Portland, Ore. – December 9, 2008 – Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods announces the launch of Hemp Protein Powder and Hulled Hemp Seed, both derived from one of the world’s most nutritionally complete food sources.

“The hemp seed may be one of nature’s most perfect foods,” said Bob Moore, Founder of Bob’s Red Mill. “And like all of our hundreds of products we wanted to provide our customers with something that is fully nutritious and delightful to eat.”

The press release goes on to cover all the health benefits and nutrition to be gained from incorporating hemp seeds into your diet.

More importantly, however, I think that a mainstream company such as Bob’s Red Mill moving into the hemp food market is indicative of future growth. Not only must Bob’s Red Mill see a market demand, but having a brand name such as this marketing hemp products will undoubtedly raise awareness which, in turn, will stimulate additional demand.

Two North Dakota farmers who were granted the nation’s first state licenses to grow industrial hemp a year ago have been granted renewals. The farmers have tried to get federal permission to grow hemp, which is a cousin to marijuana but doesn’t produce a high.

Although the state of North Dakota (and a few others) permit the cultivation of industrial hemp, it is still illegal under federal law. Consequently, even though a farmer is licensed to grow the plant, they can still face prosecution by the DEA.

Despite the legal murkiness, North Dakota is still issuing licenses to grow hemp, but warns that applicants will still have trouble with federal authorities. Perhaps that these two farmers re-applied for their license is indicative of what they think their chances are of winning their case against the DEA (i.e. good). However, there is no set date for when the judge is expected to hand down his decision on this case.

For those who want more background info on this case, VoteHemp.com has a page all about the North Dakota Case.

The North Dakota Department of Agriculture is accepting applications for 2009 industrial hemp production licenses.

“The applications are due Jan. 1,” said Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson. “Although the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration continues to prevent holders of state licenses from growing industrial hemp, NDDA remains committed to fully implementing state laws authorizing the production, processing and sale of this crop in North Dakota.”

In addition to the associated fees and paperwork, applicants must submit their fingerprints and clear both state and federal criminal background checks.

Not only does it seem unreasonable to undergo such a process while the legality of North Dakota hemp farming still hangs in the limbo of federal courts, but the process itself is kind of curious. Consider a farmer who was convicted for a non-drug related crime (such as a fraud charge for bouncing a check) twenty years ago: they would be denied a license to grow industrial hemp. That doesn’t seem to make much sense. Of course, the North Dakota Department of Agriculture (NDDA) may very well consider applicants’ history on a case by case basis. Anyone know for sure?

In any case, those interested in applying for a license to grow industrial hemp in the state of North Dakota can contact Ken Junkert at the NDDA at 701-328-2231 or kjunkert@nd.gov. More information can also be found on the NDDA Web site.

1 x 12 Fl oz (355 ml) Hemp Seed Oil
1 x 10 oz (283 g) Hemp Seed Butter
1 x 8 oz (227 g) Shelled Hemp Seed
1 x 16 oz (455 g) Hemp Protein & Fiber Powder
1 x Hemp Nutrition Booklet and brochure

Regularly: $ 45.00 + $10.00 shipping: $55.00 total

Gift Pack until Dec 31: only $ 40.00 shipping included (save $15.00)

You can order your Hemp Food Starter pack here, but if you’re wondering what to do with all that hemp food, here is a few recipes (also complements of the Manitoba Harvest people).

White Canadian

Makes: 4 cups (serves two)
Prep Time: 5 min
Cook Time:

Ingredients:
3/4 cup Shelled Hemp Seed
4 cups filtered water
4 Tbsp maple syrup
4 tsp nutmeg

Directions:
Combine Shelled Hemp Seed and water in a blender. Blend on high for 2 minutes, until creamy and smooth. This is how you make fresh hemp milk. Fill 2 glasses with ice. Add 2 Tbsp of maple syrup and 2 tsp of nutmeg to each glass. Pour 2 cups of Hemp Milk in each glass and stir well. This is a tasty holiday treat. This recipe also goes well with the addition of 1-2 oz of hazelnut liqueur.

Mean Bean Salad

Makes: 8 Cups
Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time:

Ingredients:
1/3 Cup Hemp Seed Oil
1/4 Cup Shelled Hemp Seeds
1/3 Cup balsamic vinegar
3 cloves garlic(minced)
1 tin Garbonzo Beans
1 tin Soya Beans
1 tin Kidney Beans
2 celery stalks(finely chopped)
1 tomato(finely chopped)
1 red pepper(finely chopped)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients into a bowl. Stir until well mixed. Chill before serving.

Hemp & Apple Muffins

Makes: 12
Prep Time: 10 min.
Cook Time: 25 min.

Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 rounded tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp frozen, thawed apple juice concentrate
2/3 cup buttermilk(or non-dairy milk)
2 Tbsp oat bran
2 small Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
1/3 cup Shelled Hemp Seed

Directions: Preheat oven to 350C. Grease 12 standard size muffin-pan cups.
Mix together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg and salt. Mix together eggs, apple juice and milk. Stir flour mixture and oat bran into egg mixture until dry ingredients are just moistened. Do not overmix. Gently stir in chopped apples and Shelled Hemp Seed. Spoon batter into prepared pan, filling cups 2/3 full. Garnish each muffin with an apple slice,sprinkle with Shelled Hemp Seed. Bake muffins until lightly golden and tops spring back when pressed, 25 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool slightly. Turn muffins out onto rack to cool completely.

Citrus Hemp Butter Spread

Makes: 1/4 cup
Prep Time: 5 min
Cook Time:

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp Hemp Seed Butter
2 Tbsp fresh squeezed orange juice
cinnamon, nutmeg or cardamom to taste

Directions: Mix hemp seed butter with orange juice and add cinnamon, nutmeg or cardamom to taste.

