Hemp has been cultivated in Asia and Europe since ancient times to take advantage of the plant’s fiber to make ropes and as a food source. Traditional oriental medicine has used them to treat various disorders for thousands of years, as we explained at Weediid Academy when we discussed the history of cannabis use.
The small brown seeds of hemp are rich in protein, fiber, and healthy fatty acids. They contain about 30% unsaturated fats and are especially rich in essential fatty acids, alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3) and linoleic acid (omega-6). They also contain gamma-linoleic acid. They have powerful antioxidant effects and can reduce the symptoms of numerous ailments, improving the health of our heart, skin, and joints We are going to analyze in this article everything that these seeds can do for you, and you will understand why they can be considered gold for your health.
Few plant-based foods are complete sources of protein, but these seeds have almost as much as soybeans. In 30 grams of seeds, we can find 9.46 g of protein! This means that when we consume hemp seeds, our body is obtaining the nine essential amino acids that it cannot produce and must absorb through the diet. This makes them a perfect complement to people who are following a vegetarian or vegan diet.
They provide us with the unsaturated fats that our body needs
Unlike saturated fats, of which we cannot eat more than 6% a day without running the risk of increasing our cholesterol level, unsaturated fats are absolutely necessary for the body to function properly. Among the unsaturated fats are omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids, which our body cannot produce by itself and are crucial for our health.
It is important to have a balanced ratio between omega 3 and omega 6. In general, we tend to consume more omega 6 (vegetable oils and nuts) and little omega 3 (blue fish and shellfish, soy and canola oil, nuts and seeds linseed). Hemp seeds have a 2: 1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3, which is considered optimal for human health.