A 501c3 commissioned accredited private labs to test whole hemp biomass. The results are preliminary. They also answer a question that USDA’s food-data infrastructure has spent seven years not asking.
Hemp has been federal food in the United States since 2018.
Seven years later, USDA’s main nutritional database still has no entry for the whole plant. Seeds, yes. Plant, no.
A 501c3 called Food First Initiative just spent $9,379.20 in donor money paying private labs to do the work.
Key Takeaways
- USDA’s FoodData Central has had a hulled hemp seed entry since 2018, flagged as not to be updated. It has never Updated nutritional data on whole hemp biomass.
- A 501c3 called Food First Initiative paid AGQ USA and Eurofins to test fresh and dried biomass with and without seeds.
- The samples came from a federally compliant grain-type cultivar grown in Flint, Michigan, tested at 1.27% total CBD and no detectable THC.
- The data is preliminary: single farm, single cultivar, single growing season, no peer review.
What The Labs Found
The labs came back with numbers.
Per 100 grams of dried seedless hemp biomass: 5,990 mg of calcium. 2,336 mg of potassium. 8.67 grams of protein. 34.6 grams of dietary fiber.
With seeds in the mix: 12.1 grams of protein. 35.6 grams of fiber. 321 calories per 100 grams.
Eurofins detected seven essential amino acids across all four sample conditions. Glutamic acid led the dried-with-seeds profile at 1.46 percent, followed by aspartic acid (1.17%), arginine (0.84%), leucine (0.69%) and valine (0.55%).
Per 100g dried hemp biomass
12.1g
Protein, dried biomass with seeds
35.6g
Dietary fiber, dried biomass with seeds
5,990mg
Calcium, dried seedless biomass
2,336mg
Potassium, dried seedless biomass
Sources: AGQ USA (calcium, potassium, protein, fiber) and Eurofins Nutrition Analysis Center, commissioned by Food First Initiative. Methods: ICP-OES for minerals, elemental analyser for protein, AOAC 982.30 mod for amino acids.
The samples came from a grain-type cultivar called Amaze Auto, developed by Andy Simons of Full Spectrum Seeds and grown on an organic plot in Flint, Michigan. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development tested the harvest at 1.27% total CBD and no detectable THC. Federally compliant.
The lab work is real. AGQ USA in Oxnard, California ran the nutritional and mineral panels. Eurofins subcontracted the amino acid and free fatty acid analysis to its Nutrition Analysis Center in Iowa, using AOAC standard methods. Both labs are accredited. The reports are billed to a Las Vegas entity called NutriData, which commissioned the work on FFI’s behalf.
What the data is not: peer-reviewed. Replicated across geographies. A basis for clinical health claims. Single farm. Single cultivar. Single growing season. FFI says as much.
What it is: the first publicly available baseline nutritional profile of whole hemp biomass in the United States. Generated because nobody at the federal level had done it.
The Federal Data Gap
USDA has hemp seed data. The agency’s hulled hemp seed entry (FDC ID 170148) has been in the database since 2018. The agency has flagged it as not being updated.
There are 1,416 branded products in FoodData Central with the word “hemp” in them. Granola bars. Protein powders. Dog treats. Smoothies.
There is no entry for the plant.
Federally legal since 2018. Federally unstudied as food.
Food First Initiative asked the USDA Agricultural Research Service to support, oversee or conduct the kind of basic nutritional research the agency does routinely for other federally legal crops. The agency said it could not.
The FOIA response (2025-REE-04776-F) documents the reason. FoodData Central’s food-selection process prioritizes foods that are highly consumed, fortified, in market reformulation or attached to a feeding study at the agency’s Human Studies Facility. Whole hemp biomass doesn’t move through any of those pipelines.
That is not a refusal. It is something quieter and more durable. A federally legal crop sits outside the workflow that generates federal nutritional data, and the agency’s response to a 501c3 asking it to step in was that the workflow doesn’t go there.
What USDA Has / What USDA Doesn’t Have
What USDA has
- An entry for hulled hemp seeds (from 2018)
- 1,416 branded products containing “hemp”
- A documented food-selection workflow that prioritizes consumption volume and feeding studies
What USDA doesn’t have
- A nutritional profile for whole hemp biomass
- An updated entry for hulled seeds (flagged “will not be updated”)
- A pipeline that captures federally legal foods outside high-consumption or feeding-study categories
Who Paid, And Why It Matters
Food First Initiative is not a neutral research body. It is an advocacy 501c3 (EIN 99-1692998) whose stated mission is to establish cannabis as a “food first” within government agencies and, eventually, to dismantle federal regulations around the plant.
The lab work was paid for by what the group calls “title sponsors.” FFI has not publicly named them. The Eurofins and AGQ reports list NutriData, a Las Vegas-based entity, as the commissioning client.
That layer matters. It doesn’t invalidate the data. The methods are standard. The numbers are real. It does mean readers should know who paid before any future findings get packaged as definitive.
What Comes Next
The next round of testing, FFI says, will need to be replicated across cultivars and climates before any of this travels beyond a baseline.
That is the right caveat.
It is also the kind of work USDA has the capacity to do.
So far, it hasn’t.
Editor’s note: This article is based on accredited laboratory reports commissioned by Food First Initiative (AGQ USA reports AL-26/010312, 010317, 010320, 010330; Eurofins reports AR-26-QR-003755 through 004094), the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development compliance COA for the Amaze Auto cultivar (25-PH-10477), and USDA FOIA response 2025-REE-04776-F. Findings are preliminary and have not been peer-reviewed. Food First Initiative is an advocacy 501c3 (EIN 99-1692998); its lab work was commissioned through NutriData, Inc.
