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Pregnancy

Ladies: put your artisan/homemade seeded bread down now!

20 replies

MrsAnxiety1 · 01/05/2015 11:14

I make my own bread at home, mostly because I enjoy doing it and partly because I like knowing exactly what's in it. I usually start off with good wholemeal flour and add seeds to it, to lower its GI content. However, I was just web-surfing and found out that linseeds (also known as flaxseeds) have been known to cause problems in animal fetuses and now I feel HORRIBLE. Apparently the lignans in linseeds can mimic oestrogen (apparenly everything can mimic oestrogen if you look hard enough Confused) and thus be detrimental.

For this reason I have long since given up eating soya products, but I am now wondering what damage has occurred from me eating linseed/flaxseed (it is also in most seeded commercial breads, too). I have been trying to eat well and keep to wholegrain, GI-reasonable foods, all in the hopes of making sure that I have a healthy baby and now this! Sad

Some sites seem to say that small amounts are okay, whilst others say to stay away from them completely. It really does boggle the mind that in this day and age, after women have been having babies for millennia, that they still can't work out which foods are okay and which aren't Hmm

OP posts:
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iSimplyDontBelieveIt123 · 01/05/2015 11:23

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iSimplyDontBelieveIt123 · 01/05/2015 11:24

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happygojo · 01/05/2015 11:26

My gut reaction for this is for you to step away from google. I found in my first pregnancy that every food item I googled, someone, somewhere said it was bad. If it was a serious risk at normal consumption (as in not eating flaxseeds all day every day) then it would be on the NHS website.

This pregnancy (my first unfortunately ended in MC) I have lived by the NHS food website completely. I have not googled anything else food wise. You just send yourself mental!

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howabout · 01/05/2015 11:26

Also unless you are growing and milling your own flour no reason to believe that homemade bread is any less polluted than commercial, but I agree it tastes better and is fun to do if you don't use a bread maker :)

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meditrina · 01/05/2015 11:28

Can you link the actual research?

So much science is so badly reported.

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Teeste · 01/05/2015 11:29

You can and will drive yourself nuts worrying about everything little thing the internet tells you about pregnancy. My attitude is, if it ain't on the NHS list of food to avoid and I want to eat it, I'll eat it.

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lemon101 · 01/05/2015 11:31

Hello MrsA.

Seriously I wouldn't get too worried! As long as you are not chowing down that bread night and day in ridiculous quantities. As someone who works in an area of research that uses animal models I can tell you now they are pretty imperfect reflections of a human example. You simply can't extrapolate from a rat to a human all that easily as our bodies are fundamentally different - there is usually a lot of caveats!
The other thing is usually dosage is quite high when you are looking for teratrogenic effects in an animal model (much higher than you would consume yourself).
Also if it was a big deal the NHS would be red-flagging it; they do err on the better safe than sorry side with food warnings.

Personally I say, don't worry and go make yourself a butty ;-)

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Focusfocus · 01/05/2015 11:37

Rubbish, ignore whatever you've read. Ligand are present in tons of places, and sure if you extract one single chemical out of a natural food and study that one single chemical in superrrrr doses in a lab on mice, sure you'll find results. And then ....whoaaaa....garlic causes cancer. No hang on, garlic cures cancer. Tomatoes kill foetuses. But tomatoes make you lose weight.

Shite science gets shitely reported. For christs sake, a handful of seeds isn't going to do a thing, but every single plant and animal food out there, if you extract one chemical out of it, study it out of contexts, using exorbitant, unrealistic amounts on bloody guinea pigs, there you have you newspaper headline cucumbers give you arthritis.

Please don't read this shit.

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MrsAnxiety1 · 01/05/2015 12:25

Thanks ladies - I do feel a bit better about it now, I think it's just because I know that things which mimic oestrogen can be fairly detrimental in general, though I know it's different in linseeds than soya etc. I've been fairly relaxed in general about a lot of things this pregnancy (which is unusual!), it's just that this one thing seems to have really hit a nerve as I have been trying so hard to eat as cleanly and as naturally as possible!

