On Mon, 19 Aug 2002 19:04:02 +1000, Phosphor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>> Flax oil is just so valuable because it can cure
>why indeed flax is so useless?. its a good question Amadeus...basically:
>1.it contains nothing needed by humans, and

I recall you previously didn't see the benefits of omega-3 LNA.
But there are some very important reasons why we need it.

First of all the cell walls of our 100 trillion cells are made of fatty
acids, predominately 18 chain long (phospoRlipids :-). Their composition
reflects the composition of the dietary intake.
Cell walls with only 18:0 and 18:1 (stearate and OA) are much more sticky
and less permeable to the cell nutrients as cell walls with PUFA in them.
Low LA/LNAs in cell walls is strongly correlated to *insulin resistance*,
the deadly demon of nowadays nutrition.
Todd provided a link for this recently, you may look it up yourself.
Stearate and OA are found in *farmed* animals in unnatural dominating
amounts.

Secondly, cell wall composition is also linked to development of *cancer*.
Some hours ago a fellow lister provided annother link for that information.

Third as I just found out replying to Ben you'll see that if you don't have
enough of LA and LNA as a substrate for d6d, it can only work on EPA.
This will decrease the amount of EPA available.

>2. it supplies more LA,  which is what we are trying to get rid of.

LA is just the stuff we get in unnatural high ratios due to modern
agriculture.
We don't want to get rid of it, we need it in *adequate* amounts.
At last the good LA/LNA ratio we need because of it's effects on
prostaglandins (eicosanoids).
The strong good and the strong bad PG's are made out of LA, NOT OF AA.
AA only makes the bad ones, the most good ones *require* LA (or GLA or
DGLA).


>what to do? in order to get the essential Om-3s and Om-6s, take foods which
>actually have them. astounding.
>this means..organ and muscle meats to AA, and fish flesh oil, fish liver
>oil, and fish roe to get DPA, DHA, and EPA.

The pathway to insulin resistance, cancer, excess of bad series-2
prostaglandins,
depletion on beneficial series-1 prostaglandins which in turn leads to
cancer, heart and cardiovascular diseases and imune weakness.

Furthermore it's unpaleo. No neanderthal and nearly no human, humanoid or
other primate predecessor of humanity ever had access to strong fish oil
like
sources of EPA/DHA except brain (for DHA).

A high percentage of short chain EFAs (LNA and LA) is what *is* found in
natural, paleolithic food items.
Therefore humans *cannot* be adapted to a low LA/LNA intake as you recommend
"what to do".
If you take care to take a look at
http://www.geocities.com/paleolix/lipidbasics.html
This is a table of about 350 food items from the USDA database I selected
as to be as unprocessed as possible.
There is a column PUFA (EFAs).
Find paleo items which are low in PUFA.
Low in PUFA are the domesticated farmed mass production items (beef, pork).

Or, as you dislike plants, as I know now, you certainly prefer
this meat *only* table.
http://www.geocities.com/paleolix/lipidsallmeat.html
(290k, smaller version of only 17 k at
http://www.geocities.com/paleolix/lipidsmeat.html)
Ok, now seperate the actual paleo meat: wild game.
There are only a few - moose squirrel elk buffalo antelope.
Only bison is low (10% EFA). Wanna bet they tested *farmed* bison?

Good luck for all

Amadeus