You’ve probably heard a heap of times that eating whole seeds is really good for you, so that’s why you want more, or just some, in your diet. Or you may want more in your children’s diet.

If you’re like me and haven’t grown up with lots of seeds in your diet, you can be at a bit of a loss as to how to get more into the foods you like to eat.

Eating more whole seed bread isn’t always appealing. You have to be a bird anyway or spend half your time chewing just to make sure you crunch all the seeds to get the benefits from them.

Some seeds, like sesame and flax seeds (parent omega 3!), are so good for you but how hard are they to eat?! They’re so small, chewing them is almost impossible.

Buying seeds already crushed means the delicate oils are exposed to air so they go bad quickly and you end up throwing half the packet out. Plus I know of only LSA (linseed/flax seed, sunflower seed and almonds) mix which is not a lot of variety. Also if you want a specific type of seed there are not many options.

I have found a solution. Its not actually my idea, I got it from YouTube.

I wanted to increase the amount of parent omega 3 in my diet to complement the Omega 6 I get from our pumpkin seed oil as per Professor Brian Peskin’s recommendations*. Fish oil is not an option as its not in the parent form that our bodies need*.

The best source of parent omega 3 is flax seed oil. I’m not at all impressed with any flax seed oil produced in Australia (it all tastes rancid). In my book eating flax seeds is a must. But how?

The guy off YouTube was making a smoothie and added freshly ground Flax Seeds. He recommended grinding them fresh so the oils in the seed was at its best. Fantastic!

So I went off to hunt for a seed grinder. I wanted one that can do small amounts, 1 tablespoon, at a time - just enough for 1 (me!) to add to my porridge. Every machine seemed like I would need to grind enough for a week. Not very appealing for the freshness factor.

Finally after pounding seeds in a mortar and pestle for a few weeks and not getting very good results I bit the bullet and bought a grinder.

Although the grinder packaging doesn’t say, which I think they really should, is that they do really small quantities. When I say small I mean small - less than 1 tablespoon of flax seeds! They get wizzed around by the speed so even though they don’t fill up to the blades they still get chopped into a fine powder. Just what I want for my porridge.

My grinder is by Sunbeam and is called a Muligrinder. Its a coffee grinder. It can also be used for herbs and spices. I love it. Do you know how freshly ground seeds, herbs and spices smell? Delicious.

So, to some it all up. If you want an easy way to add more seeds like flax seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds etc to your diet,  disguise them in with your other foods.... get a grinder. They are really tasty and you feel good for eating them.

In winter add ground seeds to porridge, soups and sauces. In summer add them to smoothies, cereal and salads. Anytime add them to biscuits, muffins or breads.

Its easy - only takes a few seconds to grind them up. It will leave you with a good feeling that for the less than 30 seconds effort to add them to your food. You can feel proud you did something good for your health and wellbeing.

Best of all adding more seeds to your foods will give you the nutrients and protein you need and help stop sugary snack cravings, great for weight loss.

Till next time, have a great day.

Sharan

You can be a man or a woman and have the hair on your head start to thin. Do you remember how thick it was when you were 10? How does it compare to that now?

It can be difficult to notice especially when it generally happens very slowly. Take a look at your hairbrush and the bathroom floor. Quick hair build-up in these areas is an easy tell-tail sign. Most people don’t notice any change until its about 40% GONE.

You may have mentioned to friends, family or your doctor that you think your hair is thinning as you’ve noticed a lot of hair in your hairbrush and what do they (or the internet) tell you? “Don’t worry! We all loose around 100 hairs a day.” I think this is AN OLD WIVES TALE! I wonder how longs its been since anyone ever counted???

Well, I did, about 8 months ago. I was able to do this because I have long hair which I brushed thoroughly to remove any loose ones. I then tied my hair up in a pony-tale for 24 hours, brushed it thoroughly and then painstakingly counted...

Yes, the couple of days I did this I counted up to 98 hairs lost BUT, this was while I was going through chemotherapy. Now I think everyone knows or has seen someone who has lost their hair due to chemo... when it goes, ALL of it goes. The drugs I was on don’t generally make your hair fall out. I was very lucky that I didn’t loose my hair but my hair was (still) falling out in what seemed like large amounts.

The thing is, my hair had been failing out at roughly that same rate for probably 2 - 3 YEARS, that I can remember, prior to my cancer diagnosis (read about that on my other blog).

It had caused me some concern but I was reassured by the 100 hair a day myth. I thought it may have been zinc deficiency so a took the recommended dose (occasionally) but that didn’t seem to help.

Then the cancer was diagnosed and after surgery I went to the naturopath to get nutritional support for while I did chemo and beyond. One supplement was zinc. I made sure I took it EVERY day...

I started to notice a decrease in my hair loss.

