The simplest way to take hemp seed oil orally is straight off the spoon, one to two tablespoons per day. Most people start with one tablespoon (about 15 mL) and increase from there. But how you store it, what you pair it with, and how you use it in food all affect whether you actually get the nutritional benefits locked inside the bottle.
What You’re Actually Getting
Hemp seed oil is a cold-pressed oil made from hemp seeds, not from the flowers or leaves of the plant. It contains only trace amounts of cannabinoids like CBD or THC, so it won’t produce any psychoactive effects or the therapeutic effects associated with CBD oil. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers hemp seed oil “Generally Recognized as Safe.”
What makes it nutritionally interesting is its fatty acid profile. Hemp seed oil has an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio between 3:1 and 5:1, which falls within the range recommended by the European Food Safety Authority for long-term health. It also contains gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), a fatty acid that bypasses a common metabolic bottleneck in your body and has direct anti-inflammatory effects. You’ll also get vitamin E (tocopherols), plant sterols, and polyphenols.
How Much to Take Daily
One to two tablespoons per day is the range most commonly used. In one clinical trial studying cardiovascular effects, participants took 30 mL (about two tablespoons) of hemp seed oil daily for four weeks. That dose reduced total plasma triglycerides, improved the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol, and increased levels of key fatty acids in the blood. If you’re new to hemp seed oil, starting with one tablespoon lets your digestive system adjust before you move to a larger amount.
You can take your daily amount all at once or split it across meals. There’s no strict rule on timing. Since hemp seed oil is itself a fat, it doesn’t need a high-fat meal to be absorbed the way fat-soluble supplements do. That said, taking it alongside food is easier on the stomach and helps your body incorporate those fatty acids into the digestive process naturally.
Three Ways to Take It
The most direct method is swallowing it off a spoon. Hemp seed oil has a mild, nutty flavor that most people find pleasant, though some describe a slight grassy note. If the taste bothers you, chasing it with juice or water helps.
Blending it into food is the more popular approach. Hemp seed oil works well in any dish where you’d use olive oil cold:
- Salad dressings: Whisk it with balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and pepper for a simple vinaigrette.
- Smoothies: Add a tablespoon to any fruit or chocolate smoothie. The fat helps round out the texture.
- Pesto: Swap it in for olive oil alongside basil, garlic, nuts, and cheese.
- Drizzled on finished dishes: Pour it over roasted vegetables, pasta, soup, or grain bowls after cooking.
Capsules are the third option if you can’t tolerate the taste. They’re widely available, though you’ll need several capsules to match the amount in a single tablespoon, and they tend to cost more per serving than bottled oil.
Don’t Cook With It
Hemp seed oil has a smoke point of about 330°F (165°C), which is low compared to most cooking oils. Heating it beyond that temperature produces toxic compounds and off-flavors while destroying the very nutrients you’re taking it for. Even below the smoke point, hemp seed oil is delicate enough that sustained heat can make it taste bitter.
Treat it as a finishing oil. Add it to food after cooking, not during. If a recipe calls for sautéing, use a more heat-stable oil and drizzle the hemp seed oil on at the end.
Storing It to Prevent Rancidity
The same fatty acids that make hemp seed oil nutritionally valuable also make it highly sensitive to oxidation. Exposure to oxygen, light, and warmth breaks down the oil over time, producing aldehydes and ketones that create off-flavors and reduce nutritional quality. The tricky part is that the earliest stages of oxidation are odorless and tasteless, so the oil can start degrading before you notice anything wrong.
Research on hemp seed oil shelf life found that storing the oil in dark glass containers at refrigerated temperatures provided the best protection against oxidative damage. Amber or dark-colored glass bottles outperformed clear glass and plastic. Polypropylene plastic containers, which are partially permeable to oxygen, showed significant oxidation over several months of storage. If your oil came in a plastic bottle, consider transferring it to a dark glass container in the fridge.
Once opened, aim to use the oil within a few weeks to a couple of months. If it smells sharp, bitter, or paint-like, it has gone rancid and should be discarded. Keeping the cap tightly sealed between uses limits oxygen exposure.
Potential Heart Health Effects
The cardiovascular research on hemp seed oil is still building, but early results are encouraging. In addition to the triglyceride improvements seen at 30 mL daily, hemp seed contains arginine, an amino acid that serves as a building block for nitric oxide, the molecule that relaxes and widens blood vessels. Plant sterols in the oil may also contribute: clinical data on plant sterols broadly shows that consuming 2 to 3 grams daily can lower LDL cholesterol by 8 to 15 percent, though hemp seed oil alone doesn’t deliver that much.
Animal studies have shown more dramatic effects, including reduced atherosclerotic plaque formation and improved cholesterol ratios, but those results don’t always translate directly to humans. A randomized clinical trial on hemp seed protein (not the oil specifically) found measurable reductions in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure in adults with hypertension, suggesting the whole seed and its derivatives have cardiovascular relevance beyond just the oil fraction.
Interactions With Blood Thinners
If you take anticoagulant medications like warfarin, there’s reason to be cautious. Case reports have documented interactions between cannabinoid-containing products and warfarin, likely because certain compounds interfere with the liver enzymes (CYP3A4 and CYP2C9) that metabolize the drug. While hemp seed oil contains only trace cannabinoids, not the concentrated CBD linked to these interactions, the research is limited enough that caution makes sense.
Newer blood thinners like apixaban and rivaroxaban could theoretically be affected through a different mechanism involving a transport system called P-glycoprotein, which controls how drugs are eliminated from the body. No case reports have been published on this specific interaction, but the pharmacological plausibility exists. If you take any blood-thinning medication, discuss hemp seed oil with your prescriber before starting it.
Hemp Seed Oil Is Not CBD Oil
This distinction matters because the two products are often shelved near each other and sometimes confused in marketing. Hemp seed oil comes from pressing the seeds, the same way sunflower oil is made from sunflower seeds. It’s a food product rich in fatty acids and contains essentially no cannabinoids. CBD oil (sometimes labeled hemp extract or hemp concentrate) is made from the flowers and leaves of the hemp plant using ethanol, CO2, or lipid-based extraction. Its primary active ingredient is cannabidiol, a cannabinoid with distinct therapeutic properties and a different safety profile. If your goal is omega fatty acids and general nutrition, hemp seed oil is what you want. If you’re looking for CBD’s effects on anxiety, pain, or sleep, you need a different product entirely.