Hemp
Seed, the Royal Grain
by Chris Bennett
The hemp seed's use as a food and oil source
can be traced back to the very beginnings of civilization.
The German researcher Immanuel Low referred to
a sixth century Persian name for a preparation
of cannabis seed, Sahdanag — Royal Grain;
or King's Grain, which demonstrates the high regard
the ancient Persians held for the nutritious oil
rich seeds that came from the same plant which
provided them with their only means of religious
revelation in the form of the drink banga. Sahdanag
was generally prepared in the form of a heart
shaped cookie, possibly indicating that the ancient
Persians recognized the seed's close relationship
with health and vitality (Low, 1925; reprinted
1967).
Sometime after the Persian Empire took control
of the ancient world, the Jews adopted this Persian
preparation of hemp seed and retained its name
of Sahadanag, which is really not so surprising
as like their Persian benefactors, the Hebrews
already had a long and beneficial relationship
with the useful plant, known to them as qaneh-bosm,
(the root name for our cannabis). Immanuel Low
also suggests that the formerly unidentified Hebrew
word, Tzli'q, (Tzaddi, Lamed, Yod, Quoph), makes
reference to a Jewish meal of roasted Hemp seeds
that was popular into medieval times and was sold
by Jews in European markets. (The first part of
the name simply means roasted, the final Quoph,
an abbreviation of q'aneh).
As with an ancient world food source, hemp seed
as a lighting fuel is possibly as old as the invention
of the oil lamp itself. "Hemp seed oil lit
the lamps of the legendary Aladdin, [and] Abraham
the Prophet ... It was the brightest lamp oil"
(Herer, 1995).
At the same time as countless Jews and Persians
were feasting on "Royal Grain" in the
Near East, in the Far Eastern land of China hemp
was celebrated as one of the seven main grains,
and was popularly used up until the sixth century
AD in a variety of oriental recipes (Abel, 1980).
Some centuries later, in the fourteenth century
AD, hemp started to become an important Chinese
medicine and a large section of the famous Chinese
pharmacopoeia text, the Pen T'sao Kang Mu. The
texts compiler Li Shih Chen referred to works
from previous authors dating back centuries before
his own time in his discussion of hemp seed as
both a food and medicine. According to the ancient
author, the Chinese had hybridized hemp to such
an extent that it grew as large as garden peas
and was reputed to have been of the highest quality.
The ancient text recommended hemp for everything
from urinary problems, blood flow, palsy, increasing
the amount of mother's milk for suckling infants,
the growth of muscle fiber, both dysentery and
constipation and a variety of other applications
(Jones, 1995).
Meanwhile in India, according to the legends
of Mayhayana Buddhism, Buddha subsisted on a single
hemp seed a day during the six steps of asceticism
which lead him to enlightenment (Schultes &
Hofmann, 1979). In modern India Hemp seed is still
eaten by "many of India's poor people: a
mixture called bosa consists of the seeds of goosegrass
(eleusine) and hemp, and mura is made with parched
wheat, amaranth or rice, and hemp seed. The seeds
are said to make all vegetables more palatable
and complete foods" (Robinson, 1996).
The ancient physician Claudius Galen (130-200
AD) wrote of a cannabis seed dessert that was
popular with the Romans. In this case the preparation
likely included whole tops as it was reported
to leave the guests feeling warm and elated. A
century or so earlier the Roman historian Pliny
(23-79 AD) recorded hemp seed oil's use in the
extraction of "worms from the ears, or any
insect which may have entered them" (a comment
that likely refers to the common earache, which
like toothaches was believed to have been caused
by the burrowing of parasitic "worms"
or insects up until medieval times). As well hemp
seeds were believed to be beneficial in the treatment
of gout and other maladies.
Centuries later hemp seed became a key ingredient
in the forerunner of the modern medicinal pill
as well as a key ingredient in a number of therapeutic
applications; "many complex recipes, including
the exotically titled and famous — Pelotus
of Antioch (the pellet or pill inter alia of Antioch:
in modern Syria/Turkey). It is part of the salve
and the dressing of wounds, and a variety of ointments,
salves and plasters." The well-known medieval
nun and poet Hildegard of Bingen recommended "hempseed"
for the relief of pain in her Physica. Hemp was
commonly used in English medicinal recipes of
the 14th and 15th centuries and records of the
St.John the Baptist Hospital in Winchester report
a whopping 36 gallons of seed being purchased
"for the use of the sick" (Sharp, 1989).
