Anyone use milled flaxseed?

[Thorn]

Grind 'em up and toss 'em on my oatmeal in the AM. I have hereditarily high cholesterol. The rest of the family is on pipe-cleaner drugs, but I refuse to submit (long story, but Mom had the muscle reaction to the drugs before they admitted there was a reaction--she never recovered).

I've managed to control my cholesterol through diet (and, of course, exercise). I cannot tell you which thing worked, but in the year I got it to drop 40 points, this is what I did....

+ Killed the donut and bagel breakfast habit and replaced it with a serving a vanilla yogurt with 1/2c dry oatmeal, 1/4c each of walnuts, cashews, and a dried fruit (mmmm...dry blueberries). Add to that 2T of ground flax seed. I mix up a week's worth of the toppings on the weekend so it isn't a lot of work during the week.
+ Killed the coffee and cream habit (my grandmother taught me to drink coffee--half cream and half coffee). I replaced it with tea. Periodically, I'll still have chai, but with 2% milk, not cream.
+ Glass of red wine every evening.
+ Cut back on my cheese consumption. I'm already a vegetarian, but I live in Wisconsin--cheese is the state dish! Cheese and crackers is now a treat.
+ Cut out my afternoon candy bar and replaced it either with dark chocolate and some almonds or a Luna bar. This was the hardest.

After more than a year on this, the really wierd thing is I can walk by the donut table at work. The donuts just don't taste good anymore and candy bars and M&Ms are too sweet. Times like that I think I've damaged myself.

[Thorn]

Oh, and the nutritionist column on Velnonews this week is on heart-healthy eating. You might want to check that out.