Shelled hemp seeds — soft, pale green kernels with a mild, nutty, faintly grassy taste. Ready to eat from the bag with no soaking, grinding or cooking. Organic, 250 g.
Shelled means the hard husk is gone
Whole hemp seed has a fibrous shell that is unpleasant to chew and largely indigestible. Shelled seeds — sometimes sold as hemp hearts — are the soft kernel inside, and it is a completely different food: you can spoon them over anything and barely notice the texture. This is the reason hemp seed went from a health-shop curiosity to something people actually eat.
What is genuinely notable about them
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Around 30% protein, and unusually for a plant it contains all nine essential amino acids in reasonable proportion. A 30 g serving — two generous tablespoons — gives roughly 9 g of protein, which is a real contribution rather than a rounding error.
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Both essential fatty acids, at a good ratio. Linoleic acid (omega-6) and alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3) at roughly 3:1. That matters because typical Western eating runs closer to 15:1 or worse, heavily skewed to omega-6.
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Vitamin E, magnesium, iron and zinc. Check the pack for the amounts per serving.
One honest correction about the omega-3
The omega-3 in hemp seed is ALA, not the EPA and DHA found in oily fish and algae. The body converts ALA to EPA and DHA very inefficiently — single-digit percentages, and worse for DHA. ALA is genuinely useful in its own right, and the authorised EU claim is that it contributes to the maintenance of normal blood cholesterol levels, with a daily intake of 2 g.
But hemp seed is not a substitute for fish oil or algal oil, and anyone eating it instead of them — particularly on a vegan diet — should know that. It is one of the most common and most consequential mix-ups in plant nutrition, and we would rather say it than let it pass.
No, it will not do anything to you
Food hemp is Cannabis sativa in EU-approved varieties bred for fibre and seed, with THC below the legal threshold. The cannabinoids live in the flowers and leaves; the seeds contain essentially none. Hemp seed is a food and nothing more.
How to use them
The virtue is that they need nothing done to them. Scatter them over porridge, yoghurt, soup, salad, avocado toast, roasted vegetables or pasta. Blend into a smoothie, where they thicken it slightly and add body. Whisk into a dressing. Use them where you would use pine nuts — including in pesto, where they genuinely work and cost a fraction as much.
Do not toast or roast them. Their value is in fragile polyunsaturated fats, and heat is what destroys those. Add them off the heat, at the end.
Storage — this is the important bit
Keep them in the fridge once opened, sealed, and use them within a few months. Shelled hemp seeds have no husk to protect them and are very high in polyunsaturated fat, so they go rancid faster than almost any other seed. Fresh ones taste sweet and nutty; if they taste bitter, sharp or like old paint, throw them out. A kitchen cupboard through a Porto summer is not the place for them.