Susan Kline writes:

>It hasn't been that severe a laxative for me. Also, so many of their foods
>were high-fiber that I imagine they developed a good tolerance for these
>things.


Hi Susan,

I was under the impression that the laxative effect of flax is brought about
in part by some chemical mechanism (in addition to it's high fiber content),
because, again in my experience, a small amount seems to bring on a
gastrointestinal phenomenon that is disproportionate to its fiber content.
I was thinking along the lines of castor seed oil (I don't mean to campare,
though).  So I intuited that if a food item stimulates the GI tract to
agressively rid it from the body (laxative), it doesn't belong there in the
first place.  In other words, the body can't handle it's chemical make-up,
so it might stand to reason that our ancestors didn't consume it enough to
adapt to it.  I admit that this is only based on my own experience and
flax's general (perhaps exaggerated) reputation as a laxative.

B. Lischer