
The benefits of hemp are boundless. The wonder food balances your hormones, nourishes your skin and hair, calms post-workout inflammation and relaxes your muscles. Once a mainstay crop in the U.S., it's also embedded in history: The Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp, and early American flags were made of the durable, plant-based fabric. In the early 1900s, one report declared 25,000 uses for hemp, everything from ropes and sails to linens and food.
Add this to your meals every day for a supercharged source of plant protein. Photo credit: Shutterstock
But its confusion with marijuana, also in the cannabis family, led to an American campaign that ultimately made it impossible for U.S. farmers to capitalize on this important agricultural crop. Bringing it back could prove to be a potent economic booster that could help clean up agriculture (hemp grows readily without toxic pesticides) while providing healthy, low-impact protein to millions.
So just to be clear: Although hemp plants resemble pot plants, hemp is not marijuana and will not cause false positives on drug tests, explains Michael Fata, CEO and cofounder of Manitoba Harvest, a leader in the hemp food movement. (Company co-founders helped fight for hemp legalization in Canada, which ultimately happened in 1998.) Hemp foods contain 0.0001 percent tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the compound responsible for the psychoactive effects of cannabis.
Marijuana contains up to 5,000 times that amount, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Drugs and Human Performance Fact Sheets. "It's like comparing vodka to nonalcoholic beer," Fata explains. Instead of getting hung up on the drug myth, Fata would much rather talk about hemp's amazing healing powers.
Tasting like what he calls a cross between a sunflower seed and a pine nut, shelled hemp seeds and hemp protein powders are pleasant-tasting protein powerhouses, containing all 10 essential amino acids to form a complete vegetarian protein source. Hemp is better for the planet, too. According to Environmental Working Group, animal proteins can create up to 20 times the climate-damaging emissions compared to plant-based protein sources.
With U.S. demand up 62 percent in the first quarter of 2013, hemp is turning out to be quite a trendy little seed. Industry data shows hemp is growing at a rate of 115 percent, compared to an 84 percent increase in chia seeds. It's a powerhouse in the protein powder category, too. As whey and soy proteins are slowing, hemp protein powder sales are up 30 percent in the first part of 2013. Ready to give hemp a try?
Not sold yet? Here are some more benefits of hemp:
- It's one of the world's most potent natural sources of magnesium—a mineral required for a healthy metabolism and one that as much as 75 percent of the U.S. population doesn't get enough of.
- It's a key food for exercisers, thanks to its levels of iron and phosphorus, important trace elements that maximize oxygen levels.
- It contains twice the protein found in chia and flax seeds.
- It's naturally non-genetically modified.
Here's how to work hemp into your diet:
- Sprinkle shelled hemp hearts on salads, yogurt and cereal.
- Add shelled hemp seeds to soup for a creamy, nondairy protein boost.
- Toss protein powder into smoothies and mix with any ingredients that would be complemented by hemp's subtle, nutty flavor.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
9 Ways to Support Your Local Food Community
12 Must-See Food Films That Will Inspire You to Take Action
Neil Young Blasts Starbucks for Supporting Monsanto and GMOs in Rock Anth
A tornado tore through a city north of Birmingham, Alabama, Monday night, killing one person and injuring at least 30.
- Tornadoes and Climate Change: What Does the Science Say ... ›
- Tornadoes Hit Unusually Wide Swaths of U.S., Alarming Climate ... ›
- 23 Dead as Tornado Pummels Lee County, AL in Further Sign ... ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By David Konisky
On his first day in office President Joe Biden started signing executive orders to reverse Trump administration policies. One sweeping directive calls for stronger action to protect public health and the environment and hold polluters accountable, including those who "disproportionately harm communities of color and low-income communities."
Michael S. Regan, President Biden's nominee to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, grew up near a coal-burning power plant in North Carolina and has pledged to "enact an environmental justice framework that empowers people in all communities." NCDEQ
Trending
By Katherine Kornei
Clear-cutting a forest is relatively easy—just pick a tree and start chopping. But there are benefits to more sophisticated forest management. One technique—which involves repeatedly harvesting smaller trees every 30 or so years but leaving an upper story of larger trees for longer periods (60, 90, or 120 years)—ensures a steady supply of both firewood and construction timber.
A Pattern in the Rings
<p>The <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/coppice-standards-0" target="_blank">coppice-with-standards</a> management practice produces a two-story forest, said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernhard_Muigg" target="_blank">Bernhard Muigg</a>, a dendrochronologist at the University of Freiburg in Germany. "You have an upper story of single trees that are allowed to grow for several understory generations."</p><p>That arrangement imprints a characteristic tree ring pattern in a forest's upper story trees (the "standards"): thick rings indicative of heavy growth, which show up at regular intervals as the surrounding smaller trees are cut down. "The trees are growing faster," said Muigg. "You can really see it with your naked eye."</p><p>Muigg and his collaborators characterized that <a href="https://ltrr.arizona.edu/about/treerings" target="_blank">dendrochronological pattern</a> in 161 oak trees growing in central Germany, one of the few remaining sites in Europe with actively managed coppice-with-standards forests. They found up to nine cycles of heavy growth in the trees, the oldest of which was planted in 1761. The researchers then turned to a historical data set — more than 2,000 oak <a href="https://eos.org/articles/podcast-discovering-europes-history-through-its-timbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">timbers from buildings and archaeological sites</a> in Germany and France dating from between 300 and 2015 — to look for a similar pattern.</p>A Gap of 500 Years
<p>The team found wood with the characteristic coppice-with-standards tree ring pattern dating to as early as the 6th century. That was a surprise, Muigg and his colleagues concluded, because the first mention of this forest management practice in historical documents occurred only roughly 500 years later, in the 13th century.</p><p>It's probable that forest management practices were not well documented prior to the High Middle Ages (1000–1250), the researchers suggested. "Forests are mainly mentioned in the context of royal hunting interests or donations," said Muigg. Dendrochronological studies are particularly important because they can reveal information not captured by a sparse historical record, he added.</p><p>These results were <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78933-8" target="_blank">published in December in <em>Scientific Reports</em></a>.</p><p>"It's nice to see the longevity and the history of coppice-with-standards," said <a href="https://www.teagasc.ie/contact/staff-directory/s/ian-short/" target="_blank">Ian Short</a>, a forestry researcher at Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority in Ireland, not involved in the research. This technique is valuable because it promotes conservation and habitat biodiversity, Short said. "In the next 10 or 20 years, I think we'll see more coppice-with-standards coming back into production."</p><p>In the future, Muigg and his collaborators hope to analyze a larger sample of historic timbers to trace how the coppice-with-standards practice spread throughout Europe. It will be interesting to understand where this technique originated and how it propagated, said Muigg, and there are plenty of old pieces of wood waiting to be analyzed. "There [are] tons of dendrochronological data."</p><p><em><a href="mailto:katherine.kornei@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Katherine Kornei</a> is a freelance science journalist covering Earth and space science. Her bylines frequently appear in Eos, Science, and The New York Times. Katherine holds a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles.</em></p><p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://eos.org/articles/tree-rings-reveal-how-ancient-forests-were-managed" target="_blank">Eos</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>Earth's ice is melting 57 percent faster than in the 1990s and the world has lost more than 28 trillion tons of ice since 1994, research published Monday in The Cryosphere shows.
By Jewel Fraser
Noreen Nunez lives in a middle-class neighborhood that rises up a hillside in Trinidad's Tunapuna-Piarco region.