However, google “Drug Testing Industry” if you want to know what a huge scam that is. Another example of corporate greed ruining lives to make money.

Wow, I have all kinds of thoughts about this. To address something Son of Grok said, I don’t care if someone’s trying to legalize pot. I guess I will out myself to say I have tried it a few times (and yes, I did inhale). I didn’t feel much different than when I have gotten drunk (also not very often in my life), with the possible exception that I didn’t have that lovely chemically-poisoned feeling that I get with alcohol. Oh, and pot didn’t give me a hangover, either. So I don’t get why legal alcohol is OK but legal pot isn’t. My only real objection to it is that people are already inconsiderate-to-rude about smoking tobacco, and if they’re going to be that rude about pot-smoking, then we’d need to write the same kinds of laws for it as we do for public tobacco smoking here in Ohio–nobody deserves to be forced to use drugs against their will, not even by breathing the smoke. Sad part is you don’t even have to smoke it–you can eat it and drink it too.

OK, end soapbox.

To address the remark that our grandmothers wouldn’t have recognized hemp, why, that just isn’t true. It was recognized as a fiber crop, a source of patent medicine, and an excellent birdseed right up until the 1920s when Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act (spelling intentional, was standard back then). Hemp was then revived during WWII because Japan had captured the Philippines, our most important source of manila hemp, which was used to make our ropes and other important things. Wisconsin and Kentucky grew it for the war effort, if memory serves. And regular farmers grew it as windbreaks for the longest time even if they didn’t grow the cash crop.

Funny story about the latter: I once heard about a little old lady who’d never clued in that her windbreak had been outlawed by the Feds. IIRC, her grandson noticed what it was and his uncles told him in emphatic tones to leave Grandma out of it!

Anyway. I’ve been curious about using hemp as a protein source for a while. Then I learned about grass-fed meats and about the health benefits of animal foods in general and stopped worrying about it, thinking the phytic acid on top of the price had pretty much put hemp out of my reach for good. I have tried the oil and didn’t think much of it–thanks for giving me another excuse never to use it again. But the seeds don’t have phytic acid, you say? Hm. I might just have to try them again, then. I knew that about the protein but not what it meant. Thank you for enlightening me.

Thanks for the great info, I really appreciate it. This brings up a question I’ve been meaning to ask and that is if you’d consider profiling other elements of foods like protein and amino acid profiles, inflammatory factors and such.

Among other reasons, I ask as one of the more difficult info to find for foods is levels of salicylates, which is a somewhat common sensitivity/intolerance that, like gluten, most people aren’t aware. I happen to be one of those sensitive to it and would appreciate either a reference or a look into the subject.

The relevance to this article is that salicylates tend to be high in seeds. And since I’m asking I thought I’d also mention/ask about the other factors that would be greatly beneficial. In all your spare time, of course.

Thanks for all you do, it’s truly wonderful and well appreciated.

travin

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment, and thank you too for sending the sample package of your tasty and nourishing products. I do hope you read my post all the way through because I clearly argued that hemp seed *is* a traditional food, so I don’t know why you seem to think I didn’t.

I also said that hemp OIL is not traditional, but that’s because it isn’t. History clearly shows that hemp oil, if/when it was made, was used for things like lamp oil, body cleansing, and creating varnish and/or paints. It was not used as food in traditional Chinese/Asian cuisine.

Please note that I also said that if people had a very structured and restricted diet — if they ate only grass-fed meats, absolutely never consumed soy or corn oils or ate packaged foods, absolutely never ate fast foods or industrialized foods, avoided supermarket eggs, etc. — if they could eat this diet, then perhaps hemp oil would be safe to consume despite the fact that it is not a traditional food oil (so long as it was cold-pressed and not heated in cooking). But, sadly, most people are not there yet. They still eat out at restaurants, still have the occasional fast food, still buy supermarket eggs, meat, milk, butter, and cheese when they run out of their pastured counterparts, still eat at friend’s homes with abandon, still eat at social functions like church. In other words, the typical person in my audience, try as they might to eat well, doesn’t do it 100% of the time. In that case, the Omega 6 to 3 ratio in hemp oil is simply too high to counterbalance the 20:1 ratio of industrialized foods.

And as to getting Omega 3s, if you spent any real time on my site, you’ll know that I don’t suggest everyone consume grass-fed meat or milk every day. I, do, however recommend people eat fish, as that is the traditional source for concentrated Omega-3 fats in the human diet.

I said all this in my post, so I’m not sure why you’re attacking me or insinuating that I didn’t do any research.

Once again, I want to affirm that I believe most of what you argued for in your comment were the very things I argued for:

- I defended hemp seed as a traditional & nutritious food.
- I said people could consume hemp seed oil (despite its not being a traditional food oil) if they avoided industrialized foods.
- I even said hemp seed products (particularly yours) won’t result in positive drug tests.

I think we have much more in common in our position than you thought!

All the best,
KristenM

As the founder and CEO of Nutiva I am glad to see folks hearing more about hemp foods. The post had many untrue statements which I wanted to point out.

First off hemp has had a very long use as a food. It was comsumed in asia long before soy foods. In Europe hemp was the original gruel and ground up hempseed butter was a common food on peasants. To state it is a new food is just not the case, unless you count the last hundreds years as your bench mark.

Also readers might want to understand hempseed and hemp protein is one of the best sources around of 3 master minerials…. magnesium, zinc and iron. 3 tbs of protein or seed contains almost 50% RDI of magnesium

Hemp oil is the closest to fish oil of any oil that is harvested from the land. At a 3.5 1 to one ratio it is ideal for salad dressings and a dipping oil. Did you know hemp oil also contains up to 5% GLA and 2% SDA ? No other food in the world does this and at these levels they are vital in our health. Not everyone is going to eat grass fed meet or milk every day nor should they every day. Want to get your omegas for the day…enjoy hemp seed or oil.

Do some research on these rare super omega’s of GLA and SDA and you will find it’s well documented.

The average American Diet is 10-1 or 15-1 omega 6 to 3….when people cut out canola, soy, and corn- and switch to hemp oil, olive oil, coconut oil, and or grass fed butter they seem great results. And their Omega ratio comes down closer to 4-1 where is should be.

Before making blanket statements about certain d foods- please research a bit more.