The 1794 edition of the Edinburgh New Dispensatory
referred to an emulsion of hemp seed oil in milk
that was given as treatment for venereal disease
and as a cough remedy. In his still popular and
in print Complete Herbal, Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)
wrote that a preparation of cannabis seeds was
used to ease the suffering colic, in the treatment
of certain bowel problems and to stop "bleeding
at the mouth, nose and other places" According
to the Hemperor himself, in medieval Europe many
porridges, soups and gruels contained hemp seed
and "monks were required to eat hemp seed
dishes three times a day" (Herer, 1985).
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 (Abel, 1980).
In South Africa, Suto women not only burn cannabis
flowers as an aid in childbirth, after the baby
is born "they also grind up the seeds with
bread or mealie pap and give it to children when
they are being weaned" (Ames, M.D., 1958).
In this last aspect, the Suto women may have instinctively
tapped into the fact that hemp seed contains rare
gamma linoleic acid, a substance found in human
mother's milk.
In the first half of the twentieth century, one
of the few sane voices that spoke out against
the de-hemping of America through the Marijuana
Tax Act of 1937, was Ralph Loziers of the National
Oil Seed Institute, who testified to the unhearing
bigots of the Tax Act committee that "hemp
seed ... is used in all the Oriental nations and
also in a part of Russia as food. It is grown
in their fields and used as oatmeal. Millions
of people every day are using hemp in the orient
as food. They have been doing that for many generations,
especially in periods of famine...." As Loziers
noted, it wasn't just the possibilities of an
important food industry which would be squashed
by the Marijuana Tax Act, but also the paint and
varnish industry would be greatly effected as
hemp seed oil was a valuable drying agent and
in the two years prior to the installation of
the Tax Act 179 million pounds of hemp seed had
been imported into the U.S. for this purpose alone.
With the hemp seed's long-standing relationship
with humanity, it is interesting to learn that
modern science has revealed that they contain
all the essential amino acids and essential fatty
acids necessary for human life, as well as a rare
protein known as globule edestins that are very
similar to the globulin found in human blood plasma.
Because of this, hemp seed has been touted by
some as "Nature's perfect food for humanity."
Four short years after the Marijuana Tax Act passed
in the US, a researcher writing for a 1941 edition
of Science lamented the loss of access to the
hemp seed's rare and important globule edistins;
"Passage of the Marijuana Law of 1937 has
placed restrictions upon trade in hempseed 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."
Still, research continued elsewhere, and 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" (Robinson,
1996). Hemp seeds contain the most balanced and
richest natural single source of essential oils
for human consumption. These essential fatty acids
(EFAs) not only help to restore wasting bodies,
but also improve damaged immune systems, so it
is not so surprising that modern researchers have
studied them in relationship to the modern immune
attacking AIDS virus (Eidlman, M.D., Hamilton,
ED.D, Ph.D, 1992).
The seven-time Nobel Prize nominee, Dr. Johana
Budwig, a pioneer of EFA research, reported success
in treating heart infraction, arthritis, cancer
and other common diseases with massive doses of
EFAs. Budwig's research indicates that many of
these killer and crippling diseases may be caused
in part by our diet of saturated fat and trans-fat,
which are present in much of the food we eat.
According to this healing sage in Doctor's whites,
saturated fat and trans-fat befuddle the electronic
charge of the unsaturated oils which are present
in cell membranes. This decreases the cells ability
to receive and store electrons from the sun, which
according to Budwig is a key factor in human health.
Alternatively, a balanced diet of EFAs keeps the
charge of the unsaturated fats in the cells membranes
working properly and electron rich. As Budwig
herself explains: "The sun's rays are very
much in harmony with humans. It is no coincidence
that we love the sun. The resonance in our biological
tissue is so strongly tuned to the absorption
of solar energy that physicists who occupy themselves
with this scientific phenomena, the quantum biologists,
say that there is nothing on earth that has a
higher concentration of solar energy photons than
humans. This enrichment with solar energy depends
strongly on the like energy aspects, a wavelength
that is compatible with humans, and this is supported
when we eat foods that have electromagnetic waves
of solar rays — the photon. An abundance
of these electrons, which are tuned to the solar
energy frequency, exist, for example, in many
seed oils. Scientifically these oils have even
been designated as electron-rich, essential, highly
unsaturated fats..." (Budwig, 1992).
