Twenty years ago the prototype for the hemp-based snacks I make today in my kitchen began as a way to satisfy my sweet tooth.

Of course, because it always seems to be the way of life, my hankering for sweets proved to be a bit of a problem.

By day I was working as a personal fitness trainer and I followed all the advice I had been told in the nineties about staying AWAY from anything that tasted sweet (how else to stay lean, right?) I was convinced it must be possible to create the kind of "sweet but sugarless" healthy treat that I could boast about to friends and even my fitness clients - but which also satisfied my craving for sugary treats.

Yet at the time it all sounded a little too good to be true (especially to those who were happy enough to swap out sugar for artificial sweeteners!).

Still, I persisted.

My tinkering in the kitchen with recipes for healthy raw snacks led to that first lemon bar recipe. Today you'll find its descendent presented by the Zesty Lemon flavor in my new line of hemp-based snacks.

During those early days, when I was experimenting, I was convinced my interest in healthy snacks would eventually pay dividends. I was sure the healthy ingredients I dabbled with would provide me with all this and more, including a longer lifespan and the promise that my later years could be lived with a great deal more enthusiasm than what most people can expect.

Well, that lemon bar recipe was a hit.

No, it wasn't the most beautiful-looking "protein bar" you had ever seen (I dug this picture out of my photo album to prove it) but it sure satisfied the taste buds.

I received compliments from everyone and enough orders to keep me busy in my spare time for years. The source of protein I used would not have won any taste awards. I had to use more natural sweetener to compensate for this than I would have liked.

Often I used protein powder derived from peas. I will still use it if I find myself in a pinch. But today there's a far better alternative, one that solves all the taste issues while preserving the requirement for a quality source of protein. After some research it became clear to me that hemp protein might be the most complete and nutritious plant protein on the planet.

Now, it is important to realize that while many people associate hemp with its cousin marijuana, it is not at all the same thing and contains almost none of the chemical compounds (in particular, THC) that make the other plant so "famous".

However, based on the association alone, for decades in New Zealand you could neither import, cultivate, nor incorporate into commercial goods anything to do with hemp. You'd have been an outlaw to do so!

Thankfully, this is no longer the case :)

That means we can now enjoy this wonderfully nutritious source of protein and I can use it to "power" my protein-based snacks.

In practice that means I went to work on my lemon bar recipe, transforming it in important ways (not all of which I am about to divulge!) so that today you can joy my latest line of multi-flavoured hemp snacks.

Similar in construct to the original lemon bar recipe the hemp snack has a solid nut base. It contains almonds, cashews, and the tinyiest bit of peanut butter...

And coconut. Every hemp snack contains a hefty dose of delicious dried shredded coconut flesh, and coconut oil - in my opinion the healthiest of all the natural plant oils!

For texture, and to satify that sweet tooth, I added some entirely natural sweeteners and oils which set these snacks apart from anything else you might have tried so far.

But don't ask me what those secret ingredients are. I'm not quite ready to reveal them to the world. What I will tell you is that the proper consistency, taste, and across-the-board appeal took months of testing in my kitchen to get right!