Hemp Tortilla Chips

Every summer when Velvet goes away, I institute a pizza moratorium. Although I believe in the glycemic index, when someone consumes as much pizza as we do here at Menopausal Stoners World Headquarters, pretty much all you have to do to drop 5 - 8 pounds is institute a pizza moratorium and start walking instead of taking taxis.

When I'm really on a diet, I begin my day by drinking enough coffee to make me nauseous so I won't snack my way through the afternoon. Since I'm not really on a diet, there are healthy snack alternatives in the fridge and the cupboard like carrots and hummus, apples with low-fat peanut butter and sliced mangoes. Being from Texas, I can't do without chips and salsa. Trader Joe's has a delicious, nutritious alternative to traditional taco chips made from Hemp.


The bag reads, "Though often confused with it's controversial kin, hemp is actually an incredibly nutritious plant food." Plenty of farmers have known hemp is a potential cash crop and have been working since the 1990's to remove the US Government's ban on growing hemp.

Hemp Industries Association
Jim Hightower former Texas Agricultural Commissioner
Hemp -- It's Rope, Not Dope: Farmers, activists seek to legalize crop, (San Francisco Chronicle, May 28, 1999)

More recently, the guys over at Alternate Brain were talking about an ad running in California supporting medicinal marijuana:



In the comments on that post, David Aquarius says:

. . . the biggest windfall may be marijuana's blander cousin, hemp. The production and processing of hemp products will bring in revenue from dozens of avenues: retail, manufacture, transportation, export, etc. The number of products that can be produced from hemp will give rise to thousands of businesses, big and small. Farmers in drought seared regions, industrial parks left vacant by the slowing economy and small businesses devastated by the big retailers can be saved by allowing them to work with hemp.

I can't remember where I first read about the real problem behind decriminalizing weed having nothing to do with the drug war. It's all about cash crops, corporate farming interests and cotton. Hemp has been grown for 10,000 years, but the US Government banned it in 1937 when it became illegal to smoke weed. Some people believe that the feds didn't give a flying fuck about people getting high. They guys making money off other major cash crops didn't want competition from hemp.

Maybe that's true and maybe it's not. I haven't researched it and I'm not going to.
I'm going to eat these tasty hemp tortilla chips, however, and continue to support the efforts of the Marijuana Policy Project.