Hemp Seed
The Most Nutritionally Complete Food Source on Earth
Cannabis sativa seeds-traditionally called hempseed-contain
all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain
healthy human life. No other single plant source provides complete protein
nutrition in such an easily digestible form, nor has the oils essential
to life in as perfect a ratio for human health and vitality. Hempseed is
the richest source in the plant kingdom of essential fatty acids.
Hempseed oil comprises 35% of the total seed weight and is among the lowest
in saturated fatty acids at 8% of total oil volume. The oil pressed from
hempseed contains 55% alpha-linoleic acid (LA, also known as Omega-6), 25%
alpha-linolenic acid (LNA, also known as Omega-3) and 1.7% gamma linoleic
acid (GLA, also known as Super Omega 6). Only flax seed oil (linseed oil)
has more linolenic acid at 58%, but hempseed oil is the highest in total
essential fatty acids at 80% of total oil volume. Essential fatty acids
are responsible for the luster in your skin, hair, eyes, and even your thought
processes.
LA and LNA cannot be made by the human body and must be obtained through
the diet, so they are called Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs). EFAs are the
raw materials for hormones, the body's communication network for cellular
activity. LA and LNA are involved in producing life energy from food and
the movement of that energy throughout the body.
Essential fatty acids govern growth, vitality and state of mind. LA and
LNA are involved in transferring oxygen in the cell membrane where it acts
as a barrier to invading viruses and bacteria, neither of which thrive in
the presence of oxygen. The bent shape of the essential fatty acids keeps
them from dissolving into each other. They are slippery and remain liquid
at body temperature, and will not clog arteries like the sticky straight
shaped saturated fats and the trans-fatty acids in cooking oils and shortenings
that are made by subjecting polyunsaturated oils like LA and LNA to high
temperatures during the refining process.
The EFA content of human body fat is inversely proportional to body weight-in
other words, essentially fatty acids are fats that make you thin! LA and
LNA possess a slightly negative charge and have a tendency to form very
thin surface layers. This property is called surface activity, and it provides
the power to carry substances like toxins to the surface of the skin, intestinal
tract, kidneys and lungs where they can be removed.
Their very sensitivity causes them to break down rapidly into toxic compounds
when refined with high heat or improper storage exposes them to light or
air. Though life cannot flow without the light and oxygen sensitive EFAs,
they quickly become toxic when handled incorrectly. Nature solves this paradox
by making powerful antioxidants and free radical scavengers that control
the oxidation rate and trap free radicals before chain reactions get out
of control.
Two of the best are vitamins A and E. Nature designed them to dissolve into
her remarkable polyunsaturated oils and shield them while they enable life
energy to flow. Hempseed oil has both of these vitamins. In fact, one pint
of cold pressed hempseed oil naturally contains over 1000 I.U. of vitamin
E (mixed tocopherols). Nature provides seeds with an outer shell that safely
protects the vital oils and vitamins within from spoilage. It's a perfect
as well as a perfectly edible container.
Hempseed can be ground into a paste similar to peanut butter only more delicate
in flavor. Udo Erasmus, PhD. nutritionist says: "hemp butter puts our
peanut butter to shame for nutritional value." While flax seed has
a very strong odor and taste, ground hempseeds can be baked into delicious
breads, cakes and casseroles. Hempseed makes a hearty addition to granola
bars.
Pioneers in the fields of biochemistry and human nutrition now believe cardiovascular
disease (CVD) and most cancers are really diseases of fatty degeneration
caused by the continued over-consumption of saturated fats and refined vegetable
oils that turn essential fatty acids into carcinogenic killers.
One out of two Americans will die from the effects of CVD. One out of four
Americans will die from cancer. Researchers believe cancers erupt when immune
system response is weakened. "Essential fatty acids are responsible
for our immune response. In the old country the peasants ate hemp butter.
They were more resistant to disease than the nobility."-Hamilton, ED.D.
PhD. biochemist.
Promising studies are now underway using the essential oils to support the
immune systems of HIV virus patients. "There is startling evidence
that most of our illness today results from a new kind of "Fatty Pellagra
and Beriberi," which now jeopardizes the biological and psychological
fitness of every man, woman, and child in modernized societies, at cost
easily rivaling that of world war." -Donald O. Rudin, M.D.
"The superficial indicators of fatty acid deficiency are extremely
prevalent in our culture. Turn on your television and see how frequently
you hear advertisements to correct dandruff, dry skin, "combination
skin," or unmanageable hair or fingernails. Millions of dollars are
being poured onto the hair, skin and nails in the form of various cosmetics,
which will only cover up the symptoms of a deeper seated problem.
This problem-deficiency of alpha-linoleic acid-calls for a more drastic
but useful approach, that is, change your oils. We use these indicators
of hair, skin, and nails to identify people in whom fatty acid deficiency
is one major part of frequently serious health problems. These problems
cover the whole range of chronic illness, and do not fall into any particular
diagnostic categories. Depression, various neurological problems, gastrointestinal
problems, a variety of painful inflammatory illnesses, and problems resulting
from the tendency of blood to clot, (that is heart attacks and strokes)
are all related to similar imbalances in prostaglandin hormones that can
be alleviated by correcting the balance of fatty acids in the diet"-Sidney
M. Baker, M.D.
Hempseed, the richest vegetable source of essential oils, also provides
complete protein. Hemp-seed gives you all the essential animo acids required
to maintain health, and supplies the necessary kinds and amounts of animo
acids the body needs to make human serum albumin and serum globulins like
the immune enhancing gamma globulin antibodies.
The body's ability to resist and recover from illness depends upon how rapidly
it can produce massive amounts of antibodies to fend off the initial attack.
If the globulin protein starting material is in short supply the army of
antibodies may be too small to prevent the symptoms of sickness from setting
in.
The best way to insure the body has enough animo acid material to make the
globulins is to eat foods high in globulin proteins. Hempseed protein is
65% globulin edestin plus quantities of albumin (present in all seeds) so
its easily digestible protein is readily available in a form quite similar
to that found in blood plasma. The energy of life is in the whole seed.
Hempseed foods taste great and will insure we get enough fatty acids to
build strong bodies and immune systems and to maintain health and vitality.
-Access Unlimited, P.O. Box 1900, Frazier Park,. CA 93225