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CAMELINA
- THE BETTER FLAX!
A brief introduction to Camelina
(wild flax) - a time-tested source of health-promoting omega-3
fatty acids
Camelina (Camelina Sativa)
- also known as wild flax, German sesame, or Siberian oilseed
- is an ancient oleaginous (oil-bearing) plant from the Cruciferae
family, which has been domesticated and extensively used in
Europe for several thousand years. The seed oil of Camelina contains an exceptional amount (up to 45 per cent)
of omega-3 fatty acids, as well as a unique antioxidant complex
making the oil very stable and resistant to heat and rancidity.
Unlike any other omega-3 oil, Camelina oil is perfectly
suitable for use not only as a well-balanced omega-3 supplement,
but also as a health-promoting everyday cooking oil. Combined
with a delicious nutty flavor, this extraordinary blend of
beneficial polyunsaturated fatty acids and high oxidative
stability makes Camelina oil an excellent, versatile
overall source of both heart-healthy omega-3 fats and powerful
antioxidants, including
tocopherols, carotenoids, and phosphatides. Known as "wild
flax" because it is often found growing together with common
flax (and also sometimes referred to as "false flax" due to
its visual similarity to regular flax), Camelina,
while supplying almost as many omega-3 fatty acids as common
flax, is much more stable than the latter, and also tastes
much better. This is why we call it "the Better Flax".
Omega-3 fatty acids are in the spotlight of today's natural
and holistic approaches to human health. These healthy essential
fats have been almost entirely forced out of the everyday
American diet by the commercialization of our food supply
by the food processing industry. In recent years, extensive
research and numerous clinical studies have confirmed that
omega-3 fats are involved in numerous
vital physiological processes in our bodies, and that
their deficit may cause or aggravate many serious medical
problems and conditions, including atherosclerosis, hypertension,
and other cardiovascular problems, arthritis, irritable bowel
syndrome, dermatitis, asthma, ADHD, and even cancer. Therefore,
adding a good source of omega-3 fatty acids to one's diet
is believed to be a good way of improving or preventing these
conditions. The question of what constitutes the best source
of omega-3 supplementation is, however, still being widely
debated by scientists, doctors and consumers alike.
Fish and fish oils as sources
of omega-3 fatty acids: benefits and disadvantages
There are two major known sources of omega-3
fatty acids: certain types of fish (and their tissue or organ
fat, also called fish oil or fish liver oil), and a number
of plant seeds and their oils (flax oil being the best known
one). Fish and fish oils (including cod liver oil) are a fairly
decent source of omega-3s. In fact, studies have shown that
eating as little as one fish meal a week can reduce the risk
of dying from cardiac arrest by fifty percent1.
Another advantage of fish and fish oil is that they contain
the most nutritionally available variety of omega-3s, eicosapentaenoic
acid (EPA), which is converted directly into PGE3
- the compound responsible for most of the health benefits
of omega-3 supplementation (more information about how omega-3s
work in the human body may be found here).
At the same time, you must be very careful
when choosing fish or fish by-products as a source of omega-3s.
 First
of all, not all fish contain omega-3s. Only the fatty, cold
water fish varieties, such as salmon, sardines, and anchovies,
are rich in omega-3s, whereas most other fish species supply
little or no omega-3s. Even with salmon, you have to make
sure that it is wild and not farm-raised2.
Only the salmon caught in the wild has any appreciable amounts
of omega-3s, because it gets them from its natural diet. The
diet of farm-raised salmon does not allow it to accumulate
any omega-3s in its tissues. Besides, eating any farm-raised
fish is not particularly healthy, because virtually all fish
farms make indiscriminate use of artificial feed, antibiotics,
and other toxic substances. Unfortunately, this is an accepted
part of the industrial fish farming technology. They even
use artificial colorants to make farm-raised salmon look pink
rather than its "natural" gray color (yes, farm-raised salmon
is "naturally" gray). In fact, when ordering farm-raised salmon,
a merchant even gets to pick the exact shade of pink (using
the Pantone color-matching guide), which may be fun for the
merchant but not too much fun for someone using the fish or
its tissue oil to feed her family.
