Push to legalise budding hemp food industry

[Oz]

Food made from hemp could be sold at Australian supermarkets if a push to legalise the product is successful.

 

Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) has called for public comments on an application to legalise hemp seeds and oil for human consumption.

 

FSANZ spokeswoman Lydia Buchtman says commercial hemp crops contain little to no trace of the mind-altering compound found in illicit marijuana and are safe to eat.

 

Ms Buchtman says foods made from hemp are available in many countries including the United Kingdom and Canada.

 

"It's quite a healthy vegetable oil and it's full of the good fats, not the bad fats."

 

"What we're talking about is industrial hemp. This is hemp with low THC (tetrahydrocannabinol], the active ingredient in marijuana.

 

"It's widely grown around the world and used as food or animal feed or for fibre, and in fact it's grown in a number of states in Australia, including Tasmania."

 

Tasmania's hemp growers have welcomed the debate.

 

Hemp growers association spokesman Phil Reader says legalising the product would create new industries.

 

"Anything from perfumes, soaps, right through to any of the food products," he said.

 

"It just frees up [opportunities] because nobody, at this particular stage, if you haven't got a licence, you cannot receive any of the seed."

 

Comments can be made until the end of the month.

Author: ?

Date: 05/04/2011

Source: ABC News online

 

 

Related Article: https://cannabis.community.forums.ozstoners.com/topic/32404-current-application-for-hemp-as-food-in-aust-needs-our-support/

[The Hash Nibbler]

Nice!!! Thanks Oz, be nice to get all my Omegas from Hemp instead of paying Bull**** amounts of money for fish oils. Slowly the wheels turn , American Med releases a Cannabis Med report, Hemp being cleared for growing in Australia.......... I'm seeing changes I like here. =). Be great for the Hemp farmers and those who want to get into growing it for making clothes instead of the water sucking cotton along the Murray /Darling, they could plant hemp and save the river system. I'll eat my share of hemp food products. Awesome. Peace. Gh72

[buzz lighthead]

Any talk of hemp crops being fed into pulp mills for paper? I'd like to see the legalisation of hemp ease the burden on native forestry. Imagine fewer log trucks rumbling up the highway and more with hemp on the back! I'd love to seee that! It's about time society woke up to the long list of uses this plant has, instead of just ignoring it to our peril.