NUTRITIONAL ANALYIS OF

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HEMP HEARTS

Roger Snow kindly sent to me another package of his hemp hearts and hemp chocolate bars. I have shared these with a friend of mine who is a body builder, the protein content of hemp is quite impressive and of use to such people.

A complete breakdown on what 100 gm of his hulled hemp seeds contain is as follows:

Calories 567

Protein 30.6g

Total fat 47.2g

saturated fat 5.2g

palmitic acid 3.44g

arachidic acid 0.2

linoleic acid (Omega - 6 EFA) 27.56g

linolenic acid (Omega - 3 EFA) 8.68g

stearic acid 1.46g

monounsaturated fat 5.8g

oleic acid 5.8g

polyunsaturated fat 36.2g

linoleic acid (Omega - 6 EFA) 27.56g
linolenic acid (Omega - 3 EFA) 8.68

total essential fatty acids 36.24g

carbohydrate 10.9g

cholesterol 0.0g

total dietary fibre 6.0g

sugars 1.99g

fructose 0.45g

glucose 0.30g

sucrose 1.24g

maltose 0.1g

lactose 0.1g

Vitamin A (B-carotene) 4 IU

Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) 1.38mg

Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) 0.33mg

Vitamin B6 0.12mg

Vitamin C 1.0mg

Vitamin D 2277.5 IU

Vitamin E (d) -A- Tocopherol 8.96 IU

Sodium 9.0mg

Calcium 74.0mg

Iron 4.7mg

Tetrahydrocannabinol None detectable

20 YEARS A' GROWING:
THE RETURN OF DR SHIVA

Last month Dr Vandana Shiva made another appearance in London, returning to Hampstead Town Hall to speak. Sagar Shah and I came along again, running into Carolyn Whittle of PositiveTV and environmental reporter Stanley Johnson, whose resemblance to his son Boris was hard to miss. A perhaps not irrelevant factoid in this is the fact that Boris is one quarter Indian, and so the family may have some interest in that part of the world. Boris, unlike some politicians, does not wear his own ethnic diversity on his sleeve.
The event was a celebration of Dr Shiva's 20 years with Zed Books, a left wing publishing house here in London. She was introduced by Patrick Holden of the Soil Association; this time we had a more amicable chat with him backstage, or rather, in front of the food table which is where most people gathered before the event; having a good caterer is always a plus, and the same people who were there with such an impressive array were on hand again. Speaking of food, Sagar and I gave a blueberry hempseed chocolate bar to Vandana, so she had some in hand to take back (if that is still permissible with our new aeroport security laws). It was one of the footlong monster bars that Roger Snow sent me from Rocky Mountain Grain Products in Canada, so it may well be touring the world; the hemp bar that went from Ontario to New York to London may well be on its way to New Delhi. Which could, of course, be seized upon by the airmiles pharisees who want to stop all airlifting of food - including some of the folks at the Soil Association. As this would only devastate the local economies of about 50 nations, eight charity groups banded together to tell the elitists that this just would not work; and good job they did. How many times in this world do overzealous do-gooders destroy things before we call an end to this? What would this do, for instance, to the mango/papaya/jute growers in India? Or are we supposed to grow these items somewhere in the UK? Even by the most outrageous global warming prediction we are simply not going to be able to do that, so we might as well not disrupt the livelihoods of millions of people for the likes of Tamsin Omond (whose antics at closing down aeroports might have kept Dr Shiva out of the country).
Conspicuously absent from the event were the biofuel opponents preaching global warming/cooling/climate change. As so many scientists are now eschewing this rubbish (see Marc Morano in the current issue of Nexus), they are no longer flavour of the month, and people are wondering why governments are giving away hard earned cash to idiots trading carbon credits as if it was a new dot.com stock. Dr Shiva touched on this in her speech, calling such trading tantamount to the indulgences the church was trading in the Middle Ages. She also touched on the options trading, which she called a "construct of a construct of a construct", and asserted really only came about in the '70s. It is now into the hundreds of billions of pounds she noted, and is part of the reason for the credit crunch. If there were any bankers at the meeting, this is when they slithered out the door. They may not have been feeling to comfortable, but a wider segment of the audience might also have felt slighted as she talked about cars; she herself does not own a car, and good on her! In India, she says, the percentage of car owners has not grown since the '50; cars are everywhere, due to both population increase and the fact that the same people who owned a car in the '50s now own five. One wonders if they are going to start using electric cars - ironically India is where the G Wiz, which is now so prominent in Hampstead and other parts of London, is produced.
In her time Dr Shiva has seen much change, but sadly, much of this is for the worse. We hope that she will be able to see some soon for the better, and with hemp in hand on her way back to India, this may well be the case. Thank you Dr. Shiva for your inspiration, we hope to see you again soon.

VEGAN GOODIES

Yesterday the Vegan Fest in London was packed as usual. The talk got under way at 1pm, introduced by Sagar. After some historical remarks about hemp, we then got to the core of the issue, nutrition. Samples of many products were at this point handed out, including the very packs seen to the left - these also came in chocolate and plain. Nutiva had kindly sent these all the way from California, and a Canadian company, Vega, also sent in supplies. No one went hungry, but there were a few unhappy souls who did not quite take kindly to us spilling the beans on soya, which was a feature in the Ecologist. As is often the case, there are people who ask inane questions about the facts, but refuse to read or listen. The Ecologist had also given us a supply of their magazines, which the diehard soya lovers refused to read! Most, however, were happy to have such a good magazine in their hands. A small point made by one of the audience members was that the Good Oil packs had salmon recipes on them, yes, that was just the way Good Oil is, and the owner, Henry Braham, who lives a short walk away from the fest, did not bother to show up - he was off in his 4x4! Not quite the way to go for anyone in the hemp business. We have been trying for years to convince him not to use defoliants on the leaves when he harvests, but he is not one for answering emails or returning calls. Oh well. I can recommend here Hemp Foods for You instead, run by Paul Dean in Glastonbury. He presses his seeds 24 hours before delivery and uses a cold stone. And needless to say, 4x4s are not his means of transport.

