THE OMEGA HEMP BURGER LANDS A ROLE AT THE TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL

Ruth's Perfect Timing

The Toronto International Film Festival isn't just where up-and-coming
actors and directors come to be discovered: Last weekend it was where local
hemp food guru and entrepreneur Ruth Shamai got her big break.

After three years manning tables at health-food shows and handing out
samples of her hemp-based salsas, salad dressings and bars in grocery
stores, Shamai found an audience.

Last May, she was approached by Toronto filmmaker Ron Mann to serve some of
her products at the screening of his latest effort, Go Further. The
documentary chronicles actor Woody Harrelson's trek down the West Coast
promoting organic lifestyle choices, in a bus fuelled by hempseed oil, no less.

For the 49-year-old owner of Ruth's Hemp Foods, the timing was perfect. She
was just developing her new hemp and flax-based Omega Burger. Audiences of
Go Further would be among the first test groups. The burger won't hit
freezer shelves until the end of the month but reviews have been favourable.

Shamai says it was only a matter of time before people caught on to the
nutritional benefits of hempseed: "It's bizarrely healthy -- a little
nutritional powerhouse."

Hempseeds are laden with protein and essential fatty acids and are
versatile enough to be used in everything from milk to tortilla chips, she
says. And while she'd never met Mann before he asked her to cater the swish
after-party at the old Gooderham and Worts Distillery, she had been
introduced to Harrelson twice through their hemp-activism connections in
the United States.

Shamai is hoping the film's message and Harrelson's high-profile support
for the little seed, will finally put it -- and keep her -- in the
spotlight. "When you're on the leading edge of something new, it always
takes time for people to come around. Twenty years ago, no one had heard of
soy, then 10 years later you had flax coming out. But the first years are
never easy."

Like most of Shamai's products, the Omega Burger was born in her kitchen,
where 12 kilogram pails of hempseed sit in her pantry and a hemp milk
machine rests on the counter. All the products are commercially
manufactured, she emphasizes, but many of the recipes are tested at her
home. With her wispy blond hair and smooth complexion, Shamai appears the
picture of health. She attributes it to yoga -- and of course, hemp.