Why are hemp leaves and flowers used in restaurant recipes in Thailand?
Over the centuries, Thai culinary experts have added small amounts of hemp flowers as a condiment to traditional Thai cuisine, so allowing hemp leaves and flowers to be added to food is a sign of the return of traditional Thai culture and centuries of tradition to the modern life of the kingdom's citizens.
From spicy salads to soups with young cannabis sprouts or deep-fried plant leaves, the restaurant of the Thai hospital “Chao Phya Abhaibhubejhr” (Prachinburi) presented its visitors with a menu based on leaves and inflorescences of plants with significant therapeutic potential.
The Use of "Roasted" Hemp Leaves in Various Thai Foods
Not only curious visitors flock to taste Thai hemp dishes, but also the patients of the clinic, to whom the medical staff explains the expediency of using the therapeutic properties of the plant necessary for healing or treating a number of serious, including chronic diseases. In particular, the project manager at Pacakrong Kwangkao Hospital claims that "Cannabis leaves, when put into food, even in small quantities, help the patient to recover faster from dozens of diseases known to science." Cannabis leaves increase appetite and also improve the mood of visitors as proven properties indicated by restaurant and clinic staff on the menu.
Hemp sandwiches
According to Dr. Pakakrong Kwanghao, who heads the Center for Evidence-Based Thai Traditional and Herbal Medicine at Chao Phya Abhaibhubejhr Hospital, the use of the leaves and flowers of the plant's tremendous therapeutic potential marks a return to Thailand's culinary past. Over the centuries, Thai culinary experts have added small amounts of hemp flowers as a condiment to traditional Thai cuisine, so allowing hemp leaves and flowers to be added to food is a sign of the return of traditional Thai culture and centuries of tradition to the modern life of the kingdom's citizens.
According to the Deputy Minister of Education of Thailand Kanokwana Vilavan, the next step in the development of the industry will be to bring famous hemp Thai dishes to an international audience. “We are planning to add cannabis to well-known Thai dishes such as green curry soup, as well as a number of other recipes from internationally renowned Thai cuisine in order to further increase their popularity,” says Mr. Kanokwang.
Commentary of experts of the Association "Ukrainian technical hemp"
Becoming the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize the therapeutic benefits of cannabis for medicinal purposes in 2017, Thailand is actively pursuing various uses of cannabis nutraceuticals in an effort to capitalize on the emerging multi-billion dollar industry. The plant itself was dropped from the kingdom's drug list last month, which means that licensed suppliers such as hospitals can now use the seeds, leaves, flowers, stems and roots of cannabis for food. Specialists at Chao Phya Abhaibhubejhr Hospital are renowned in Thailand for pioneering the therapeutic properties of cannabis, in particular its ability to relieve pain and fatigue.
One of the most promising directions for the development of the global sector of modern cannabis growing is the use of “green mass” of a plant with significant therapeutic properties as tasty and healthy ingredients for the preparation of various dishes of hemp cuisine. The experience of using hemp seeds, roots, leaves and inflorescences in food in the world and in Ukraine will be devoted to a separate panel of the round table held within the framework of the Hemp University " Problems and prospects of the use of therapeutically active elements of hemp as a basis for nutraceuticals, medicinal cosmetics, feed for animals or other products with medicinal properties of the plant . "