Flaxseed Oil vs Linseed Oil – What Is The Difference?

I guess the real question here is which is best, Flaxseed oil or Linseed oil when it comes to potential health benefits? I was not that familiar with linseed oil other than I remember years ago my brothers using it on their cricket bats to prevent cracking. That is certainly not what we have in mind here.

They would also have used this on their leather belts to keep them soft and subtle, a trick they learned from dad. Until I started researching flax oil I had never really considered linseed as also having potential healing properties.

I was surprised to learn that linseed oil can be used for cooking and it also contains the fatty acids I have discussed in other articles such as Omega 3. All of these oils, in general, do contain good amounts of vitamin F, and this particular vitamin is good for the nervous system.

I have a close friend who is a very good chef and he did laugh at me when I said about using linseed oil for cooking. He has been using different oils for many years and was surprised I had not heard of this.

There are many things I have not heard of so it really didn’t surprise me one little bit. It did make me check the supermarket shelves though and I was amazed just how many different types of cooking oil there actually are.

Cooking: Should You Use Flaxseed Oil or Linseed Oil

He mentioned to me that linseed oil could not be used for all cooking as it smoked quite a bit and would be unsuitable for high-temperature cooking. For that, he would use either olive oil or grape oil as it did nor smoke as much. He also told me he would never use flaxseed oil for cooking and only used it to dress salads.

On the various forums that I am in it would seem that a typical dose is around 1 tablespoon of linseed oil per day. Those who do this then claim that they see improvements in their hair initially, strengthening their nails and after a few months improvement in their overall skin condition.

Other claims I have seen though not everyone said this was they noticed an improvement in the regulation of their blood pressure and some said it did wonders for their indigestion. Now I am not a user myself so I am summarising the information I have found in the many health forums and the websites that I have reviewed.

Some people claimed it really helped with their arthritis so I guess in many ways linseed, flax and fish oil appeared to have different benefits for different types of people. Grapeseed oil is also quoted in some of these forums as having great benefits for people.

It is certainly an interesting mix of oils and I can only assume that at different times people try different oils and some work for them and some don’t. Again I had always believed that the main purpose of grapeseed oil was in the cosmetic industry for shaving foams and also in some moisturizing creams.

Many assumptions are made about the properties of these oils and linseed is no different. There are some health experts out there who appear to assume that as these oils contain lignans it can also help prevent breast cancer.

It is a pretty bold claim and when I look for research to prove this it is difficult to find and much of it is little more than opinion. Some of the claims are honestly a bit silly, but when people believe in something, they can become rather passionate about it.

It is really different to find really hard medical evidence for any of these and I struggled to find any real case studies. The one thing that did become clear was that all of the above contain what are called polyunsaturated fats and I would deduce from that the benefits would have to be very similar. These types of fats, we were once told to completely avoid as they were bad for you.

The most recent research though says that they are not harmful at all. That is how much things can change over a few years. Getting good advice can be difficult and at the end of the day, it takes years to compare and contrast results.

The actual component parts may be different but the overall benefits would be similar.

The video below suggests some of the health benefits of taking linseed oil, but again there is not a great deal of supporting evidence that proves this is the case.

The one thing I did check in a lot of detail was the price of linseed oil and it is priced reasonably so that has to be a good thing. So a bit like fish oil, all of these supplemental oils can help, if taken in the proper dosage.