Traditional Uses of Culinary Hemp Seed

Notes from Dr. Alexander Sumach, Hemp Futures Study Group, with material from Chris Bennet

Editor's note: Hemp-based foods may be a new entry into the national marketplace, but based on our present understanding of hemp's highly nutritious and EFA-rich content, its presence in our diets is long overdue. In light of recent events, and ongoing regulatory discussions about the place and safety of hemp in our diets, it may be time for a short history lesson.

The following material is excerpted from a book project by Dr. Alexander Sumach that was also supplied to Health Canada regarding hemp's place as a "Novel Food." This material was supplemented with excerpts from Chris Bennet's article "Hemp Seed, the Royal Grain."

Modern reporting of hemp seed being used as a traditional food can be found in vintage and contemporary overviews of industrial hemp prepared for review by government agencies charged with amending legislation to accommodate industrial hemp. Additional material appears from original research prepared for my book "New World Hemp History" to be published in Canada next year.

"Hemp seed used in all the oriental nations and in part in Russia as food. It is grown in their fields and used as oatmeal. Millions of people everyday are using hemp seed in the Orient as food. They have been doing this for many generations, especially in periods of famine." Quote from Ralph Loziers, general council for the National Institute of Oilseed Producers, concerning the historic culinary uses of hemp seed, testimony presented before the U.S. Congress Committee in 1937 reviewing cannabis legislation prior to enacting the Marihuana Tax Act.

"Prior to the end of WW2, hemp made a significant contribution to the economic and social fabric of society ... (lists agricultural benefits of hemp) ... as well as food and oil from the seeds ... it can be ground up and used in soups, cereals and other foods." Quote from "Weekly Bulletin," publication of the Canadian Department of Agriculture and Food, Vol. #7-22, December 1994.

Four short years after the Marihuana Tax Act passed in the U.S., a researcher writing for a 1941 edition of Science lamented the loss of access to the hemp seed's rare and important globule edestins: "Passage of the Marijuana Law of 1937 has placed restrictions upon trade in hemp seed that, in effect, amount to prohibition ... It seems clear that the long and important career of the protein is coming to a close in the United States."

China, in ancient times referring to itself as "the land of hemp and mulberry," has perfected hemp culture for textiles and human food over the course of many centuries. The consumption of raw or roasted hemp seed is as common as eating sunflower seeds or peanuts in many parts of China to the present day. Edible hemp seed continues to be available at food markets, as it remains a popular traditional food that has been enjoyed by millions of the Chinese people for many centuries. No instances of harm attributed to the eating of hemp seed in any quantity has been reported. Fresh roasted hemp seed remains a popular confection in contemporary China, and hemp seed continues to be enjoyed as a snack suitable for families attending cinemas and public events.

Edible hemp seed was not initially popular with Europeans who regarded it as coarse fare, famine food to fall back during bad times. Hemp seed nutrition was better invested in feeding animals in better times and humans returned to more interesting entrees than survival cake. The humble hemp seed — nutritious but gritty — presents a prehistoric cross-cultural image of fortitude over want. Before the introduction of the potato and maize from the New World, hemp seed — by necessity rather than choice — was a frequent staple food of the vegetarian rural poor in areas of the world where hemp seed was abundant because of escalated hemp cultivation for marine fibre in the 15th century. Hemp seed was the sole source of edible vegetable oil in the northerly and mountainous areas of Eurasia where hemp crops could be grown but where imported luxury vegetable oils such as olive oil were unavailable or prohibitively expensive. This was especially so before WW2.

Locally grown and pressed hemp seed oil was used for household cooking oil in the outbacks of Nepal — observed in the 1970's by a National Geographic expedition documenting traditional Nepalese village life. Locally harvested hemp seed was the only local source of vegetable oil for these ancient people living in modern times.

There is anecdotal evidence that the Doukabours, a Christian vegetarian freedom sect living in western Canada since the turn of the century had prepared hemp seed paste for food as part of their Spartan lifestyle in Russia. These Sons of Freedom apparently resumed growing and using hemp upon arrival in Canada and consumed a small portion of the hemp seed harvest on a regular basis prior to and somewhat after prohibition measures in the 1930s.

In the former USSR, North Eastern Europe and the Baltic nations, traditional hemp growing zones that supplied fibre hemp for western European shipping expansion in the 15th century, turned to locally abundant hemp seed for vegetable oil and made good use of the whole hemp seed ground fine in the home kitchen. Seed was often fashioned into a smooth paste, similar to peanut butter to be spread on bread or toast and eaten. This hemp seed butter was a particular favorite of children. In the Baltic nation of Latvia, hemp seed is traditionally included in festival foods eaten during St. John's Day, June 21. A soup made from hemp seeds called semientiatka is eaten ritually on Christmas Eve in Poland and Lithuania, and in Latvia and Ukraine, possibly in remembrance of the Persian King's Grain, a similar meal is eaten in the celebration of Three King's Day. Commercially manufactured hemp butter is currently available in jars sold in eastern European speciality food stores, but it is not available in Canada.

Eastern European immigrants growing such old country herbs as Cannabis in backyard gardens in Canada came to the attention of Metro Toronto police officers in the 1970s. The culinary intention of the cultivators, producing a few handfuls of tasty hemp seed for the winter soup kettle was accepted as an explanation.

In 1955 the Czechoslovakian Tubercular Nutrition Study concluded that hemp seed was the "only food that can successfully treat the consumptive disease tuberculosis, in which the nutritive processes are impaired and the body wastes away." (Rowan Robinson, The Great Book of Hemp, 1996).

End Notes

These notes of traditional use of hemp seed as a human food in the Old World imply that the whole seed, hard seed jacket and all was eaten as food. Hemp seed is favorable, but when traditionally prepared produces an objectionably gritty edible paste, as the small hard shell cannot be easily removed. About 20% of the weight of hemp seed is comprised of the hard seed coat.

It had not been practical to dehull hemp seed during times of traditional use, and only gritty dark hemp seed meal has ever been available on the world market. Recent advances in factory scale hemp seed dehulling using mechanical separation produces a smooth white gritless hemp seed meal that requires no further treatment before it can be eaten.

This important modern innovation that separates the seed jacket from the nutritious meal produces a more acceptable product than had ever been eaten in times passed.

Hemp is an industrial cultivar of Cannabis sativa L. The hemp plant is known by dozens of regional traditional monikers. Old World language groups tend to share a single common root word describing cannabis — the cane. Each language, over many centuries modified the ancient root word only slightly to derive their own national word for "hemp." This suggests a pattern of long commonly-shared knowledge of hemp by the European Community.

Dr. Alexander Sumach
Hemp Futures Study Group
PO Box 1680, Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada LOS IJO
(905) 468-3928
rheading@becon.org