Saturday, December 20, 2008

Baking with Omega-3's

Since most of my grain-free and vegan bread experiments have flaxseed as a major ingredient, I had to do some homework to ensure that I wasn't going to be eating something potentially harmful by breaking down the omega-3 ALA in the flaxseed during baking. From everything I've read and heard so far, from references to studies (see links below) to talks given by prominent vegan physicians, flaxseed meal is stable at temperatures well above those needed for baking things like muffins and bread. In fact, the effects of consuming flaxseed meal in baked goods the effects of consuming raw flaxseed meal have been shown to be very similar in humans.[1] The recommended dose of flaxseed meal to take in order to see the benefits of the omega-3's is one tablespoon. The spice muffin recipe I posted yesterday contains sufficient flaxseed meal to provide 1 tablespoon per muffin.

Here are a couple of links to documents containing information about flaxseed meal stability at room temperatures and baking temperatures that I found very helpful:

http://www.flaxrd.com/Documents/Flax%20Stability.pdf
http://www.flaxcouncil.ca/english/pdf/FlxPrmr_4ed_appdx.pdf

Granted, they both seem to be from sources that might be biased, I've heard similar reassurance about baking flaxseed meal from Dr. Michael Greger, who is well known in vegan circles for his thorough investigation and skeptical inquiry of various vegan health issues and claims.

References:
1. Cunnane SC, et al. British J Nutr. 1993; 69:443-453.

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