Rice vs Flax. Which is warmer?

Last winter when I was all done making my rice bag warmers a friend told me that using flax seed was actually warmer.  This was news to me and intriguing since I feel like I’m having to rewarm my rice bag warmers way too often.  So I went on Amazon and bought a few pounds of organic flax seeds.

This winter I made a flax seed warmer and honestly couldn’t tell if it lasted longer.  So I decided to get all sciencey and run an experiment.  I made 2 round bag warmers out of the same fabric and filled one with 2 cups of organic sushi rice and one with 2 cups of flax.  Then I microwaved one for 1 minute and measured the temp with my kitchen meat thermometer every few minutes.  I repeated the same process with the other one.

They both came out of the microwave just under 150 degrees (Rice: 147, Flax 149).  At the 5 minute mark Rice had lost 15 degrees and Flax had lost 25 degrees.  Things weren’t looking that great for Flax.

The final verdict?  At the 25 minute mark, the rice bag was 5 degrees warmer than the flax bag (Rice: 110, Flax: 105).  This is about the temperature that I would be rewarming the bag so this is where I stopped measuring.

Flax does have some advantages:  It’s lighter and feels nicer since the grains are smaller.
The biggest disadvantage to flax is it’s smell.  I’ve gotten used to it but my kids continue to complain about the smell when I pull it out of the microwave.  A new rice bag smells after the first few uses, but gets less and less smelly with use.  Flax doesn’t seem to change.

Summary:

• Rice holds it’s warmth slightly better than flax.
• Flax smells worse and the smell lasts longer than rice.
• I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with all my extra flax seeds.