Flaxseed, or Linum usitatissimum is a plant, which is used for making fabrics and its seed, called flaxseed is used to extract flour (flaxseed flour) and oil (flaxseed oil).

Market overview and production

The first flax crops date back to the Antiquity, in Babylon, two thousand years before Christ, and it is believed that it arrived from there to Europe.

Canada, China, Russia and India are the world's top four flax producers. In Spain its cultivation was favored from the nineties of the last century, reaching, on 2001, 14 thousand hectares planted, thanks to subsidies from Community funds, and there were some notorious cases of fraud, which jumped to the media, for the fraudulent use of these funds.

Nutritional informationIt is a seed that belongs to the group of unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (linolenic acid-omega 3). In addition, it contains fiber, protein, vitamins (E) and minerals (chromium, selenium, lithium, silicon, molybdenum).