In New Zealand, we put (coal tar derived) folate in bread.
This ‘nutraceutical’ addition prevents about a dozen babies a year from being born with spina bifida.
A nutraceutical is any food that ‘has health benefits beyond simple nutrition’. In simple terms, that means using food as medicine, like Hippocrates (the father of medicine) said.
But, in the 21st Century, pharmaceuticals are a 1.2 trillion dollar industry with a growth mindset. Described as ‘organised crime’ by Professer Peter Goetzsche, their profitable products appear the third biggest killer after heart disease and cancer.
How do you think pharma feels about nutraceuticals? Especially any single food that threatened 50% of their market share?
Whole plant Industrial hemp is the ‘quintessential nutraceutical’ (Hartsel et al., 2016).
So why is it a prohibited food? Whole plant hemp is prohibited to the public, even though the regulator FSANZ has twice approved it as a food. But, each time, the politicians stepped in to prevent it with an array of weak and irrational excuses.
Sure, today you can buy hemp seed oil and even hemp seed. But the laws have been structured to prevent you from getting all of the benefit you naturally would from this remarkable vegetable. The language used in their documents is interesting. The focus is on preventing theraputic benefits.
This seems a curious approach to food regulation. Who benefits? Who is being served? Who are our politicians serving? We, the people? Or a trillion dollar industry that kills millions of people a year?
80% of the developing world uses nutraceuticals (i.e. foods) for health, because they are cheaper, safer and, in many cases, more effective than modern synthetic drugs.
Can you think the unthinkable? Can you understand that hemp cannabis is a vegetable threat to big pharma, and that no politician really seems to be on our side? If they did, they would be talking about your body’s cannabinoid system, and how we can hugely improve human health through nutrition. #Followthemoney, and let’s #makeitlegal, because we need to. (Tadhg Stopford)