my stepmom also suggested I sprinkle this organic flax seed on cereal or in yogurt at least once a day
I don't understand what the point is though and at 65 calories for 2 tsp (40 of which are from fat) I'm thinking until I know what it's purpose is, I'll avoid it.

It's good to be wary of what you put in your body, but I think most of us will side with your stepmom. I put ground flax seed in my oatmeal. It's got a lot of health benefits, including some of the healthy oils you DO need everyday. Give it a whirl. I really don't see you having massive weight gain from a teaspoon every day. Good luck!

I had been eating a flax seed/egg/cream cheese thingie for breakfast and it was very satisfying and kept me full for HOURS. The fat in it won't do ya no harm, and it won't make you fat either.

Flax seeds needs to be ground, other wise you don't get the health benefits. I ground mine in a coffee grinder. You have to store it in the refrigerator after it's ground too. Besides having tons of nutrtional value it's an excellent source of fiber. Go ahead, it won't hurt. I use it for everything. I sprinkel it on my yogurt and i add it to muffins, I add it to cereal...list goes on.

For more information about flax seeds and their benefits, see here:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?t...dspice&dbid=81

Only you can decide if the nutritional benefits they offer are worth the calorie trade-off, but at least this'll give you a good overview of what those benefits are.

hmm I'll probably look more into it then
I was just wary because her dieting advice is usually very off

thank you!
I'm reading through that now

Also, the calories may not be as high as you think. The flax seed I buy lists a serving as 2 tbsp with 90 calories. But 16 of those calories come from fiber (it has 4g of fiber per serving). You body can't absorb fiber, so those calories don't count. So my flaxseed really has only 74 calories per 2 tbsp serving.

Also, 65 calories for 2 tsp of flax seed sounds high to me. All my sources for calorie info indicate that 1 tsp of flax seed should have about 15 calories (and that's before you subtract the calories for fiber).

I'm not entirely sure I agree with that. I think that's playing semantics with the numbers. If you're counting calories to lose weight, be very careful about juggling numbers like this because it can cause you to stall or even gain.

.

The fiber/calories thing varies by country, and even by product.

In the US, most manufacturers remove fiber from their calorie counts, since it is legal to do so. So a cereal like Fiber1, for example, is listed as 60 calories per serving in the United States. Even though there are 24 total grams of carbohydrate at 4 calories a gram, 14 grams of those are fiber, meaning that 56 calories of carbohydrate are fiber and therefore undigestable.

In Canada, Fiber1 cereal is 110 calories for the same serving and product...in Canada, the fiber calories cannot be deducted, even though they are indigestible.

So if you're in Canada, or another foreign country, you might be able to deduct fiber calories...in the US, they are usually (but not always) deducted for you already.

You can figure out if fiber calories have been deducted as follows:

Total Carbohydrate Grams (including fiber) on Label x 4
plus
Total Protein Grams on Label x 4
plus
Total Fat Grams on Label x 9
plus
Total Alcohol Grams on Label x 7

If that total equals the calories on the package, and there are fiber grams listed, the fiber has NOT been deduced.

If the total is MORE than the calories listed on the package, the difference is probably the carb calories from the fiber having been removed.

I wondered why the stuff I bought in Canada was different! I bought a lot of snacks up there when we were on vacation (it was a lot cheaper and the exchange was right on dollar to dollar) and was so confused as to why the calorie counts were all different. In my food journals I have them all listed as either (American package) or (Canadian package). That bit of information just made my day!

Yes fiber calories can be subtracted, because unless you have the bacteria to digest cellulose (cows do, humans don't), it passes through your system undigested. It's sort of like imagining that you swallowed a tiny plastic easter egg with a piece of candy inside - if the egg comes out intact (yeah gross, I know) then the calories in the candy didn't count.

But unless you know that the label hasn't already subtracted the fiber calories, I'd suggest just taking the label at face value. If you have a lot of time on your hands you could check their math if you really wanted to, knowing that

Fat: 1 gram = 9 calories
Protein: 1 gram = 4 calories
Carbohydrates: 1 gram = 4 calories