Oils extracted from the body tissues (fish oil)
or organs (cod liver oil) of certain fish species are by far
the most concentrated sources of long-chain omega-3s (namely,
EPA and DHA). Cod liver oil has an additional advantage of
supplying large quantities of vitally important vitamins A
and D. It is, indeed, an excellent everyday supplement, but,
just like with fish, you must be a very careful shopper. There
are two major problems with fish oils: contamination with
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and mercury, and rancidity.
The issue of contamination is not the one to
be overlooked. Modern industrial agriculture produces a huge
toxic runoff which goes into our rivers and streams and eventually
ends up in the ocean. At the same time, coal-burning power
plants are increasingly polluting our atmosphere with mercury
(this poisonous metal is eventually carried into the ocean
as well). These harmful chemicals tend to accumulate in fish
tissues (for instance, mercury accumulates in fish in its
most toxic form: methylmercury). The larger the fish - the
more PCBs, mercury, and other toxins (like lead and cadmium)
will be found in its tissues. This problem is real, and every
year it gets worse. For example, the contamination of fish
harvested near the Northern shores of Russia got so bad that
the Russian government had to ban any and all use of fish
and cod liver oils as dietary supplements. More recently,
the US government has issued a number of warnings3
cautioning pregnant women and young children against consuming
certain species of fish because of mercury contamination. |
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Some
fish oil manufacturers are trying to solve this problem by
putting their products through an elaborate process of molecular
distillation - a complex industrial method of oil purification.
Although this technology guarantees that the contaminants
are driven out of the oil, it significantly increases the
cost of the product, and, in the case of cod liver oil, drives
vitamins A and D out of the oil, forcing manufacturers to
fortify it with synthetic equivalents of these vitamins. Furthermore,
molecular distillation does not offer a solution to the second
part of the problem with fish oils: rancidity.
Yes, almost any oil rich in omega-3s (including
not just fish oils, but flax oil as well) goes rancid very
easily, especially when its natural antioxidants are removed
by refining or distillation. This process is known as auto-oxidation,
and it generates dangerous and aggressive compounds called
free radicals, which negatively affect all molecules around
them. Millions of good, useful molecules can be destroyed
by the generation of a single free radical.
Manufacturers try to counter this effect by
avoiding any exposure of their products to light, heat or
oxygen, flushing them with nitrogen, or using artificial antioxidants
or other preservatives to keep the oils fresh. More often
than not, these efforts fail - a fact evidenced by many tests
performed on commercially available fish oils. With few exceptions,
they become rancid long before you ingest them, making them
do more harm than good (this is true for both liquid and encapsulated
fish oils).
One more disadvantage of fish-derived omega-3
supplements is that many people, including an ever-growing
number of vegetarians, are simply not able to use them because
they are excluding all animal products and by-products from
their diets altogether. For them, the only viable alternative
source of omega-3 fatty acids has been flax oil, a product
that has experienced a tremendous growth in popularity in
recent years and has become a staple in the diet of many health
seekers around the globe.
Flax oil: a rich, but very fragile and
rancidity-prone source of omega-3s
In many respects, the popularity of flax oil
is well-deserved. It contains up to 57 percent of alpha-linolenic
acid (ALA), an omega-3 fatty acid that, through a number of
metabolic steps called elongation and desaturation (for more
information about these metabolic processes and their products,
please visit this page), is further
converted into EPA and PGE3, as well
as DHA. Although the rate of this conversion varies depending
on individual metabolism, it is believed that most people
are capable of effectively producing EPA, PGE3
and DHA from ALA. In addition to this, ALA has other beneficial
effects on the human body. For example, ALA and its metabolic
by-products compete with omega-6 fatty acids for metabolic
enzymes desaturase and elongase, resulting in the decreased
formation of less desirable PGE2 prostaglandins,
which are manufactured by the body using the same enzymes.
It also decreases the levels of triglycerides and oxidized
cholesterol in the blood. Overall, ALA is an important health-promoting
omega-3 fatty acid, and flax oil is the richest natural source
of it.