After approximately 6 months on zinc supplements, my naturopath did a zinc test. The rating is; deficiency: 1, scaling up to not deficient: 4. I was about a 2.

I was surprised that after 6 months of supplements I was still deficient. I know it was a stressful time and stress increases your need for zinc, but it was still a bit of a shock.

After another few months I started to notice I had a lot more SHORT hairs on my head. Absolutely fantastic! My hair was growing back.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve had another test. I’m was still deficient (I’d just had a cold). I know I need to keep getting as much as possible. I still have lots of shorter hairs growing around my hairline and above my temples and its great.

I am starting to notice my hair BECOMING THICKER.

My naturopath suggested I get zinc test every 3 months and I will do so until I’m not deficient and then spread it out to 6 monthly test. I will gave to do another drop count again....

I have noticed that if I don’t take my zinc for a week or so, my hair drop increases and decreases when I start again. It is also helping to clear up my skin which has broken out in pimples a lot more since chemo.

The point of this blog is to let you know that if your hair is thinning it could very well be a zinc deficiency and you need to check and take supplements and check again and again as it can take months and MONTHS to build up. This is from personal experience.

Zinc Information:

• Zinc test are simple, easy and cheap: most health food stores do them for free or a couple of dollars, just ask. All you do is hold 10ml of a special zinc liquid in your mouth for 30 seconds. If you can’t taste it: you’re deficient, get some supplements, if you can: great! but it doesn’t taste that nice so you can be happy you probably don’t have to have another one for another couple of years.
• When you are deficient in zinc its harder for your body to absorb it as it is needed for digestion in your stomach. You NEED to take supplements.
• If your body cannot get the zinc it requires it will start using your selenium to convert to zinc.
• About 70% - 80% of people in Australia are thought to be deficient.

How do you get zinc in your diet? Well, another reason why I love our business and am even more passionate about making it a success is that pumpkin seeds and our pumpkin seed meal is a super source of zinc. You also get it from most animal foods predominantly red meats and its particularly high in oysters. Apparently it is absorbed better by our bodies when its found with protein. That's why pumpkin seeds are very good for vegetarians, they get the zinc and the protein.

Please, please, PLEASE, even if you have not noticed your hair falling out, make it a priority to get a zinc test THIS WEEK. Its needed for so many functions in your body, which I will talk about a LOT more in blog posts to come, so make sure you subscribe in the box to the right, so you don’t miss out on helpful tips for your health and happiness.

Bye for now.

Sharan West

I have been inspired many times... over the last 6 - 8 MONTHS.
The inspirations come from a blog I receive by a copywriter on marketing and business, every couple of DAYS.

Every couple of days for 6 - 8 months I get a reminder of what I’d like to do but haven’t done anything about... it got me thinking...

Have you ever been inspired or excited about doing something and then never done anything about it?

Most people would probably say ‘yes’ to that question.

Have you ever wondered what stopped you? How does it make you feel that you never did it?

It makes me feel like a failure. It diminishes my trust and confidence in myself as it subconsciously says that I can’t get things done.

Failure pops up twice here. What stopped me doing it in the first place? Some might say that its just laziness or procrastination but is it really? If you look a little harder you may see that these emotions come AFTER the fear of failure to do what you want to do in the first place. Its easy to say “I can’t be bothered to do it right now” “ I’ll do it later” and just keep putting it off, but if it got you excited in the first place you’d want to do it right now!

But you don’t because a little thought or voice pops into your head that you might fail and so you procrastinate and don’t get it done. And there’s the proof to yourself that you ARE a failure because you didn’t get it done!

So how do you get out of this never ending loop?

By getting realistic in defining what ‘failure’ is, letting yourself know that “its OK to fail” and then taking ACTION.

The only way to fail is to not do anything, to not try. But if you don’t follow through with a particular idea, and you ‘fail’, THAT’S OK. It just means you didn’t do it. Its says nothing else. The sun will still rise tomorrow.

For me my inspiration is in writing a regular blog to inspire people to do things that lead to true health and happiness and yes, promote all things pumpkin seed. To do this I need to write blogs that people want to read and give them value and inspire them to take ACTION in many areas of their lives and not hit that ‘unsubscribe’ button. ;) The little voice says that not doing this would mean failure.

See that’s not realistic failure... of course some people may hit the unsubscribe button! No one can be expected to please everybody, all the time. The only ‘failure’ would be to not try... people could still live without having read a blog article by me ;)

I CAN write a blog (this is it!) - it may not inspire everyone but if I inspire just one person even if its just myself (so I write another one next weekend), in my book, I’m not a failure and that makes me feel good and brings a bit of happiness to my life. Mission accomplished!

If you’re still stuck at starting, ask yourself what’s the worst that can happen? If its life threatening, consult a few other people. If its not, then just go for it! Stop listening to the voice in your head and just write a plan of what to do and just start. You can be a winner too.

