Flaxseed Questions

[BakerAunt]

I do not keep flax seed to use in baking since dieticians agree that humans cannot digest them whole. I do use flax meal. As I was looking through Living Bread, a new baking book I bought, I found a recipe for Leinsamenbrot, which means Flaxseed Bread. The recipe, which looks like one that I could pull off (although I also need rye flakes and whole wheat flakes) calls for 40 g of flax seed in the soaker.

What I am wondering, and Google is not particularly helpful, is if soaking the seeds makes it possible for the human body to absorb their nutrients, or if they need to be cracked. I don't think it would work to substitute flax meal for the unground seeds in the soaker, as that would make a gelatinous mess. I could buy some and coarsely grind them.

My husband has some issues with sesame seed, so I think that whole flax seeds would not work for him. Unless I can find a workaround, I will have to forgo baking this recipe.

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[kimbob]

Hi, BakerAunt. I googled soaking flaxseed overnight and got a lot of hits. This one talks about soaking making them more digestible and absorbing nutrients.
https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/flax-5613.html

[BakerAunt]

That is pretty much what I have read, Kimbob, in terms of nutrition. The article says flax seeds also need to be ground, not just soaked. My concern is that grinding might throw off the bread recipe.

Using flax meal in the bread soaker step does not seem like it would work.

I'm not sure if coarsely grinding flax seeds before making the soaker for the bread that includes flax seeds would throw off the recipe.

[Mike Nolan]

The issue with flax is that the hull is not digestible, so it needs to be ground. Soaking it doesn't appear to work, doing a mash (ie, heating the soaker) might be better, cracking the flax might work, too, but I've never tried that so I don't know how easy it is to do.

I know my nutrimill specifically says not to try to run flax or any other oily seed through it.

[BakerAunt]

Grinding flax does not sound like something that I would want to do. I probably won't try the recipe unless I can figure out how to make flax meal work in it.

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