Unfortunately, just like many other good things
in life, flax oil has its downside. Primarily, it has to do
with the problems already mentioned by us when we took a closer
look at fish and cod liver oils - namely, auto-oxidation,
rancidity, and free radical formation. Bruce Fife, N.D., talks
about these unwanted side effects of taking flax oil in his
article entitled "The Facts on Flax":
"Polyunsaturated oils, including flaxseed oil,
are easily oxidized. When it oxidizes it kicks off a series
of free-radical chain reactions that affects all molecules
around it. Millions of molecules can be destroyed or oxidized
by the generation of a single free radical. Cholesterol that
is in close proximity to a polyunsaturated oil that is becoming
oxidized, as is the case in lipoproteins, will also become
oxidized. These oxidized, free-radical damaged oils are absorbed
into the lining of the artery walls and contribute to the
formation of plaque…
All [unstable] polyunsaturated oils provide a source of free
radicals which can damage arterial walls which initiates the
plaque-building process. PGE2 derived
from vegetable oils constricts blood vessels and increases
platelet stickiness, which raises blood pressure and causes
further damage to arterial walls. When injury occurs to the
artery in this type of environment, oxidized fat is attracted
to and incorporated into the injury site. Because platelets
become sticky, blood clots easily form on injured artery walls.
These clots can grow big enough to block an artery or break
off and float down and lodge into a smaller artery. When an
artery is clogged, cells are deprived of much needed oxygen,
causing tissue death. In the heart it can cause a heart attack;
in the brain it can cause a stroke."5
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opponents of flax oil like to say that it is a novelty product
without a history of traditional food use in any culture.
This is very untrue. It was, in fact, a widely used culinary
oil in Russia for many centuries. It is a well-documented
fact, and flax oil supporters are absolutely correct when
they invoke it to prove the virtues of flax oil supplementation.
However, if one takes a closer look at the traditional usage
of flax oil in Russia, a very important detail comes to light.
Namely, it turns out that flax oil was only used for food
by poorer Russian peasants, and only when there were no other,
more stable cooking oils available. In fact, flax oil historically
was the cheapest seed oil available in Russia, mostly used
for making paint and varnish. Apparently, the problem of flax
oil's susceptibility to oxidation was widely known in Russia,
and considered important enough to stay away from it by those
who could afford better alternatives.
 Yes,
oxidation is, indeed, a major problem with flax oil for which
no solution has been offered so far. The oil is poor in natural
antioxidants, and starts going rancid as soon as it is pressed
from the seeds. Modern flax oil industry takes many precautions
to prevent the oil from going rancid. In many ways, these
precautions are similar to the measures taken by fish oil
manufacturers. Flax oil is often pressed and bottled in an
oxygen-free environment and stored in climate-controlled warehouses
to preserve its freshness. Some health food stores keep flax
oil in the refrigerated section, where it should be. But this
is an exception rather than the rule, and, just like fish
and cod liver oils, most commercially available varieties
of flax oil, both liquid and in capsule form, do get rancid.
And even if they don't, there is no way to avoid oxidation
and rancidity once the oil enters your body. Once ingested,
it inevitably triggers free radical chain reactions, damaging
millions upon millions of healthy molecules. Your body tries
to stop these reactions with its own natural reserves of anti-oxidants,
such as vitamin E, putting these reserves under an unnecessary
and undesirable stress. As a result, the benefits of taking
flax oil may well be outweighed by the harm done by free radicals
and other toxic by-products of lipid oxidation.
Solution: Camelina (wild flax)
oil
Considering the above, one inevitably
comes to a conclusion that none of the commercially available
sources of omega-3 fatty acids is fully satisfactory and completely
problem-free. While it is possible to achieve the required
level of omega-3 supplementation using either fish and fish-derived
products, or flax oil, it would be highly desirable to have
an omega-3-rich oil that would also be more resistant to oxidation
and free of toxic contaminants. The good news is that such
an oil does, indeed, exist. This is the oil of Camelina
- the Better Flax!
Although some common names of Camelina (Camelina Sativa) make a reference to flax,
and there is even some visual resemblance between common flax
and Camelina, the latter belongs to the Cruciferae
family of plants. Camelina has been grown in
Europe for centuries, and in the Iron and Bronze ages it was
an important agricultural crop.6
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From
the times of the Roman Empire to the Second World War, Camelina oil was a common edible oil all over Europe, and
especially in Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia. In Russia,
it was much preferred to flax oil because of its better taste
and higher stability, and commanded a significantly higher
market price.