Bye for now.

Sharan West

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass.... its about learning to dance in the rain." (Vivian Green)

Wow! I've just been doing a quick bit of research on saw palmetto in relation to the Korean study. After reading the summary a couple of times, putting the results into the table below and discovering that our beloved pumpkin seed oil performed BETTER than saw palmetto, I was extra excited when realising the quantities used in the study were so small!

The results put two and two together as to why some of our customers who have tried saw palmetto with little result and had such great results so quickly after talking to us and taking pumpkin seed oil. I'll explain; the quantities taken in the study were 320mg per day of either pumpkin seed oil or/and saw palmetto oil. This is less than 1ml (0.32ml to be exact). 320mg per day is the average recommended dosage of saw palmetto oil used in studies and when buying capsules. At that rate you would have to take the saw palmetto for 12 months to be able to notice if it was working or not with regard to the 'Maximal urinary flow rate' measurement. (The 'International prostate score' and 'Quality of life' probably need to be measure by a specialist so I'm assuming these results would generally be unknown.) I don't know how long our customers who said they had tried saw palmetto were taking it for - possibly not 12 months. When asked we recommend taking anywhere from 1 teaspoon (5ml) to 2 dessert or tablespoons (30 - 40ml) depending on current eating habits and severity of complaint.... 1 teaspoon is just over 15 times the amount taken in the study, 30mls is over 93 times the same amount taken in the study! No wonder our customers get great results from pumpkin seed oil.

To take it a step further for this economic day and age I've compared pricing too...the results will blow you away. You can pay online anywhere from the equivalent of 56c - $1 a day for various size containers (20, 30, 60 capsules etc) for the same quantities used in the study (0.32ml) of saw palmetto oil. You can buy a 500ml bottle of Australian pumpkin seed oil for $42.70 which is an equivalent of 1,562 days at 0.32mg per day for just 2.7c per day - ridiculous isn't it ;)  Seeing it wouldn't be easy to measure out of the bottle that amount and you want to take the oil while its still fresh (1 bottle would last you 4.3 years), it would be better to work it the other way and you'll find that for the same 56c per day, 1 x 500ml bottle would last you 76 days and you would be taking 6.5mls or 20 times the daily amount used in the study or as recommended for saw palmetto.

From the great results some of our customers have received and the results of this study, if you or anyone you know has the same problem, wouldn't you want to know about pumpkin seed oil and be able to give it a go?

I was watching TV a week or so ago and there was a story on a guy who came out and said that its not the fat making people fat its the sugar. Hallelujah! The story went on to say that in Australia the average consumption of sugar today is 50Kg per year as apposed to 1Kg per year some 50 - 60+ years ago. No wonder people are having weight problems.
Sugar is a carbohydrate and can be used immediately by the body for energy or stored for later use. All those reading this who have been calorie counting will know that sugar has less calories, only 4, per gram as opposed to fat which has 9, so leaving the thought that fat is worse than sugar. I just read some more information and it stated that all excess fat will be stored, as carbohydrates and protein will be used for energy first. If you’ve been on a low fat or no fat diet and our body requires fat for many things eg hormone production, lubrication etc and you’re still having problems loosing weight, this should make you rethink the idea that eating fat is the problem. Now with the average population today is consuming an extra 49Kg of sugar per year, how much do you think is excess and stored? It seems with all the overweight people on low-fat or no-fat diets and still the obesity figures increasing, fat cannot be blamed for all the problems. Not only is obesity on the rise but also heart disease and cancer. Makes me ask the question: is it not all interrelated? Also makes me wonder why people seem to have gotten fatter and more unhealthy since the major push on fats being bad for us and we should go on low fat, no fat diets!!!??? (more on that next blog). Way back in time (or not so long ago) when there was no skim milk or low fat cheese there were also not so many people with obesity. Hmmmm....
Getting back to the calorie count of sugar - only 4 per gram.... but if you are consuming a 50Kg per year thats 200,000 calories per year just from sugar! To put that in exercise terms burning 180 calories for an hour of walking (based on this information) thats 1111 hours of walking or 3 hrs per day, every day of the year (no holiday exceptions!). My point is, if you have a weight problem you may want to look at your sugar consumption. Manufacturers are very good at adding it as most people are addicted to sugar so it keeps them buying their products. To know if you are addicted ask yourself how often that little thought voice in your head says "I just feel like something sweet".... to combat this little voice, whenever you hear it say that, follow it with "ok, i'm addicted to sugar so I'm going to have a nice big glass of water and go for a walk" then don't think any more and just drink that water and go for that walk. When you get back from your walk congratulate yourself for being powerful and taking a positive step towards taking control of your health and wellbeing.
Good Luck - I wish you all the best of health.
Sharan

