This blog is to ask just that question and get some feedback. I’d like to know if anyone out there has tried flax seed oil and if they like the flavour of it? I’d like to know how you use it and why?

I have tried an imported flax seed oil from Austria and it was delicious for about 5 months, then it went rancid. While fresh, it had a delicate sweet nutty flavour that was great on salads and I was happy to add it to smoothies or just take a teaspoon full so I could get a good dose of Omega 3.

Unfortunately I have not been able to find a flax seed oil produced here is Australia that tastes anywhere near as good. A lot of the oils are not refridgerated which from internet research and trials is a must. If anyone has tried a tasty flax seed oil brand, please let me know.

The main reason for wanting flax seed oil in my diet is to get ‘Parent’ Omega 3 (Linoleic Acid).  There are many uses of Omega 3 in our bodies, one being cell membrane permeability for letting in oxygen and preventing cancer*. All the fish oils are not the same as they are a derivative of the parent form which our bodies don’t need as much of and can easily make* if the parent version is available (*referenced from Professor Brian Peskin’s research).

My substitute for not taking flax seed oil is to grind whole flax seeds fresh each morning with some sesame, chia and pumpkin seeds to add to my morning porridge. When the weather warms up I’ll do the same but add it to a smoothie which is also scrumptious.

We know that the flax seed oil produced in Austria is made using the same process that we use to make our pumpkin seed oil (a traditional, 300 years of experience cold press method). A reason I’d like to get some feedback is to see if it would be a good idea for us to produce flax seed oil as well as it is certainly complimentary to pumpkin seed oil.

I know I’d like it for my own purposes so we will be doing some small batches - would anyone like a sample? If you are interested please send me an email.

If you read my last blog and are thinking that you’re not the “I can’t be bothered” type or you are changing your ways and want to be bothered with your health, then you may now be asking IF you need to do more, if anything, for your health?

I think this is a very important question as I know that before suddenly being diagnosed with bowel cancer last year, at the age of 32, that I was looking after myself, I had no ‘major’ symptoms and felt ok, thought I was healthy and had nothing to worry about. I now know that was not the case.

One of my first thoughts after being diagnosed was that “I had no major warning signs or symptoms”. Now my thinking has changed. I had signs and symptoms but I just put them down as 'minor'.

Our bodies have this wonderful, amazing and on the other hand terrible ability of coping with so much. It is able to compensate for all the stress and pressure we put it through with only some 'minor' complaints.

The thing is that WE are the ones that label them as ‘minor’ and go on as if everything is ok, but in reality these ‘minor’ complaints are actually our bodies way of screaming at our consciousness that something is wrong.

Now if you complain about lots of little niggling things and people tell you you are being a hypercondriac, don’t listen to them, listen to your body. When you get a pain or twitch or just an itch or 10, make a mental note and monitor it for a week. If its still there and you’ve noticed other things too, then wake up and go and complain to a doctor and make sure they do more than just ask questions and take your blood pressure.

If they cannot find anything majorly wrong with you and say they can’t do anything for you, then that’s probably a good thing but don’t leave it there. All this means is that it is out of the realm of that particular doctor or for modern medicine. Modern medicine in my opinion works on the rule “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

Ancient medicine (naturopathy - a thousand years or so of experiences) works on being optimally healthy - kind of like “constant improvement”. If you’ve never considered a naturopath and think its a lot of mumbo jumbo, think about what it would be like to have no ‘minor’ complaints and feel full of energy and life all the time. If you don’t have a plan to get to that state, why not try naturopathy?

I’d urge you to go see one and ask to do a detox program, with a time limit (mine was approximately 3 months - if you want to make up for years of bad food, stress etc its not going to be one pill and an overnight cure). Your body will need time to repair. If you feel you have put in a good effort and no results then nothing lost (except some money - remember you can’t take it with you when you die ;). If it does what its supposed to your niggling pains should disappear, most food ‘allergies’ can disappear and you may even feel better than you have in years! Wouldn’t that be great?!

If you do feel better then make it a yearly ritual to keep your body in tip-top shape as it will slowly start to decline due to usual life stresses, so why not give yourself a yearly boost up to optimal so you don’t break!

If you are still not sure if your body is functioning at its best or not, then you can do a:

• Health Appraisal Questionnaire (HAQ)
• Nutrition & Immune Status / HAQ Graph

Download them from here.

