Fit Fare

 I never liked milk. My parents made me drink it when I was a kid, but it was always a struggle. Even though I’ve learned to like a lot of foods I hated as a child, milk is just not one of them. So when I need milk for cereal, lattes, or just as a beverage, I turn to milk that’s from anywhere but from animals. Soy milk has been my favorite so far, especially unsweetened vanilla soy milk. So when the opportunity came to review Hemp Milk, I jumped all over it.

I’m a fan of hemp (and not for the potentially obvious mood altering variety). I love knitting with hemp yarn and I have a couple of hemp shirts that wash and wear fabulously.

Manitoba Harvest sent two varieties of hemp milk to review: unsweetened original and chocolate. They also included a nice information and nutrition packet. Manitoba Harvest grows their seeds in Manitoba, Canada. Their farmers are shareholders and are paid above market price. There are no genetically modified organisms in their seeds and their hemp seeds are USDA certified organic. Their processing facility is organic and kosher and they only process hemp. In addition to hemp milk, they also process hemp seed oil, hemp seed butter, shelled hemp seed, hemp protein powder, and hemp protein powder with fiber.

Hemp seeds contain Omega 6 and Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids, protein, Vitamin E, and chlorophyll. The protein content is listed at 34.6% (similar to soy beans). I could go on for at least two or three pages with all of the information that was included in the shipment, but rather than do that, I suggest that you spend some time on their website. After spending the past half an hour reading through their packet, I’m convinced that adding hemp seeds to my diet in some form would be beneficial.

Before I get into the taste, I’ll list the nutritional values directly from the packaging.

Chocolate Hemp Bliss
1 cup serving

• Calories: 160
• Fat: 7 grams
• Saturated Fat: 0.7 grams
• Cholesterol: 0 mg
• Sodium: 120 mg
• Carbohydrates: 17 grams
• Fiber: 1 gram
• Sugars: 16 grams
• Protein: 5 grams

Unsweetened Original Hemp Bliss
1 cup serving

• Calories: 110
• Fat: 7 grams
• Saturated Fat: 0.7 grams
• Cholesterol: 0 mg
• Sodium: 25 mg
• Carbohydrates: 1 gram
• Fiber 1 gram
• Sugars: 0 grams
• Protein: 5 grams

Since I always drank chocolate milk as a child, I started with Chocolate. If I had to sum up the review in one sentence, I would say it was tasty. It’s a rich chocolate color. The scent is nutty, almost like ground flax seed. The taste is definitely chocolate, but with a hint of flax (I’m assuming that it’s not really flax, but hemp, however, flax is a taste I recognize). It is smooth, with a vague powdery mouth feel. There’s no aftertaste. I drank an entire glass (twice on two different days) and I was pleased with the taste and feel both times.

I then mixed the chocolate Hemp Bliss with some vanilla whey protein powder (something I consume regularly). This produced a very thick chocolate shake that was amazingly tasty. The protein powder and the Hemp Bliss are good on their own, but combined, they are incredibly satisfying.

It took me a bit longer to try the unsweetened original. I generally don’t care for unsweetened milk alternatives to drink, but I will use them regularly in cereal. In order to give the unsweetened original a complete review, I tried it both ways. When I poured it into the glass, it was a light beige color. It has the same nutty flax scent, albeit slightly stronger since there’s no chocolate scent involved. The taste of the unsweetened original was very nutty. I could definitely taste the hemp seeds. The mouth feel was still just a bit powdery and a lot thinner than the chocolate. There is a very slight aftertaste, but it is pleasantly nutty and does fade relatively quickly. I admit, I had a hard time finishing a glass of the unsweetened original, but I can’t finish a glass of unsweetened soy milk either.

Using the unsweetened original on cereal was very pleasing. I tend towards cereals such as Kashi Vive or Go Lean Crunch which have a slightly nutty flavor of their own. The hemp milk meshed very well with cereal. I will definitely finish the box of unsweetened original with my cereal this week.

All in all I was very pleased with Hemp Bliss. I like the idea of getting a fair amount of Omega 3-6-9 in my diet from a milk alternative and with no sugar and only 1 gram of carbohydrates, the unsweetened original is a very healthy addition to my morning cereal.

I can definitely recommend either of the two varieties of Hemp Bliss I reviewed and I am looking forward to finding some of Manitoba Harvest’s other products at my local stores soon.