You're Welcome, Deborah ...

Hello, Deborah ...

You can use the Krupps grinder for other things besides coffee. It does a great job with whole spices, for example, as well as with flax seed. And it's very inexpensive compared to all the others ... about $20, I think, but don't quote me on that. All I remember for sure is that it wasn't anything like $200.

It occurred to me while I was reading your reply that I completely forgot to tell you how I came to be grinding flax seeds in the first place.

My husband had developed Gallstones and I had talked him into getting "a second opinion" from a naturopathic physician who recommended he take a scoop of defatted flaxseed meal in water twice a day. And, on the advice of a nutritionally-correct acquaintance of mine, I was already taking a tablespoon of flaxseed oil twice a day.

One morning about a month later my husband and I happened to meet at the kitchen sink, he to glug down his flaxseed fiber with the fat taken out, and me to gulp down my flaxseed oil with the fiber taken out. I decided then and there that that was just ridiculous and went out and bought a Krupps grinder on the spot so that we could meet two needs with one food in its whole albeit ground form.

I know it works wonderfully well as a "fiber", but I've never been entirely sure that it works well enough as a source of "oil" to do the job until Shelley indicated to me that it most likely would. If a person were extremely ill, then the extracted oil might be a better choice, but for those of us who are up and running around, the ground flaxseed powder works great because it serves two purposes simultaneously: oil and fiber. And it provides amino acids and vitamins and minerals, too, of course, because it's a whole food ... a seed capable of growing into a plant.

Now that I think about it, though, I did make my "transition" from one to the other by means of taking one flaxseed-oil capsule three times a day with meals as well as one psyllium-husk capsule. I don't remember now which brand I chose, but I do remember that it was a "total EFA" formulation. That is, it had a couple of other oils in it besides flaxseed oil to sort of "round out" the fatty-acids spectrum. And, since it was sealed in a capsule, I figured that the risk of rancidity was likely to be a lot lower, and that was a major concern of mine at the time.

Deborah, I'd be interested to know in what ways you feel your health has improved since you've been taking two tablespoons of flaxseed oil every day. Do you find, for example, that you don't get as hungry as often? That you don't crave as much in the way of junk foods as you used to? That the condition of your skin has improved?

At the time I was taking flaxseed oil by the tablespoonful, I could hardly get it down. Swallowing a glob of oil turned out to be more, in the end, than I could make myself do. I hadn't learned about the benefits of live food, yet, so I was still into baked potatoes and steamed rice and whatnot and one thing I did discover is that flax oil is perfectly lovely on a baked potato. It's also very nice tossed into salads or over steamed vegetables after you've taken them off the stove. In other words, there's enough other ways to make use of it that you don't have to take it by the spoonful unless you especially want to for some reason.

Speaking of "want to", I eventually figured out that I just plain did *not* want to take a slug of any kind of "fiber" first thing in the morning. Last thing at night was okay, but first thing in the morning wasn't.

So I stopped taking it in the morning and started enjoying pure, freshly-made fruit juices instead, followed awhile later by some whole fresh fruit. My favorite and most effective morning elixir is whole cantaloupe juice including the rind because that's where 98% of the food value is. You just cannot imagine what a dose of that does for your day until you try it. (Note: Be sure to clean the rind really well first.)

As I incorporated more and more fresh fruits and finely-shredded vegetables into my diet along with little delicacies like crackers made from dehydrated ground sprouted spelt and almond meal left over from making almond milk, I began to feel like I really didn't need to take a fiber drink last thing at night, either, and so after awhile I stopped that, too. I still work ground flaxseed meal and psyllium husks into my diet through my food, but I don't do it through a "fiber drink" anymore. I have concluded that, while this is undoubtedly appropriate for people who get very little fiber in their diet as a general rule, it's sort of redundant for somebody like me who is now getting a great deal of it.

As for your comment on the pro-biotic support offered by kefir, I confess that I have been relying on acidophilus in capsule form all this time. I take one three times a day and call it done until I can figure out some other way of getting it down me that doesn't involve animal milk. You wouldn't happen to know if you can make kefir out of homemade almond milk, would you?

The only other thing I'm doing at the moment, probiotics-wise, is a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar twice a day with a tablespoon of honey in a glass of warm water. I've been meaning to learn how to make fresh sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables but to date I haven't done so. Maybe this will inspire me to get out Rita's book and study up on it and make what I am sure will be a major dietary advance.

Regards, Elizabeth ...

P.S. You mentioned using psyllium husks while traveling. Do you travel a lot? Tweet