Hemp Oil: Is It Safe To Consume?

August 10, 2015

In our previous post on healthy cooking oils, we mentioned how adding hemp oil to your diet can benefit you. Hemp oil contains the right balance of essential fatty acids. Extracted from the raw seeds of hemp plant, it is rich in protein, polyunsaturated fatty acids, omega-6, omega-3 and insoluble fiber. It also contains a range of antioxidants and minerals. Plus, it tastes pretty good too.

How Safe Is It?

All these healthy benefits aside, the crucial concern remains, how safe is it to consume hemp oil? This apprehension arises from the fact that hemp is often associated with marijuana. While they’re both species of the genus cannabis, and they both have the iconic five fingered leaves, there’s little similarity apart from that. Marijuana and industrial hemp is not the same thing.

Will You Get ‘High’?

Being species of the same sativa, they both produce the antagonistic chemical compound called tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). However, marijuana produces high amounts of THC, which is responsible for that feeling of being “high”. Inversely, hemp oil or any product made from hemp contains very little or none of the psycho-active delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinols (THC). The certified low-THC varieties available in Europe and Canada contain almost 0.2 to 0.3 percent THC when fully matured. With such low amounts of THC, it sits well with the popular idiom—“you’d need to smoke a hemp joint the size of a telephone pole to get high.”

Using Hemp Oil

With that being said, it is still illegal to grow hemp in a few states in America because of the draconian prohibition of cannabis, but it is legal to import it. Hemp oil is commercially available in many countries, as it used as cooking oil and has quite a few compounds that benefit you as well. You can use it the same way as olive oil, as long as you do not use it for high-heat cooking. Here’s why your kitchen must stock hemp oil for healthy cooking.

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