Hemp Food Blogging

The wonderful people at Nutiva sent me some of their hemp foods to try. Naturally, you’re welcome to take with a grain of salt anything I say about free stuff I get, but I’ll only say good things if I mean them.

I’m a huge fan of shelled hempseeds. The actual hemp seed is hard and crunchy and quite edible, but they have this process for shelling them that just gives you the soft nutmeat of the hempseed. Delicious. Think of it sort of like ground pine nuts. You can use them in all sorts of ways — on salads and more — but they rarely make it that far with me. I just eat them out of the bag. I did, in a moment of silliness, make a wonderful baked salmon with a hempseed topping — sort of the ultimate in Omega-3 nutrition. Hempseed is 33% protein, with Omega-3 and GLA. Great nutrition.

Another great item is the Organic Hempseed Original Bar — hempseed, sunflower seeds, honey, flax seeds and pumpkin seeds. Gooey, nutty and delicious. Offer some to friends — a great conversation starter. It’s amazing how many people think it’s illegal. (Not that the DEA didn’t try! Which is another reason to buy hemp. Every time you do, you’re sticking it to the DEA. You see, they understand that if people start to realize that hemp is good and good for you, the DEA will have a harder time demonizing it.)

The hemp oil can be used in lots of recipes and has all that wonderful nutrition, but don’t use it as a frying oil (it loses its nutritious value). They also have a hemp protein shake — I’m not a big protein shake fan, but if that’s what you like, this is a great way to go. I’ll take the hemp seed, straight up.

There are a number of companies that sell hemp food products (buy from any of them, just buy hemp), but Nutiva is one of the good ones — and they donate 1% of sales to groups supporting sustainable agriculture.