Cooking with Cannabis

All About Edibles

An edible is a cannabis-infused food item. Basically, anything you swallow to allow your digestive system to do it’s thing and absorb the THC/CBD into your system. One of the benefits of using an edible is they tend to last several hours in your system and usually have a pretty steady delivery.

The first edible most consumers eat is the GUMMY! Gummy’s are usually the second thing people learn to create with cannabis, after a brownie, but usually the first edible they digest.

Gummy making is a very simple process, made easier with the introduction of the “gummy machine” that makes it easy enough for anyone to produce an edible. The basics are water, gelatin, cannabis, and then pour into a mold to set. Once cooled you pop them from the molds, and keep in a moisture proof container.

So, you have produced your gummy and want to test the effects. You pop the small, chewy gummy into your mouth and eat it. Nothing… 10 minutes later... nothing… Wow, usually when you vape you feel it quickly; maybe you didn’t eat enough? WAIT!!!

Taken orally, cannabis does not enter the bloodstream until after being digested, or broken down in the stomach and absorbed in the intestines. As with the difference between vaping and using a tincture, there is a definite difference in the amount of time it takes for an edible to get into your system. Most edible packaging suggest that time of effect can range between 30 minutes to 1 hour, or more.

THE LARGEST ISSUE WITH EDIBLES IS PEOPLE OVERCONSUMING, DUE TO NOT ALLOWING ENOUGH TIME TO PASS FOR THEIR DIGESTIVE SYSTEM TO PROCESS THE THC.

The favorite pot brownie recipe from the 1970’s was to grind some weed, put it into a brownie mix, bake, and eat. What we didn’t understand then was that raw cannabis contains THCA; the A is a molecule that must be activated by heat to give the psychoactive effects. It doesn’t activate just by baking it into food items. We do that when we put heat to the cannabis, like when you light a joint.

On a recent visit to my favorite dispensary, they offered a selection of edibles that included: Truffles, Gummies, Chocolates, Pills, Sugar Drops, Tinctures, Icicles, Caramels, Confections, Taffy, Cookies, Brownies, Cheesecakes, Carbonated Sodas, Ice Tea, Cannabis Beer, and CBD water. Over 200 products offered in one dispensary. Chocolate works of art and a variety of baked goods that was incredible!

Don’t overlook eating your cannabis. Come back to our Cannabis Cooking Corner each issue and look online at FloridaGrassRoots.com for some of our favorite recipes.