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Skiptonlass · 01/05/2015 12:38

I'm a scientist too, and let me tell you, most science reporting, even in the broadsheets, is staggeringly poor. I worked in developmental/cancer genetics for years so I do know my stuff :) the media seem to be determined to divide every substance in the known universe into those that cause or cure cancer, for example ....

There's a very old axiom that the dose makes the poison, and it's very true indeed. Take water for example. Absolutely essential for life but if you drink enough of it in one go, it'll kill you. Almost anything can kill you, if you consume enough of it.

There's cyanide in apples, as another example, but the amount is minuscule, and our bodies have evolved to cope with the chemicals in plants - so eating apples does you far more good than harm. Our bodies cope beautifully with the physical and chemical milieu they inhabit.

Keep eating your lovely sounding bread as part of your healthy diet, and listen only to the NHS website for stuff to avoid. I've lived in several places around the world and I find the NHS site the most sensible and least hysterical.

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misssmilla1 · 01/05/2015 13:44

I started eating a lot of ground flaxseed as an antidote to constipation but read similar articles to you and panicked. Checked with my Dr and she said it's fine. Like a lot of this stuff, if you ate (literally) tons of it there may be an impact, but then you could apply the same logic to just about every other food stuff

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Bluepetra · 01/05/2015 14:19

Soya is perfectly fine by the way.

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madreloco · 01/05/2015 14:22

So you feel a bit better about it now? Great. Do you want to apologise then to all the people you scared with your idiotic warnings about absolutely nothing of import?

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lemon101 · 01/05/2015 14:35

steady on Madreloco. Everyone is allowed their daily dose of crazy pregnancy panic. Also their is a metric fuck-ton of other 'scared of xxx food stuffs' threads out there - like the organic milk one yesterday. People just get anxious about this stuff and if they can't post it here for fear of retribution where can they post it?

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Skiptonlass · 01/05/2015 15:29

Madreloco, it's good that people post their worries so that they can be reassured :). This is the kind of thing that people are wary of asking their doctor but worry about anyway.

Pregnancy does make you anxious - I'm a sensible scientist and even I've been anxious about so much stuff - is this little bleed the end of it? Will that dodgy tummy at the weekend harm the foetus etc? It's normal and natural to be worried, and there's soooooooo much shitty pseudoscience crap out there.

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scarednoob · 01/05/2015 15:40

bit harsh. if anyone HAD read that and panicked, they would have done their own research.

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madreloco · 01/05/2015 17:19

It's good if people ask stuff they don;t understand. It't not good to shout "No-one eat this poison!". It's irresponsible and contributes to the ridiculous scaremongering around all things pregnancy.

You'd think they'd do their own research, but if so it's unlikely to stretch further than the rubbish you'll get by googling.

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Focusfocus · 01/05/2015 17:30

The thread title was very alarmingly worded, I'll give you that madreloco.

But, this simply isn't a forum for person bashing, judging or being harsh to a pregnant lady from behind the safety of online anonymity. So do back off.

OP I hope you are reassured, and the only thing to check in future might be alarmist thread titles in boards full of nervous, hormonal pregnant ladies (like yourself and myself!)

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Teeste · 01/05/2015 17:44

I have to admit, I googled it when I read the OP. All the information is conflicting and therefore scary. So I reverted back to the NHS page strategy.

I think we've all had those chilling moments when you read something or do something and think you've harmed your baby. We are none of us perfect or perfectly rational. I don't think it's OK to be so aggressive towards someone who is panicking and only trying to do their best for themselves and their baby and warn others, no matter how misinformed they may be. I thought we were all here for a bit of support.

If you want to get angry, direct it at these ridiculous preachy websites spouting pseudo-science and selling snake oil to anxious pregnant women.

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londonlivvy · 01/05/2015 18:50

I ate loads of flaxseed with both pregnancies. At least 2 tbsp a day, if not 3. it's brilliant if you're constipated. I was (without the flaxseed). Both entirely healthy babies.

I agree with the pp who said step away from Google, read nhs advice and stop there.

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