the headaches are so bad that sometimes it affects my vision and I can't drive, etc. I am allergic to the triptan family of medications (imitrex, etc.)--and don't even know if they would work for these particular headaches. Regular use of the flax seed seems to have 'saved me' from this. Also, I didn't get the 'sick' feeling the few days before I started. It actually kind of snuck up on me because I am SO used to the suffering before-hand. (After 36 years of this agony, being spared is quite the relief!!) :-D

Actually it was my first (late) husband who put together these horrid headaches (sometimes I had to go the emergency room---I'd be vomiting and in so much pain) and the fact that they consistently manifested either a few days---or THE day---I'd start bleeding. Even the doctors hadn't noticed the pattern. I was pretty impressed (even at age 21) that a guy would figure out something like this!! He was always very supportive when I had these headaches---he knew it wasn't 'just a headache.'

I also noticed that I had NO hot flashes with the flax seed. Usually I only get them the week or so 'before'---so the last month when I didn't have ANY---and all of a sudden just got my period---I was ecstatic!!

So to recap---I'm almost positive that if I use the flax seed regularly I am not going to have the headaches, the hot flashes, OR the awful 'before syndrome,' as I did not experience ANY symptoms the month I was using it. Also, the 'before syndrome' I speak of, here, is not (for me, at least) what I think of as PMS (or PMDD.) I experience that also (although much MOREso in my younger years) but that is more of an emotional/behavioral change (again I can only speak for myself...) than the very physical 'before syndrome' where I actually feel as though I'm SICK. I can say that the flax seed ALSO helped enormously with any PMS/PMDD symptoms.

The PMS/PMDD (for me) includes less and less patience (the closer it gets); insane sensitivity to anything and everything---normal everyday things make me angry and/or start crying; and my thought process gets very messed up (ie: I start thinking in very black-and-white terms---very EITHER/OR---with no room for sensible options or reminding myself that the feeling will pass and maybe I don't have to do ANYthing!) I learned from a counselor many years ago to never (EVER!) make any big decisions during the pre-menstrual phase of my cycle. That was some of the best advice anyone ever gave me; and I've used it as a rule-of-thumb, ever since. I know some women would vehemently disagree with me---and feel that by admitting this---I am 'putting women down' or saying we are not completely capable every day of the month. All I can say is that this has been MY experience, and to say otherwise would be dishonest. To me, the key is KNOWING ourselves and truthfully recognizing the changes our bodies/psyches experience. Once we know that our first instinct during that time is not always rational or 'normal' (for us)---we can work around it---and with the flax seed I really believe it will not BE such an issue anymore. (I hope I haven't opened a 'can of worms' here or made any instant enemies by bringing this up...)

Like I said---I am absolutely "wow-ed" by how POWERful our hormones are. I don't know why the flax seed oil does not have the same positive effects for me as the freshly ground seed. I even noticed the difference in my cholesterol readings (eating the same, etc. but using the seed instead of the oil in capsule form.) My doctor even wanted to know what I was doing...

Sorry to get so long-winded, but I am VERY excited to have found a safe and natural way to make all my days full and enjoyable without having to deal with hot-flashes, headaches, feeling weepy and sad---and above all---not feeling physically SICK every month just 'waiting' for mother nature to give my body the go-ahead for my period to start. I'm FREE!! No more living at the mercy of my crazy hormones!! (At least for now--I don't know how crazy-pause is going to develop for me down the road--but hopefully, I'm on the right track, ladies!!)

Peace,
S&G

alemama

May 11, 2008 - 12:26pm

oh man. so I have recently begun having cycles....it had been 6 years (time spent nursing and pregnant) and boy oh boy do you describe me to a T concerning the week before. Impatient isn't even the word and the black and white comment is spot on. What a big mess- all I can say is that I simply must get pregnant soon- at least the crazy emotions end in a baby.

granolamom

May 11, 2008 - 2:41pm

believe me, I totally know what you're talking about. my experience with pms is very much as you describe, possibly not as severe, but I have a very similar experience. added to the mix the overwhelming desire to get away from my family, just run off somewhere by myself. a few years ago, my mw recommended a homeopathic remedy for that, sepia, and whenever I feel all that coming on I pop a few and it melts away. possibly a placebo, but I dont care.

the 'before syndrome' is very much a feeling of being SICK. more than a few times I actually went to my dr (I rarely go to the dr) fully expecting to be diagnosed with strep or mono or something like that. of course I am (thankfully) always healthy, and start bleeding a day or so later :::duh!::: now that I finally know what it is, its not worrisome, just annoying. and I would *love* to feel GOOD at anytime during the month.
so where does everyone buy their flax seeds? how do you know how fresh they are? anyone know a good reliable online source?