What to actually own, in what order, and how to tell a good jar from an expensive one. Three things cover almost everything on this site.
Almost every page in this world is built on these. Everything else is a convenience or a treat.
The workhorse. Breakfast, salads, bowls, baking, bars, milk. If you buy one hemp thing, this is it, and a 500 g bag lasts a household about a month.
€9–12 for 500 g · fridge once openThe flavour, and the reason people talk about hemp's fats at all. Buy the small bottle: it has six to eight weeks once open and a big bottle is a slow way to waste money.
€12–16 for 250 ml · fridge, alwaysThe cheap one, and the only form that toasts properly. Crunch on everything, and the base of the seed topping worth keeping in a jar.
€6–8 for 400 g · cupboard, darkProtein powder, flour, milk and seed butter are all worth owning if you have a use for them. None of them is worth owning speculatively — they are the three above that get used without a plan.
Five things that tell you something, and one that does not.
On oil, this is the one that matters. It means pressed without added heat, which is what keeps the fats and the colour intact. Oil that does not say it usually was not.
Light degrades the oil almost as fast as heat does. A good producer knows this and pays for the bottle; a clear bottle on a lit shelf is a decision someone made against you.
More useful than a best-before, which is calculated from it and hides it. Seed and oil are agricultural products with a season, and a producer proud of the date prints the date.
Not the same as where it was packed, and the two are often different countries. A brand that names the region is telling you it knows; a brand that says “EU and non-EU” is telling you it buys on price.
“Hemp hearts” means hulled. If a bag says only “hemp seed” and shows no picture, assume whole — and a bag of whole seed at a hulled price is the most common way to overpay in this category.
None of these are defined and none of them tell you anything. They cost nothing to print, which is exactly why they are on the front while the pressing date is not on the back.
The whole world's storage in one table. Hemp goes off faster than most cupboard things for the same reason it is worth eating.
| Form | Unopened | Once open | Where | Gone when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hulled seed | 12 months | 3 months | Fridge, sealed | Sharp, bitter |
| Whole seed | 18 months | 6 months | Cupboard, dark | Musty |
| Cold-pressed oil | 9 months | 6–8 weeks | Fridge, always | Smells of old paint |
| Protein powder | 12 months | 4 months | Cupboard, sealed | Bitter, stale |
| Flour | 9 months | 3 months | Fridge, sealed | Bitter |
| Seed butter | 12 months | 2 months | Fridge | Sharp on the tongue |
| Hemp milk, shop | see carton | 4–5 days | Fridge | Sour |
| Hemp milk, homemade | — | 4 days | Fridge | Sour |
For whole seed and protein powder, yes — both keep well and get used. For oil, almost never: a litre bottle will go rancid long before a normal household finishes it, and the price per millilitre stops mattering once you pour half of it away.
Hemp is a low-input crop and rarely heavily sprayed, so the gap is smaller here than in most categories. Cold-pressed, recently pressed and properly stored will change what is in your jar far more than the certification will.
All of it, and it is the right answer for a bulk buy. Seed, flour and protein freeze indefinitely with no change in texture. Oil freezes fine too — decant it into a small jar first, leaving room, and thaw in the fridge.
It takes roughly three kilos of seed to press a litre of oil, and cold pressing gets less out than heat would. The press cake becomes protein powder and flour, which is why those two are cheap and why the oil carries the cost.
A 500 g bag of hulled seed and nothing else. Use it for a month on porridge and in salads, and you will know from your own kitchen whether the oil is worth adding.