Hemp as Food

Using Hemp in Cooking

Hemp Seed Oil can be used as cooking oil (where it is not heated above 25˚Celcius), to be added to hot pastas or mixed with salad dressings. Shelled Hemp Seed or Hemp Seed "nut" (that which remains after the removal of the seed's outer husk/shell), may be added to many foods or incorporated in baking. Pressed Seed Cake or Hemp meal (what remains after the oil has been pressed out), can be made into a powder or rough flour. Hemp Seed is the most nutritious and easily digestible food on the planet, the only complete source of all the following: protein, essential amino acids (all 20, including the 9 the body cannot produce) and essential fatty acids. Hemp is the only food which supplies all man's dietary needs in one source - the only food which can sustain human life without any other source of nutrition. Hemp foods contain 35% carbohydrates, 30% fat, 35% Fibre, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, C, D and in particular vitamin E and only 8% saturated fat, or less.

Complete Protein

Hemp contains 25%-32% protein, second only to soy (35%), but the protein in Hemp foods is more easily digestible, because Hemp contains globular proteins, albumin 33% and 65% Edestin (a Greek word meaning edible), which have structures very similar to proteins made by the blood, which makes them readily digestible and available for cellular function. A handful of Hemp seed provides the minimum daily requirement of protein for adults. No other food source provides complete protein in such an easily digestible form, not even soy. Soy protein content is fairly difficult to digest.

Hemp foods contain all eight Essential Amino Acids, Leucine, Lysine, Threoine, Phen+tyro, Valine, Meeth+cyst, Isoleucin, Tryptophan, with higher amounts of each than other main sources of protein, like egg whites, tofu, human milk and whole cow's milk. Besides these 8 Essential Amino Acids, Hemp foods also provides the necessary types and amounts of amino acids the body needs to make serum albumin and serum globulins, two other amino acids essential to life. All of this makes Hemp a complete source of protein.

Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs)

EFAs are essential to tissue growth and help regulate many internal functions, which makes consuming them critical. Essential fatty acids are by definition, essential, because they can't be produced by the body, but must be obtained through diet, for proper growth and body functioning.

Hemp has Highest EFA Content

Hemp food (30-36% oil) is the highest in total essential fatty acids, at 80-81% of total oil volume, of any plant and provide the perfect ratio of Omega-6 (around 60%) to Omega-3 (20 %), a 3 to 1 ratio; the ratio recommended by health experts. Hemp nut is the only food item containing every EFA - including rare Stearidonic acid (SDA), and Gamma-Linolenic acid (GLA) or super Omega-6, which is absent in flax and other major oils. GLA helps treat neurodermatitis, arthritis, and PMS and together SDA and GLA reduce symptoms of atopic dermatitis and other skin diseases.

EFAs help organ muscles to contract, regulate stomach acid, help lower blood pressure, help maintain body temperature, regulate hormone levels, and break up cholesterol, while aiding in fat transportation and metabolism. The EFAs in Hemp also help improve brain function.

EFAs support the immune system and guard against viral infection. Thus, they help cancer, HIV, and other patients whose immune systems are weakened. By reinforcing the immune system, Hemp foods help aid in making a person healthy. Health experts have concluded that a diet rich in EFAs is one way to ensure that a person becomes and remains healthy.

Here are some the conditions which may be helped by EFAs: addictions, arthritis, attention deficit disorder, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, constipation, diabetes, diarrhoea, earache, oedema, fatigue, immune deficiency, menopause, MS, obesity, osteoporosis, premenstrual syndrome, tuberculosis, atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and skin conditions such as eczema, neuro-dermititis, and psoriasis.

EFAs also aid in cardiovascular health, which most Americans could improve upon, help stop sudden cardiac death, help improve mood in Bipolar cases and EFAs also help the reproductive system and should be consumed regularly by all pregnant women, because EFAs are vital to infant development.

In Conclusion

Hemp's nutrients are the most important things we can get in our diets, and we are not getting enough. As of now, 90% of people do not get enough EFAs into their diet. This is critical because a deficiency in EFAs will result in changes in cell structure (cancer), brittle and dull hair and nails, plus dandruff, allergies and possibly dermatitis.

Hemp foods could help reverse the World's negative eating habits and make us healthier. Hemp could help us maintain our cholesterol levels while we continue to eat large amounts of animal products. We need EFAs to break down the cholesterol we ingest, so we don't get strokes and heart attacks.

Since Hemp is the only food source with all the Essential Fatty Acids and contains them in perfect proportions (3 : 1, Omega 6 to Omega 3), contain all the essential amino acids, and all the protein needed to continue life, it seems silly to ban them.

Why ban the most nutritious food source on earth? Seems kind of like a miracle that one food source could contain everything a person needs and in the perfect ratios.