Digging the Hemp Milk....

Having a daughter with allergies to both dairy and soy and of the age where she'll be weaning soon, I've been searching hi and low for a calcium fortified beverage for her. We currently purchase rice milk, but I'm not crazy about it's lack of fats, protein, and the milk's overall thin consistentcy. As Dr. Fuhrman says in his book Disease-Proof Your Child,

I do not recommend rice milks for infants and toddlers. The rice-based milks are too sweet and too low in protein and fat.

So doing some research on the net I came across hemp milk. I've noticed it in the past at the health food store and my wife even bought a carton of chocolate hemp milk at one point, but I never really looked at it's nutritional profile in earnest.

I found the Living Harvest website, www.livingharvest.com, one of the two companies producing hemp milk and was pretty impressed with it's benefits:

An 8 oz. glass of the original or vanilla flavored hemp milk has:

800 mg Omega-3 with SDA
2600 mg of Omega-6 with GLA
All 10 Essential Amino Acids
4 g Digestible Protein
Vitamins A, B12, D, E, Riboflavin & Folic Acid
Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorus, Iron & Zinc
40% Daily Value of Calcium

Surprisingly, the chocolate flavor has even more calcium (46% of rda), b12 (25% of rda), and boosts 900 mg of Omega-3 and 2800 mg of Omega-6 (perfectly balanced I might add). On the flipside, it does have a high sugar content.

Additionally, hemp milk is gluten-free, soy-free, and has no known allergens. Perfect for my daughter.

And if you're wondering, hemp seeds naturally contain an insignificant amount of THC (yes the stuff that gets you high when you're smoking a doob) and further processing guarantees 0% of THC is found in Living Harvest products.

Of course, most importantly, how does it taste.

I initially purchased both the plain and vanilla flavor. I honestly can't really taste the difference between the two, but they've got a nutty flavor and pretty much remind me of the earlier varieties of soy milk. Slightly chalky, but not really noticable if it's shaken well and not drunk straight. Turthfully it didn't bother me, but what about Bella? She likes it in her breakfast cereal, though not straight.

What about the chocolate? The chocolate I thoroughly enjoy. Better than soy or almond milks. It's rich, chocolately, and not chalky like the plain and vanilla flavor. Strangely, my daughter wasn't digging it and my son won't drink it either. Though, I bet Max would drink it if he didn't know it was hemp milk. For some reason has has a bias against drinking milks from a small rectangular box, as oppossed to the half gallon cartons that Silk comes in.

At $4 for 32 oz. it is a bit pricey, esp since you can get a double box (2 half gallons) of plain Silk soy milk for a little over $5, and almond milk has been 2 for $5 at Publix lately. But, I do like the Omega-3 profile of of the Hemp Milk and the fact that you get nearly half your calcium for the day in one glass.

I'll probably continue buying a few cartons a week, along with soy milk, and occassionally calcium-fortified orange juice. Variety is the spice of life.