Budwig states that when we began to homogenize
vegetable oils so that they would store better,
we unknowingly changed their EFA content into
saturated fats in the ensuing heating process.
These EFA robbed, thus electron poor foods "promote
the emergence of cancer ... They behave like tar,
as insulators relative to the transport of electrons
in living tissue." Alternatively, "electron-rich
highly unsaturated oils ... increase the absorption,
storage and utilization of the sun's energy."
Budwig relates that after her ailing patients
have been treated with an EFA rich diet and then
"lie in the sun, they notice they feel much
better — rejuvenated" (Budwig, 1992).
"On the other hand, nowadays we frequently
observe that the heart fails on sunny beaches,
and not infrequently heart attacks occur. We can
observe both: some individuals in our time experiencing
stress from exposure to the sun's energy, whereas
others respond with dynamic improvement in all
vital functions. The stimulating effect that sunshine
has on the secretions of the liver, gall bladder,
pancreas, bladder, and salivary glands is easy
to observe. These organs only dry out upon exposure
to sunshine when the substance that stimulates
secretions are missing. The decisive factor in
all these observations is whether the surface-active,
electron-rich, highly unsaturated fats are present
as a resonating system" for solar energy,
or, if they are missing. The doctor tells cancer
patients to avoid the sun; that they can't tolerate
the sun. That is correct. As soon as these patients
— also cancer patients — were placed
on my oil-Protein diet for just 2-3 days, i.e.
a diet that contains an abundant supply of essential
fats, they were able to tolerate the sun very
well. Yes, they emphasize how well they suddenly
feel in the sun, how the life forces are stimulated
and that they feel dynamically energized"
(Budwig, 1992).
Budwig's word are definitely "food for thought."
Perhaps the saturated fat diet of many of hemp's
bigoted opponents is causing them to be "deep
fried" under the sun's rays, whereas the
hemp-savvy hipster, well dosed with the best source
of EFAs the beloved hemp seed, is being continually
re-energized? In times of worry about increased
exposure to the sun's rays (and an ensuing rise
in skin cancer) due to the hole in the ozone,
the EFA rich oils provided by hemp may offer us
a "seed" of hope. In her writings about
the sun's effect on the cell membrane's electrons,
Budwig referred to the work of the quantum physicist
Dessauer, writing "If it were possible to
increase the concentration of solar electrons
tenfold in this biological electron rich molecule,
man would live to be 10,000 years old" (Budwig,
1992). I'll have a hempy burger, and a hemp seed
smoothie to go please, the sun is out and I'm
headin' for Wreck Beach!
Further Resources:
SHARP, Soutra Hospital Archaeoethuopharmacological
Research Project: The Third Report on Researches
into the Medieval Hospital at Soutra (1989,
ISBN 0 9511 888 2 8)
Ames, F., MD. A Clinical and Metabolic Study
of Acute Intoxication with Cannabis Sativa
(1958)
In the MARIJUANA MEDICAL PAPERS, Tod
H. Mikuriya, M.D. (Medi-Comp Press, 1973)
Jones, Kenneth, NUTRITIONAL AND MEDICINAL
GUIDE TO HEMP SEED (Rainforest Botanical
Laboratory, 1995)
Low, Immanuel, Die Flora Der Juden,
(Georg Olms Verlagsbuch handlung Hildesheim, 1967;
originally published as Flora der Juden
in 1926). The English interpetation of Low's work
concerning Cannabis was provided to the author
by Sabina Hotz.
Herer, Jack, THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHES
(Queen of Clubs, 1985)
Robinson, Rowan, THE GREAT BOOK OF HEMP
(Park Street Press, 1996)
Budwig, Dr. Johanna, FLAX OIL AS A TRUE AID
AGAINST ARTHRITIS, HEART INFRACTION, CANCER AND
OTHER DISEASES (Apple Publishing, 1992);
Apple Publishing, 220 E. 59th Ave., Vancouver,
B.C. V5X 1X9
Abel, Ernest, MARIHUANA, THE FIRST TWELVE
THOUSAND YEARS (Phenum Press, 1980)
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