I would recommend getting the above two (there are other listed too). The first has a whole bunch of questions with values which you can add up and put into the HAQ Graph which then tells you which areas are at a Low, Moderate or High Priority. I know there is a lot of questions but some of them I found were good to find out they were possibly a symptom of something not working properly as apposed to me thinking it was ‘normal’.

Now you may think that with the results of this information you can probably just go out and buy some supplements, fix yourself and save a few dollars on the naturopath consult fees. I would discourage this.

The experience and knowledge naturopaths provide give you the right supplements at the right time. My naturopath explained that our bodies have certain steps that form a part of how our body combats the problems thrown at it (eg. nutritional deficiencies, stress, chemicals, low grade food, air pollutants etc). Our body functions will use a certain system to fight until it is exhausted and then goes on to the next system to fight (I can’t remember the details but that’s the jist of it). You need to fix it in the same order or the systems will not be able to work optimally. If you don't major diseases can kick in.

These are the biggies that are increasing every year; cancer, heart attack, stroke, cardiovascular disease, diabetes. I think mental disorders could be added their too, its not a comprehensive list just what I can think of off the top of my head. You probably know them and are nodding your head in understanding.

Doing the Questionaire to see where you are at and then paying for a naturopath will give you the best start on your way to optimal health.

So whatever you do, make sure it includes some thought and effort for your health. Remember, be bothered (you'll be glad you did) and Pumpkin Seeds, Pumpkin Seed Oil and Pumpkin Seed Meal are all good foods to add regularly to your diet ;)

Bye for now. Sharan

Have you ever had that thought “I can’t be bothered to.....” enter your head?
Usually for me it comes up with something that’s unexciting or a bit boring:
I can’t be bothered ...washing the dishes tonight,
I can’t be bothered ...putting my washing away,
I can’t be bothered ...to wash the car, I’ll do it later.
With most things they can be done later without much consequence, but this type of thinking can become a very bad habit that can lead to big consequences.
If you can’t be bothered to do the simple things, what else will this lead you to not be bothered to do?
Get the car serviced. Look at my spending and make a budget. Check the smoke alarm batteries. All things with big consequences if not done, but probably most of us have put off till sometime later as we couldn’t be bothered with it right now.
I think a lot of advertising pushes this line of thinking because they want their product to be the solution so you don’t have to be bothered.
Take ready made meals for example. “Quick and easy, just take out of the box and microwave for a few minutes.”  They want you to “not be bothered”.  They want you to not be bothered to prepare your own meal, to know what you’re eating, to buy fresh unprocessed foods, to look at the ingredients, to take control of your health. All these things can take a little effort, so they don’t want you to be bothered so they can sell more and make more money. They want you to be lazy.
I’m not saying that all ready made meals are bad. Yes I have eaten them and they can be convenient but I think we need to look at what they can teach us - to just take the easy, no effort route.
Advertising is a science these days and we get bombarded by so much of it that often we can’t be bothered to watch the ads!
If you start to take the “I can’t be bothered’ approach with what you are eating then soon it really turns into “I can’t be bothered with my health”.
Unfortunately after a period of time your body also gets in the action and says “I can’t be bothered functioning any more” and you can get diseases and die. That’s the ultimate consequence of not being bothered and where I think it can lead to.
So how do you turn this thinking around...?
Have a look at what you can’t be bothered doing and start being bothered. Be bothered to look at the ingredients in ready made meals. Be bothered to do the little things RIGHT NOW that you’ll still have to do even if you can’t be ‘bothered’ to do them right now. When that thought pops into your head follow it up with “NO, I CAN be bothered!”
Washing the dishes, putting washing away, washing the car, getting the car serviced, looking at your spending and making a budget, checking the smoke alarm batteries. etc are things that provide relief when they are done. Getting them done means that they wont keep weighing your mind down with the thought of having to do them. If you have a look at how you feel after you’ve been ‘bothered’ you may notice you can actually feel proud and good and safe. This is the start.

You can also start to do things that are proactive and good for your health:
Be bothered to check all the labels on prepackaged food before you buy it.
Be bothered to cook meals that take a little longer and that start from scratch.
Be bothered to follow a recipe from the many recipe books and magazines gathering dust in your cupboard!
Be bothered to simply add some pumpkin seeds to your diet.
Be bothered to have a look at the pumpkinseed.net.au recipe page for ideas on how to add pumpkin seeds to meals ;)
Be bothered to go for a walk in the beautiful fresh air and sunshine.

You’ll be thankful you were bothered. You'll be thankful you were bothered to put in a little effort for your health, especially when you are getting old and are still healthy and looking younger than you are!

Bye for now.
Sharan

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