David Stonehouse Science & Health

From chips to waffles, hemp is one hip herb

Hemp-enriched foods are a hit with health-conscious consumers, but their illicit image persists

By David Stonehouse

At the Wild Oat Bakery in Ottawa, breakfast chef Amanda Watkins rhymes off some of the hemp-sprinkled goodies on the menu.

There are the brownies, the bread, and the maple hemp seed cookies. The eatery has even been known to infuse salads with hemp seed.

"People love the brownies and the cookies, for sure. They are probably the most popular. The rye currant hemp bread is probably the yummiest bread that we have -- in my opinion, anyway," she says.

The hemp-enriched selections are catching on among the Glebe eatery's clientele. Every now and then, though, it raises eyebrows.

"I definitely get some ladies that ask, 'Is this going to get me high?'" she says.

Well, no. Hemp-enriched foods won't give you a buzz but they will give you a shot of protein and a dose of essential fatty acids.

The punches of nutrition in hemp are making it increasingly popular. Hemp food products, once stocked only on shelves of health food stores, have sneaked into the aisles of mainstream grocery stores from chips to salad dressing to frozen waffles.

As a food, the nutty-tasting hemp is still in its infancy. Its popularity has, pardon the pun, been growing like a weed of late. Even in its youth, it is attracting notice among big-name celebrities. And the big boys of the fast-food industry are starting to take notice.

But the industry is still fighting the persistent misconception that hemp is synonymous with marijuana.

The two are closely related plants, but hemp grown for use in food typically has only negligible traces of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive substance in marijuana better known as THC.

Still, the Canadian hemp industry is engaged in a court battle with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which is trying to get hemp foods pulled from the shelves. The agency argues the foods comprise a controlled substance, even though they contain only trace amounts of THC.

It is illegal to grow commercial hemp in the United States, though it can be brought into the country -- at least for now. That makes the U.S. a captive market for Canadian hemp companies. It has been legal to grow commercial hemp in Canada since 1998.

"There are 300 million people in the U.S. and a lot of them are changing their eating habits and looking for a healthy lifestyle," says Arthur Hanks, executive director of the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance, which held its inaugural annual meeting in Toronto last week. "Hemp is something they are just discovering. We want to keep that market."

Canadian health regulations dictate that there be no more than 0.3 per cent THC in hemp foods. Even at that level, hemp advocates say, it is impossible to get high -- marijuana has been estimated to have anywhere between five and 20 per cent.

But Mr. Hanks says his group would like to set its own voluntary, lower standard in an effort to appease the U.S. government. If the Drug Enforcement Agency should win the court fight -- a ruling is expected from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco within the next several months -- it is all but certain that hemp products sold in the U.S. will have to contain no traces of THC at all.

For Ontario hemp grower Greg Herriott, any publicity is good publicity. His business, which is on track to reap $1 million in revenue this year, is booming. He has even been approached by a top fast food chain interested in incorporating hemp into its menu.

Because the deal is still under discussion, he will not name the chain but Mr. Herriott, co-owner of Hempola Valley Farms, a company just north of Barrie that grows hemp and makes a wide variety of products, says the products have passed two rounds of focus test research.

The celebrity factor should help. Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger was caught on camera last spring with a bag of Hempola High Protein Pancakes backstage at the American Music Awards. All 120 nominees and presenters at the glitzy Los Angeles event received Hempola products in gift baskets.

And at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, actor Woody Harrelson was overheard extolling the virtues of Hempola's DEET-free bug repellent.

Mr. Harrelson also gave a boost to Toronto hemp food producer Ruth Shamai when she was asked to cater the screening of his documentary Go Further, which chronicles his adventures along the West Coast aboard a bus fuelled by hemp seed oil. She served up her new hemp burgers.

"I discovered that one of the people in his movie was living in Los Angeles but had been getting one of his friends in Canada to send him down care packages of my food," says Ms. Shamai. Tortilla chips produced by her company, Ruth's Hemp Foods, are carried by some stores in the Loblaw grocery chain.

So how healthy is hemp, really? Advocates trumpet its high protein and essential fatty acid content. Companies such as Hempola say the nutrient qualities in hemp can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis as well as boost energy levels.

Registered dietitian Beth Mansfield says there is no question that hemp has a "great profile." It is very low in saturated fat, high in protein and essential fatty acids.

But she cautions not to put too much stock in health claims.

"People aren't just eating one thing, right? They are eating 20 million things all together," says Ms. Mansfield, who works for the Ottawa health promotion firm Peak Performance.

She suggests looking at the nutritional and health claims on the product label rather than a promotional website. Claims on labels are closely scrutinized by government regulators and must be backed up with scientific data, she says.

Because hemp is relatively new on the food market, she says, not much is known about its various qualities. For example, does it go bad quickly? Do you have to be careful how you use it?

"But I'd say it is pretty similar to something like walnut, canola, and wheat germ. It has some similarities in terms of fatty acid profile so you can probably use it in the same way," says Ms. Mansfield, who tried hemp flour about two years ago and vividly recalls the distinctive green tint to the banana loaf she made.

"It's different-looking, it tastes different. But it has got a really interesting flavour and you go, 'Wow, and this has actually got higher protein content.' Which, for some people, is going to be good.

"And the fat that is in it is a big source of essential fat. Lots of fibre as well. So, you can't really go wrong with it. But it is definitely different-tasting."