But getting back to the controversy, it looks like it upset not just the soya fans at a vegan fest, but the bigwigs in the soya industry are upset too, and are pulling strings behind the scenes to keep other journalists off the story. This is where the Ecologist really shines, it does not have ads for 4x4s and it does not give in to such pressure. Sadly, the press is mostly just a whore for the rich 4x4 driving types, and the little that filters through is but a fraction of the crucial information we need to be getting. The soya issue is one of the most important stories that can be printed, yet it may get lost due to journalistic cowardice. We may see a press blackout on this issue, so it is good to be able to shine some light on this while we can.

Thanks to all the hemp companies that made this happen, those mentioned already and also Sativa Bags, Minawear, Rocky Mountain Grain Products, The Hemp Shop, C-Iced Tea, and Innocent Oils.

HEART OF HEMP

Cynthia McKinney, former US Congresswoman who was asked to consider a run for the White House by the US Green Party, has finished her whirlwind tour of London. To get her off to a proper start, a tub of hemp hearts (pictured right) awaited her in the fridge, which, along with hemp chocolate bars, kept her going strong (along with porridge and raisins).

Highlights of her tour include meeting Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth on Thursday, 6 September, wearing an orange jump suit outside the US Embassy on Friday, talking at the Urban Green Fair on Sunday, and holding court at Friends House on Monday. Tuesday she flew off to Amsterdam.

At the end of her tour she decided to decline the Green Party nomination, as she was not able to get the running mate she wanted. They may have to take back Ralph Nader! And let's not mention his little back handed put options trading...

I bet the major parties are breathing a sigh of relief. 4 more years of BS in the US if either of them gets elected. There may be some scary time ahead, and chills ran up our spines on Monday when we heard that Barack Hussein Obama plans to pull the troops out of Iraq...and send them to Pakistan. Just when you thought Bush was bad. And since this will be a move on the part of the Democrats, protest might be completely futile.

I think America's only hope is that the citizens at this point storm the cockpit and turn the plane around. For that they will need their strength, so I recommend a high protein diet which includes hemp seeds (which are still illegal to grow in the Homeland, these came from Canada, which now cultivates 50,000 acres a year).

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY IN LONDON

This summer the US Green Party asked Cynthia McKinney to run for president. Hopefully she will, and many things that the Bush administration have damaged in the land of liberty will be repaired, such as the treatment of US veterans. I am lucky to have served before either Bush got in, many of those who did their time after me are now suffering the effects of depleted uranium. The Marines got a few good men, but Bush was not one of them. In fact it is pretty well understood that he went AWOL for 7 months, and his VP never even went in as he got 5 deferrments, is that a record or what? How did he get out of duty 5 times when hundreds of thousands of others got called up? Did he tap his feet?

McKinney is definitely not a foot-tapper. She has hers solidly on the ground, and this week they are on British ground. She arrived Monday around noon and has taken up residence in London where she has been holding court with writers and journalists. Mark Anslow of the Ecologist spent the afternoon in her presence, asking her about her stance on all things green, followed by Elizabeth Mistry. Nafeez Ahmed showed up later with his friends and a heavy discussion ensued. At one point Cynthia cooked up a meal of hulled hemp seeds and porridge, the former a gift of Roger Snow at Rocky Mountain Grain Products in Canada.

The next day London was set back by a tube strike, which may not have pleased a lot of people, but at least it got some of us more fit as we were forced to walk or ride bikes. Personally, though, I'd rather sit and get taken to my destination by wheels of steel. Let's hope they are rolling soon. While they idled, McKinney gathered steam, talking to the Big Issue and getting on Talk Sport just before midnight. Any American would be proud that she held her own against the talk show host John Nichol. She was asked if she was an American version of George Galloway, to which she wisely did not say yes or no. Truth is that both do stand against the establishment and oppose the mess in Iraq, but she does not go on Big Brother and do inane antics to get attention, she is able to make her points in more effective ways. She also has a very good voting record for her constituents, whilst Galloway has a very bad one, and in fact missed a crucial vote for Bethnal Green when he was a guest of Channel 4.

She will rock and roll in the UK some more, meeting Friends of the Earth tomorrow and protesting outside the US Embassy on Friday (7 September) at 6 pm with Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who got locked up for nothing. It sounds like Seinfeld, which was a show about nothing, but noone ever complained (except some viewers). There still are hundreds of people locked up for nothing, and they are not even allowed to watch old epidodes of Seinfeld. Instead they are being forced to hear loud music, as if that is going to help win hearts and minds. If Cynthia gets in they get out. And the millions, sorry, billions, sorry, trillions that the Bushistas are spending on Camp X Ray and other abominations will be spent in the Homeland with proper accounting to the taxpayer's whose money has gone astray these last few years. Some folks will not like that one bit, and I suspect that the princes of darkness who run Blackwater and other paramilitary outfits at great expense to the taxpayer will be getting caned.

On Sunday (9 September) she will be speaking at the Urban Green Fair in Brockwell Park, Brixton. After that she goes up to Leeds, then returns to the banks of the Thames on Monday, when she will speak at Friends House on Euston Road at 6:30 pm, admission £5, £3 with concessions. Her speech will be followed by a 45 minutes Q&A session. Tuesday (11 September) she is attending a rally in Parliament Square at noon, and then she heads off to Amsterdam.

For more information on Cynthia McKinney click here.