HI everyone! Is the carb count for Flax meal the same as flax seeds? I could find the count for Flax seeds but not meal on the carb counter. Also, I couldn't find the counts for reg. cottage cheese (not non fat) and Wheat bran. Am I using it wrong or are they just not there? Also, I keep hearing that flax meal is expensive and that you should only buy it in sealed bags. I bought mine at the bulk barn and it was very inexpensive, but it was in an open bin. It smelled very fresh, but should I buy it pre-packaged? or should I grind my own? I love flax meal! I tried it in yogurt (I think I read as uggestion from Karen). Yum!

Also I experimented making low carb muffins last night. They have lots of cottage cheese, cream, cinnamon, eggs, flax meal, gluten flour, and bran and they turned out so yummy. I tried to calculate the carbs per muffin and it turned out to be just 2 grams each. I'm not sure if I did it right. Any tips for figuring carbs in a recipe? Also is there a carb counter that just has low carb ingredient counts instead of all foods? Sorry about all the questions! Thanks.

I have to admit that I've never figured out the count for ground flax. I use the same count for meal as the one for seeds. But, I do know that 3/4 cup of seeds makes 1 cup of meal so the ground is less in carbs.

You should only buy refrigerated flax meal because the oil goes rancid very quickly. I buy seeds - which don't have to be refrigerated - and grind it as I need it.

To use the carb counter on this site, don't type in the whole name ingredient because databases are very picky about phrasing. I typed in "cottage" and came up with lots of cottage cheese options.

I have two fitday.com accounts. One personal and one for figuring out recipes. You can add custom ingredients. What I do is figure recipes out in the recipe account then transfer the information to the personal one so if I'm having a slice of Meatza, I don't have to figure out all the items that go into it individually. fitday.com is free.

Karen

Thanks Karen! I 've found in my search on the internet several places that stated that 2 tbsps (13 grams) of Flax Meal has 4 gm of carbs and 4 gms of fiber which equals 0 actual carbs! I went onto the Bob's red mill web-site and they say that of the 4 grams of carbs, 1.33 is soluable and 2.67 gms is insoluable. They didn't give the carb count. Can you deduct both from the carb count? According to the carb counter on this site, 2 tbsp of flax SEED has 8.33 gms of carbs and 6.7 gms of fiber. So thats twice the carbs of the meal. Also everyone talks about how great the Bob's brand of lfax meal tastes. Is it really different? And are the golden seeds better than the brown?

Oh yeah and there are some recipes for his products on The Bob's red mill site. For Flax Meal they have a quiche crust and a bilini. With some tinkering they could be low carb. They didn't mention that once flax is cooked it loses some of the benefits.

I will start grinding my own flaxmeal and I will mention to the Bulk Barn about refridgeration. I haven't useed Fitday yet. I visited it for the first time today. I assume that once you have your meals set up, it gets really easy to keep track. Thanks again Karen.

Nooooooooooo! The only foods that have 0 carbs are muscle protein, water and fat. Everything else has carbs. The above statement means that there are 8 grams of carbs, 4 of which are fiber.



Here's something on soluable and insoluble fiber from The Low Carb Retreat

In the October, 1997 issue of Dr. Atkins newsletter, Dr. Thomas
Bolte wrote an article on fiber.

"SOLUBLE FIBER: This is a good ally against heart disease and
diabetes. Unlike its insoluble sibling, soluble fiber absorbs
water. It's also metabolized somewhat, broken down into
various byproducts. By binding to certain fats and bile
acids in the gut, soluble fiber helps reduce cholesterol
levels. It also slows the absorption of dietary sugars
(carbohydrates), which may also lower the body's insulin
needs. Some research also suggests that soluble fiber
may contribute to the prevention of gallstones.

"Some of the byproducts of soluble fiber's metabolism
nourish the digestive tract's friendly flora, preventing
the overgrowth of bad bacteria and, some lab research
suggests, inhibiting tumor growth, which may partly
explain the link to colon cancer.

"The downside of soluble fiber is twofold: Some of its
metabolic byproducts are gases that may cause a significant
degree of flatulence. Additionally, the absorption of water
is a double-edged sword: Although theoretically making the
stool bigger, softer, and easier to pass, it could have the
opposite effect. If you don't drink extra liquids, you could
get a case of constipation."

He then goes on to state that the best sources for those
following a low-carb diet are psyllium seed husks, flax
meal, oat bran, guar gum, and apple pectin. Other good
sources are oranges, rice bran, legumes, locust bean gum
and barley. (FYI, peanuts and soybeans are legumes.
About half of the carbs from each are from fiber).

"INSOLUBLE FIBER: Passing through the digestive tract
relatively unchanged, insoluble fiber absorbs all sorts
of potentially harmful toxins. This trait, along with a
speedier transit time, apparently decreases the risks of
colon and breast cancer. A high intake also reduces
problems associated with hemorroids and diverticular
diseases.

"While insoluble fiber produces little (if any) flatulence
and won't threaten to dehydrate your intestines, it does
not share the soluble form's ability to help stabilize
blood sugar, and its cholesterol-lowering effect is only
minimal. The biggest drawback, however, may be that it
blocks mineral absorption."

Karen

I contacted the Flax Council of Canada and they e-mailed me a very detailed table. They sent it in a PDF file. Is there a way that I can provide a link here to the file? Anyway I tried to copy and paste it here and it didn't work. But here is some of the info according to the table:

1 cup (180 g) of whole seed has 52 g of carb and 50 g of fiber

1 cup (130)of ground seed has 38 g of carb and 36 g of fibre.

So if you just subtract the 19% insoluable fiber you get:

1 cup of flax seed: 17.8 g actual carbs
1 cup of ground flax: 13.3 g actual carbs.

I can certainly e-mail the file to anyone that would like it.

Is anyone bored with math class yet!!! what this means for me is that 1/4 cup of flax meal has only 3.3 g of carbs


There are schools of thought in the low carb Internet world that do not count any carbs for Flax meal. I guess they are subtracting both types of fiber. Here is a link to a chocolate muffin recipe with only 1 g of carb per muffin and they do not count any carbs for the flax.
http://www.low-carbdiet.co.uk/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9067

So should we just deduct 2/3 of the fiber to account for the soluble fiber in the fiber count for all products?

Neither soluable or insoluable fiber contributes to dietary carb uptake. The main difference is that soluable fiber, as the article said, feeds gut flora and absorbs water. You get to deduct both kinds of fiber from the total carbs.

Bob's Red Mill flaxmeal has a total carbs listing of 4 and a fiber listing of 4 so theoretically net carbs should be zero but this is likely to be a rounding error.

If you look at the calories from fat = ~52.5 and protein = 12 and subtract that from total calories which is 60, you see that there are 7.5 calories missing. Those are from the net carbs that are present which equals just a tad under 2 g carbs per 2 Tbls of flax meal. I'm guessing that some of that isn't even digested because it is all mixed in with the fiber and most likely isn't efficiently absorbed.