Flax Snax :)

 These Flax Snax are really good and really healthy! 

Omega 3's & 6's make amazing brain food!

11 Really Important Benefit of Flaxseed

(http://benefitofflaxseed.org/)

1. Prevents Heart Disease
Omega 3 fatty acids are considered to be good fats. They are important to our health, but cannot be produced by our body. We must get them in our foods. Because flaxseed is rich in omega 3., it can help to keep your heart healthy in a variety of ways.
Flaxseed also helps your heart health by lowering your blood pressure. Having high blood pressure increases the chances that you will have a heart attack or congestive heart failure. The omega 3 fatty acids in flaxseed help reduce those risks.
2. Lowers High Cholesterol
One benefit of flaxseed is that it can lower your cholesterol. High cholesterol is dangerous because it can lead to plaque build up in the coronary arteries. Lowering your cholesterol reduces your chance of developing heart disease.
3. Helps Weight Loss
The Omega 3 is important for helping you feel satiated and the fiber and protein take a lot of time for your digestive system to process, which makes you full for longer. This combo makes it more likely that you won’t have as many cravings for snacky/bad foods and can make healthier food choices.
4. Helps Prevent Diabetes and Stabilize Blood Sugar Levels
Flax is a low glycemic food and won’t spike your blood sugars. The omega 3 and fiber also provide your body with good energy and nutrition for longer.
When you can keep your blood sugar levels more stable, you have less spikes in your blood sugar levels, need less insulin, and help your diabetes… some people have reversed diabetes and/or been able to control it much better by eating flax.
5. Promotes Intestinal Health and Can Help with Constipation and/or Diarrhea
Another benefit of flaxseed is that it contains mucilage, solube and insolube fibers that promote decreased irritation and healing of the intestinal system.
Flax seed prevents and helps with constipation by the omega 3 and the mucilage fiber gently softening and cleansing the intestinal tract. The stool is then pushed out more easily through the body. Prevention is important for constipation. Flaxseed is a food, not a pill and therefore, is best used as part of a daily, consistent diet to prevent constipation. Flax seed promotes intestinal health by reducing constipation.
Flax helps with Diarrhea by helping to bulk up the stool as well as to gently soothe and heal the irritation of the intestinal system. Put ground flax in water and you will see how it bulks up. This is what it does when it goes through the digestive system.
6. Helps Decrease Inflammation
The benefit of flaxseed on inflammation is due to the Omega 3 as well as the Lignans in flax -both are powerful in helping heal and decrease inflammation in the body. This is why flax helps with Arthritis, Allergies, Asthma, Sinusitis, etc.
7. Omega 3 Flax is a Brain Food
Your brain and body must have Omega 3 to function. Omega 3 is essential in order to prevent Alzheimer’s and Dementia as well as helping with Depression, ADD + ADHD, Difficulty Sleeping, etc. Also, kids need Omega 3 so that their brains can develop properly.
The only way for our body to get Omega 3 is through foods we eat, yet… much of the food we eat is cooked and processed; it does not have Omega 3 in it…
Flax seed is the perfect way to get more Omega 3 in our daily diet.
8. Decrease + Get rid of Hot Flashes
Flax has lignans in the hull of the seed and these are a natural plant source of estrogen. Women have had relief from hot flashes, night sweats and improved vaginal moisture without the side effects of Hormone Replacement Therapy -HRT. Many women have been able to completely get rid of their Hot Flashes with Lignans of Flaxseed.
9. Improve Skin Health + Get Rid of Eczema, Dry skin, Acne, etc…
The Omega 3 in flaxseed promotes healing of Eczema, Psoriasis, Dry skin, Acne, and other skin conditions. The Lignans are anti-inflammatory and help the body heal the skin inflammations.
10. Reduces the Risk of Cancer
Based on recent studies, flaxseed may help to protect your body from various types of cancer. The most common types are breast cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer. Studies have indicated that the omega 3 fatty acids found in flaxseed may inhibit tumor growth.
The lignanas found in flaxseed help to protect specifically against breast cancer. It doe this by blocking enzymes that promote cancer and interfering with growth of tumors.
11. Boosts your Immune System
Flaxseed can help with fibromyalgia and other immune disorders by building your immune system, healing you from the inside out, and preventing illness.
Not only will you benefit from eating the nutrition your body is craving, but the flax lignans, omega 3, fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals will help your body heal itself.

The Ultimate Granola & Sugar

 This recipe is from Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood pg.18.

Ingredients: Organic oatmeal, quinoa, flaxseed, sesame seeds, almonds, raisins, cinnamon, maple syrup.

A box of organic granola between $7-7.50 at Costco will fill up this whole container. I made 2 1/2 cups of oatmeal and 3 C of organic oatmeal in bulk costs $1.50, so my container (some already eaten) of homemade organic oatmeal costs just a few dollars.  I am also trying to avoid all types of cane sugar and organic products always have evaporated cane sugar (which seems to be just as bad as white sugar, minus the chemicals and pesticides.)

***All sugars are metabolized differently in the body and will effect us in very different ways. Our bodies need sugar for energy and for our cells and organs to function properly (like our muscles and brain.) We just have to make sure that we are getting sugar from the right sources! It's best to get it from whole foods...fruits, veggies, and grains. Our bodies know how to process these properly and retrieve and use the nutrients so that our bodies benefit from it. 

Continuously feeding your body processed refined sugar is very harmful to your body because essentially it is foreign to the body, there is no nutrients, it's toxic. Toxic because it can cause diseases e.g. heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, etc. Sugar's in whole fruit form have all the vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and fiber to protect our bodies from immediately ingesting sugar. During digestion it all gets metabolized and broken down, separated, and absorbed into the body gradually, so that our cells and organs get the right amounts of everything. On the other hand when sugar has been processed and refined it gets directly absorbed into the bloodstream and with no protection from vital nutrients in digestion and once in the liver it is metabolized and becomes an extreme burden on your liver and eventually other organs. These organs become more fatty and slow and stop working at full capacity, eventually affecting the whole body. Not only this, but refined sugar in high amounts leads to gaining weight, could be a lot of weight! Your metabolism is tricked and tells your brain that it's not full, "it turns off your body's appetite-control system"...the unhealthy, high doses, toxic sugar turns right into fat. Not good!

All sweeteners/sugars found in unhealthy processed food are so bad for the body! In the end they will only make the body gain weight and cause the body to be much more susceptible to diseases.

All of this information is very general and may not be entirely accurate (I'm still learning), but all in all it's so important to get sugars from the right sources!!!