When it comes to seeds and nuts ask which is the healthiest and most people will be quick to say raw - you get more enzymes, no nutrients are destroyed so raw is healthier. Right??
That’s one view point, however if we look at it from a different angle it may not be so. Many foods are better if they are cooked. The cooking helps to breakdown certain elements which makes the food more easily digestible and release more nutrients making them more beneficial. Cooking is something we do everyday without a second thought to many foods.  If you have been eating the raw ‘Natural’ seeds only  for the same assumption above, then you may like to experiment with the roasted pumpkin seeds (Original or Traditional).
Comments from customers brought to our attention that some people find they get more enjoyment and energy from eating the roasted pumpkin seeds.
How do raw or roasted pumpkin seeds affect you?  Please let us know by posting a comment.

One of the most fascinating things about Pumpkin Seed Oil is the colour! When first looking at it most people think it looks like balsamic vinegar as it can look almost black in a clear glass bottle, however if you look at it from the right angle it can have a reddish sheen to it and THEN when you put it on a salad or white plate it comes up a very dark green colour! So what colour actually is it?

Well, its actually two colours. The technical term for this type of colouring is Dichromatic or Polychomatic. A study at the University of Slovenia found that "When the layer of oil is less than 0.7 millimeter thick," the study notes, "the oil appears bright green, and in [a] layer thicker than this, it appears bright red." It all has to do with light waves passing through the oil and how our eye receptors process colours. For more detail visit our website or http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=traffic-light-on-a-spoon

We press all our oil ourselves in the traditional cold press way with lots of pressure (as done for the last 300 years in Styria). Our oil is pure pumpkin seed oil which can be identified by its deep colour consistency. Some  oils (especially if they are about half the price) are not pure and will not have the deep colour or same flavour as they have usually been processed with another type of white oil (eg canola or sunflower) to make them cheaper.

There can be many differences in flavours and quality due to the processing and addition (or not) of white oil. The seed is gently heated before being pressed - higher heat produces higher yield, higher roasted nutty flavour, lower nutritional value, lower cost and vice versa. The gentle heating is necessary as it releases the oil from the seed and from tests we have done, it also increases some of the nutrient transfer into the oil instead of remaining with the seed residue.

Another way I believe you may be able to get an idea of purity of pumpkin seed oil is to look at the Omega content. Pure pumpkin seed oil shows negligible amounts of Omega 3 (Linolenic Acid) and high Omega 6 (Linoleic Acid). There are plenty of websites that say pumpkin seed oil is a good source of Omega 3 however this is from the addition of another oil during extraction. We know a  manufacturer who adds Canola  oil specifically to increase the Omega 3 content. Omega 3 is an essential fatty acid and necessary in our diets. This may show it is not pure, however the benefits of getting some Omega 3 outweigh the fact that it is not pure.
 
Pumpkin seed oil that is not 100% pure does not mean it is not good - not at all,  as it can actually be enhanced through shelf-life, taste or nutrients with other oils. It also depends what you are using it for; flavour or nutrition? If you find a lower priced oil and you just want good flavour and it has it, then use it. If you want the nutritional quality then remember you get what you pay for.

Pumpkin seed oil with an Omega 3 content will go rancid more quickly as that is the nature of Omega 3.  Flax seed oil is a great source of Omega 3 and if it is fresh and good quality then it can last a good 3 months in the fridge. Pumpkin seed oil with a high Omega 6 content will last in the right conditions for 2 years. A small amount (eg 80ml) in a dipping bowl in the sun and airy place will go rancid in a couple of hours, that's what its meant to do (the reasons I will explain in another blog!).  If you are not sure what a rancid oil tastes like, put some on a spoon and leave it on the bench in an airy spot for a few hours and then dip your finger in to try it and you'll know.

To sum it all up: eating quality oils will help your health and well-being. The money spent on a good quality oil (and food in general) will be saved in other areas (expensive vitamin pills, doctors visits etc). Buy good quality and you'll get the flavour and nutritional benefits.



(Regarding the 250ml picture in the shopping cart of two different looking bottles. The orange label is our existing one and the other a design option similar (we have changed it a bit since this photo was taken) to a new label we will be using soon to make all our products come under the one consistent branding of 'Australian Pumpkin Seed Company'. We also have the 500ml size. )

Starting right at the beginning..... This picture is of two of the founding members John & Helen West, showing the wonderful Styrian variety of pumpkin seeds, from a pumpkin grown on the family farm.

Welcome to the Australian Pumpkin Seed Company Blog!

This is where new information, ideas, thoughts and feedback will be found on anything that can be related back to pumpkin seeds and pumpkin seed oil.
New items will be posted to encourage feedback as more people can bring more information to share for the benefit of all who reads these pages.

I ask that if you have something to say, please send it through so it can be shared with fellow pumpkin seed enthusiasts.