----- Original Message -----
From: "Phosphor" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: why is flaxseed oil ok?



> flax has never been used as a food crop. never. anyone try to contradict
me
> here? > andrew

Actually, Mary Enig, on the Weston-Price website, contradicts you. See
below:


      By Mary G. Enig, PhD

      ... There are, however, present-day challengers on the Internet to the
use of flax as food. The Now Age Press website is a typical example. Critics
take issue with any statement made in recent years that refers to flaxseed
as having a history as a "staple" food in any culture. These critics will
admit only to the use of flaxseed as food in times of famine. oil.2

      When we search out historical documents written a century ago,
however, we are presented with another view. The 1911 edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica reported that "Linseed [flaxseed] formed an article
of food among the Greeks and Romans, and it is said that the Abyssinians at
the present day eat it roasted. The oil is to some extent used as food in
Russia and in parts of Poland and Hungary."  ....

      The more recent Cambridge World History of Food records the use of
flaxseed oil for cooking in Russia in the 19th Century and the use of seeds
for making tea.4

      A recent text on flaxseed, edited by researchers at the University of
Toronto, contains discussions of historical uses as a food, both directly
and indirectly. In the introduction, we learn that the edible flaxseed was
the one predominantly grown in India, that flaxseed is consumed in the diet
as oil in China, that it is consumed in Ethiopia in a stew (wat), as a
porridge (gufmo), and as a drink (chilka), and has been part of the
traditional foods in Egypt since the time of the Pharaohs.5



      Evelyn