Frequently Asked Questions about Essential Fatty Acids
Wow, what a title. Looks important! Well so are EFAs (short for Essential Fatty Acids). What makes them so important, well, they are essential. In other words what you don’t get from your diet, you don’t get at all. Your body cannot produce them, you must get them from the foods you eat. This may not seem important at first but when you begin to realize how important EFAs are to human health you begin to see the importance of the “essential” distinction.
One of the many problems of our over refined over packaged food lifestyle is that if the product you are buying has a shelf life, it probably is devoid of EFAs. The Essential Fatty Acids in food are sacrificed along with the B vitamins and the naturally occuring enzymes to enable extended shelf life for supermarket foods. This is a major problem since EFAs are the building blocks for a healthy immune system, healthy cell structure, proper human growth, proper immune response, healthy hair, scalp and hair retention, healthy liver function, healthy reproductive function, healthy heart, healthy circulation and more. Lack of proper EFAs in the diet can contribute to:
- Eczema-like skin eruptions
- Loss of hair
- Liver degeneration
- Behavioural disturbances
- Kidney degeneration
- Excessive water loss through the skin accompanied by thirst
- Drying up of glands
- Susceptibility of infections
- Failure of wound healing
- Sterility in males
- Miscarriage in females
- Arthritis-like conditions
- Heart and circulatory problems
- Growth retardation
- Prolonged absence of omega-6 hormone from the diet is fatal. All of the deficiency symptoms (except death) can be reversed by adding omega-6 back to the diet.
- Weakness
- Impairment of vision and learning ability
- Motor incoordination
- Tingling sensations in arms and legs
- Behavioural changes
- High tryglycerides
- High Blood Pressure
- Sticky Platelets
- Tissue Inflammation
- Edema
- Dry Skin
- Mental Deterioration
- Some kinds of immune dysfunction
So many systems of the body rely on the wonders of these essential fatty acids, why are they not more widely accepted as something that we should all eat on a daily basis? Simply because you cannot have a good shelf life and at the same time have a product that is high in EFAs. The two simply do not go hand in hand. With our over processed supermarket lifestyle where nothing is fresh, we are lacking the essential building blocks of a healthy body.
Hemp oil as a perfect EFA Supplement
There is no better single source of EFAs then hemp oil, period. You can mix other oils together to achieve a good balance of EFAs but with hemp oil you get a natural balance created by nature. In fact, the balance of EFAs in hemp oil is so perfect that you do not need to supplement hemp oil with any other oil because the EFAs in hemp oil are perfectly balanced for proper absorption by the human body. In addition to hemp oil having this perfect balance, it is one of the only oils that has sufficient levels of the elusive gamma linloenic acid (GLA or Omega 9) and the only source of this EFA that actually tastes good. Oh yea, the biggest bonus of hemp oil is that it actually TASTES GREAT!!!!
| Hemp Seed Oil Fatty Acid Analysis |
|
| Saturated Fatty Acids | in % of total fatty acids |
| Palmitic acid (16:0) Margaric acid (17:0) Stearic acid (18:0) Arachidic acid (20:0) Behenic acid (22:0) Lignoceric (24:0) |
6.50% 0.03% 2.50% 0.40% 0.20% 0.06% |
| Total saturated fatty acids | 9.7% |
| Unsaturated fatty acids | in % of total fatty acids |
| Palmitoleic (16:1) Oleic acid (18:1 omega-9) Linoleic acid (18:2 omega-6) gamma-Linolenic acid (18:3 omega-6) alpha-Linolenic acid (18:3 omega-3) Stearidonic acid (18:4 omega-3) Eicosaenoic acid (20:1) |
0.12% 10.50% 55.20% 3.10% 20.00% 1.20% 0.50% |
| Total unsaturated fatty acids | 90.20% |
| Chemical Analysis | |
| Vitamin E | 100-150 mg/100g (mostly gamma-tocopherol) 13-20 IU/100g (as alpha-tocopherol equivalents) |
| Chlorophyll THC content Specific gravity Iodine value Peroxide value Free Fatty Acids Phosphatides Smoke Point Melting Point Cholesterol |
50-20 ppm None Detected 0.92 kg/l 110 0.3 meg/kg 1.50% (as oleic acid) 100-400 ppm 330 °F (165 °C) 18 °F (-8 °C) none |
| Note: 1 ppm (part per million) = 1 mg/kg = 1 mcg/g | |