Casey in the Colorado State Senate wearing a hemp vest (1995)

Okay, well, not exactly. Nevertheless, a US politician who’s known for championing the legalization of industrial hemp in the country has a new book out, and that’s bound to gain the hemp industry some added attention. As the Colorado Independent reports:

Lloyd Casey, the oldest first-time elected state senator from Colorado when he entered office in 1993, and the first politician in the country to introduce a bill to re-legalize industrial hemp. Now 85, Casey’s moved to Dublin, Ohio, but he’s back with a Christmas present in the form of a book that dispenses such valuable sex education advice as “Stay off the hard liquor and keep your pecker in your pants.”
[...]
The sex education line that is highlighted in his book, Casey explains, actually came in the form of a one-liner from his dad way back when, at age 17, he was boarding a train in Las Vegas to go to Navy boot camp in Farragut, Idaho.

The article also links to a charismatic letter that Casey wrote outlining his position on hemp. In it, he states:

[...] the fact is, the people who have prevented us from growing industrial hemp are 100% wrong. They are people who play the ‘holier than thou card’ and people like that have bugged me since I can remember. This effort has become my determination to out live the bastards and I expect to live long enough to see industrial hemp become the agricultural and industrial business it deserves to be.

Just goes to show you, I guess, that an interest in hemp is not a niche one. Rather, hemp advocates come in all shapes and sizes, and from all generations — much like common sense

A construction and architecture conference in London next June is slated to feature a house made of hemp. But it now looks like the hemp house isn’t going to be as architecturally distinct as originally planned. The architecture firm that was initially contracted to build it have been dropped in favor of a more off-the-shelf design, and apparently this can mean that the house will be less eco-friendly. As Building Online reports:

Aukett Fitzroy Robinson has been axed as the architect of a pioneering eco-home set to be built using hemp at the Building Research Establishment’s innovation park.

Two months ago, the practice was jointly commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and renewable materials and technology quango, the National Non-Food Crops Centre (NNFCC), for the Hemp House, which aimed to reach level six of the Code for Sustainable Homes using natural materials also including lime.

Now, Aukett’s has claimed its proposal has been replaced with an “off-the-shelf” housebuilder’s design because its plans were not traditional enough for the NNFCC’s liking.
[...]
Andrew Sutton, project architect for Gaunt Francis’s BRE innovation project the Green House, warned it was dangerous to make a housebuilder solely responsible for the design and build.

“This is a hugely missed opportunity,” he said. “A housebuilder will struggle to achieve higher codes without a design team.”

There is, of course, two sides to every coin. Even though a less intricate design could results in having a less than eco-friendly rating, it could make hemp-houses seem more affordable. That in turn could fuel more widespread use of eco-friendly hemp-based building materials. So even though individual houses would be less environmentally friendly than they might otherwise be, there would sure be a lot more of them, meaning that overall, the construction industry becomes more sustainable in the net analysis.

Of course, we’ll just have to wait and see just what an “off the shelf” hemp house looks like. After all, it may simply contain mostly token hemp materials that don’t impact the construction industry all that much at all.

The breakthrough is a big deal because this way, no new machinery needs to be invented and then sold to fabric manufacturers. It will pretty much make processing hemp affordable which, in turn, will make hemp products affordable which, in turn, will fuel hemp industry growth. That’s important because the sooner that hemp can replace cotton, the sooner we can depleting our soil and water supplied just to put clothes on our back.

In any case, here is a clip of that scientist, Dr. Wing Sung, explaining how its done.

Developers and farmers continue to pave the way for hemp as a biomass crop in the United States.

The North Dakota case is, undoubtedly, and important. It will effectively determine the future of industrial hemp in the US for generation to come. As much as that will impact on the biomass industry, it will effect so much more. Hemp is also a particularly pomising cotton alternative, not to mention a great source of nutrition.

Of course, when the energy sector starts eyeing a profit maker, things usually give sooner rather than later. So perhaps there might be some behind the scenes political dealing that will play out in favor of not only the plaintiff farmers in the North Dakota case, but hemp enthusiasts and entrepreneurs writ large.

Hemp Hotel – As the name suggests, hemp is the theme of the décor. There are five rooms all decorated with THC-free goods. The curtains, the bedding, the soap, the shampoo, even the breakfast are all made from hemp. Their Hemple Temple Night Bar serves up hemp ice cream, seeds and a dozen kinds of hemp beer. Only in Amsterdam!

So yeah, the idea is kind of cool, but it is in Amsterdam, which is a tourist’s marijuana haven. To that extent, you have to take the Hemp Hotel for what it is: a tourist gimmick.

In actuality, consierable advances in hemp technology are being made, specifically with hempcrete. In the UK, there has even been a house made of hemp, and not just decorated with it. And even when it comes to interior decor, you don’t have to go to Amsterdam to find hemp bedding.

It’s kind of disappointing how often one of hemp’s many uses is publicized, it’s alongside the plant’s psychoactive counterpart, marijuana. After all, the best chance that hemp has to be quickly entered into the mainstream so that we can all start enjoying its ecological and health benefits more easily is to completely disassociate it from it cousin narcotic.

Stock up on all-natural supplies. Lanaknits Designs Hemp for Knitting has 100 percent hemp and hemp-blend yarns in assorted colors, lanaknits.com; [...] South West Trading Company offers the widest variety of sustainable yarns: organic cotton, milk fiber, soy silk, bamboo, corn, and hemp, soysilk.com.

The overall gist of the article is finding products and merchants that reflect the values of yoga enthusiasts, but it provides quite a few good leads for hemp enthusiasts as well. Check out Stitched Together @ Yoga Journal to find out where you can find places to purchase sustainable products, including those made form hemp.