In the agrarian past, Kentucky was the #1 hemp producer in the country. Most of the hemp was for rope, and while this was an important business, it has faded into a nostalgic haze.
With the new hemp resurgence, most people are interested in the plant’s health benefits. Hemp is not it’s illegal counterpart. Unlike its druggie cousin, it won’t make you high. (Its THC, the psychoactive chemical, level is .3 % or less.) Plant breeders, eliminating the THC in hemp, enhanced the CBD concentration, along with that of scores of additional cannabinoid molecules, all of which are being studied for their benefits.
When The Kentucky Department of Agriculture started a program allowing farmers to grow hemp, Mt. Folly was quick to sign up. We are one of two farms (that we know of) in Kentucky making CBD hemp part of its organic rotation.
Homestead Alternatives Products, with CBD’s, are powerful supplements.
Homestead Alternatives Hemp CBD Oil, endorsed by Laura and practically everyone else on the farm, is a Kentucky- grown, CBD-rich, full-spectrum hemp extract. Homestead contains more CBDs per ml (the amount in one dropper) than comparably priced CBD oils on the market. The oil is put under the tongue with the dropper, for sublingual absorption.
Homestead’s oil is made with C02-extracted floral and leaf material. Rather than using an isolate, which is less expensive, Homestead uses the whole plant, allowing for the “entourage effect.” This means that all of the therapeutic constituents of the hemp plant, acting together, are more effective than a CBD isolate, chemically extracted and acting alone. With Homestead’s oil, the CBDs are in the company of other cannabinoids and terpenes from Mt. Folly Farm-grown hemp floral material.
For a delightful way to get Homestead CBDs, try our Caramels. Each Caramel contains 20mg of full spectrum CBD.
It was obvious to us that we needed to create a line of products for customers who don’t like taking the extract by mouth. The challenge was to find artisans who would adapt full spectrum CBD into our products. Most topicals are made with CBD isolate, which means the topicals don’t have the entourage effect. With Homestead’s topicals, the CBDs are in the company of other cannabinoids and terpenes from Mt. Folly Farm-grown hemp floral material and the other ingredients are all natural.
Come See for Yourself
To see this in action, join us at the farm to see our CBD hemp crop. To learn more about the science behind hemp extracts, visit our hemp science tab on this site. To read the patent regarding hemp’s neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory properties, the anti-anxiety properties, and articles about hemp and cancer research, visit our Hemp Science tab here.
Laura’s Hemp Chocolates
In addition to hemp for CBDs, we grow a different strain of hemp for its grain. This seed, which we use in Laura’s Hemp Chocolates, contains every amino acid we need, and has plant proteins that support a strong immune system. Hemp has the ideal ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acids, which we cannot synthesize. Numerous studies have shown that dark Chocolate is a robust anti-oxidant, and thus aids in controlling inflammation.
Laura’s Back Story
Most of you know I’ve been pretty banged up in life, falling off horses, crashing bicycles, culminating in what I call the “horse wreck,” where I suffered a brain injury (cerebellum, which controls coordination and impacts speech), and one more hard fall on my right shoulder. I wound up in a wheelchair at Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospital. I’ve recovered, but I ache.
By the fall of 2016, I’d been taking prescription NSAID’s — pain relievers like diclofenac, Celebrex and Naproxen — for 25 years. Here at Mt. Folly, we had been in the hemp pilot program for several seasons, growing hemp for grain, which goes into our chocolates. Then, a friend forwarded me a patent owned by The United States of America, represented by the Department of Health and Human Services, the abstract of which reads:
Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties….(which) makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as…inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage …. (from) stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, Such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinsons disease and HIV dementia. Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, Such as cannabidiol, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention.
Whoa! This got my attention. Here in the patent is evidence that compounds in hemp might reduce pain from osteoarthritis, and protect my brain, which has been knocked around. Never mind the irony that our government has a patent on plant material it has sought to ban, though a bill winding its way through Congress should legalize hemp once and for all. It’s a big government. I get that.
For someone like me, who needs pain relief and is looking for contributions to brain health, the best way to take cannabinoids is through a full- spectrum hemp extract. Hemp flower and plant material have scores of helpful molecules, and an immaterial amount of THC.
I now take 25 mg of CBD under the tongue. The dropper is calibrated to 1ml=25mg. The general advice is to start at 10 mg of CBD and increase over time, until the desired effect has been achieved. Because the science is so new, there are anecdotal suggestions only. However, numerous studies have shown that CBD oil is non-toxic at very high doses.
Even more interesting and hopeful is the suggestion that hemp oil maybe useful in battling cancer. CBDs have been shown to kill some types of cancer cells in lab experiments and in rats. Healthy cells are not affected.