In mid-20th century, Camelina
in most European countries (except in Russia, where it is
still an important oilseed crop) was gradually replaced by
other oleaginous plants, primarily rapeseed and sunflower,
the oils of which are much lower in omega-3 fatty acids. Ironically ,
the main reason for this was the fact that rapeseed and sunflower
oils are easier to hydrogenate, making them more useful for
the modern food processing industry. However, nowadays we
are witnessing a growing interest in Camelina and
its excellent seed oil that was able to withstand the test
of time. In addition to Russia, where Camelina never
ceased to be an important source of cooking oil, extensive
research of this unique healing plant is underway in the countries
of the European Community, as well as in Canada and the United
States.
Camelina seeds produce a golden-colored
oil with a delicate, almond-like flavor, containing up to
45 percent of omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). In addition
to valuable omega-3s, it is uniquely rich in powerful antioxidants,
primarily tocopherols. At 110mg/100g, its vitamin E (tocopherol)
content is among the highest of all natural tocopherol sources.
By contrast, flax oil contains only trace amounts of vitamin
E.
The fatty acid composition of Camelina oil is also unique and very beneficial in terms of
its health-promoting qualities. While being a rich source
of ALA, the oil is highly monounsaturated, naturally supplying
more than 30 percent of stable monounsaturated (oleic and
gadoleic) fatty acids. This significant proportion of monounsaturates
(monounsaturated olive oil forms the basis of the healthy
Mediterranean diet) further enhances the oxidative stability
of Camelina oil, and makes it a more versatile cooking
oil.
Finally, Camelina oil is relatively low
in omega-6 linoleic acid, resulting in a favorable omega-3/omega-6
ratio of up to 3-to-1. This decreases the potential of the
oil to stimulate the formation of less desirable series 2
prostaglandins (PGE2),
while maximizing its ability to support the synthesis of health-promoting
series 3 prostaglandins
(PGE3).The
combination of these important advantages makes Camelina oil
the most balanced and desirable source of omega-3 fatty acid
supplementation for solving and preventing cardiovascular
and other health problems.. While supplying almost as much
omega-3s as flax oil, it is highly stable and abundant in
vitamin E and other natural antioxidants, as well as beneficial
monounsaturated fatty acids. As a result, it does not promote
the formation of harmful free radicals. On the contrary, it
helps resist their destructive effects by providing powerful
antioxidant protection.
The delicate, pleasant taste and aroma
of Camelina oil makes it an excellent salad and cooking
oil. On our recipes page, you
will find many creative ways of using Camelina oil
in your kitchen.
If you would like to order cold-pressed,
extra virgin Camelina oil, please visit out order
page (for a limited time, take advantage of our special
flat rate shipping offer). If you want more information
or have additional questions, please send an e-mail to our
holistic nutritionists at consult@siberiantigernaturals.com.
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
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REFERENCES:
1. Albers, C. M., et al. 1998. Fish consumption and
risk of sudden cardiac death. JAMA 279 (1):23
2. A good rule of thumb is that Pacific salmon is almost always
wild, whereas Atlantic salmon is typically farm-raised. All
canned salmon is wild (farm-raised salmon is too flaky to
withstand the canning process).
3. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. What You Need to Know about Mercury in
Fish and Shellfish. EPA-823-R-04-005, March 2004
4. One fairly interesting vegetarian alternative to fish oils
is a recently introduced omega-3 supplement derived from algae.
It does not, however, provide any eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA).
This product only contains docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a metabolic
product of EPA. Although this long-chain fatty acid has important
benefits of its own, it cannot be converted to PGE3 – the
hormone-like compound responsible for most of the beneficial
health effects produced by omega-3 fatty acids.
5. Bruce Fife, N.D. The Facts on Flax. Excerpted from the
book Saturated Fats May Save Your Life, Piccadilly Books,
1999.
6. Prehistoric Plant Food of Denmark, by Eva Koch, 12 December
1999 |
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