Canadian Flax Seed

Benefits of Canadian flax seed

Canada is an imported producer of flax seed and Canadian flax seed is used domestically as well as exported to other countries throughout the world. A majority of the Canadian flax seed comes from Western Canada, because the mild climate and prairie landscape characteristic of this region have been shown to promote high levels of beneficial oils and iodine, combined with low levels of moisture and free fatty acids. The long day length at Canadian latitudes also contributes to high quality flax seeds and large yields. Canadian flax seed is normally planted during late May or early June, and will be ready for harvest in September or October. This means that Canadian flax seed can be harvested during the arid fall period which in turn leads to moisture levels around 8 % for binned Canadian flax seed.

Canadian flax seed studies

Several medical studies regarding the effects of Canadian flax seed on the human body has been carried out in Canada. One of the most interesting ones was carried out by researchers from the University of Toronto and published in the American Institute for Cancer Research Newsletter in 1998. In this study, 39 postmenopausal women with breast cancer ate one muffin a day, an addition to their normal diet. The women ate either a plain muffin or a flax seed muffin every day during five and a half week. When their tumors were checked after the study, the flax seeds seem to have reduced the growth of the tumors. Each flax seed muffin contained no more than 25 grams of flax seed, so even low quantities of flax seed seem to be able to boost conventional breast cancer treatment. It should be noted that more research is needed before we can fully understand exactly what happened in this Canadian flax seed study.

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Information about canadian flax seeds