Cannabis is a tall plant with stiff upright stem. Cannabis has divided serrated leaves and has hairs that are glandular. The plant is commonly used to produce hemp fiber and is also used as a psychotropic drug. The cannabis plant is known to give pain relief and treat diseases like sclerosis, cancer, HIV, nerve pain, seizure disorders, crohn’s disease, and more. The presence of THC in cannabis is helpful in treating nausea and improving appetite. Cannabis is consumed through eating, drinking, and it is also commonly smoked and vaporized.

Cannabis has been a staple food crop for many centuries worldwide. It is also a popular ingredient while preparing household food and is proven to make food taste and smell better. Cannabis contains high nutritional value and is easily digestible. It provides an eco-friendly and sustainable food source that is rich in vitamin E, protein, and essential fatty acids.

Cannabis Foods

Cannabis foods are food products made out of cannabis ingredients found in resin or herbal form. Informally known as edibles, it includes foods like hash brownies, space cakes or happy cakes, and pot brownies and is used widely around the world. Cannabis foods are consumed by many people to experience the effects of cannabinoids as an alternative to smoking and vaporizing cannabis. They are used as ingredients in food items like cakes, cookies, brownies and different other food both for recreation and medicinal purposes.

Cannabis has a variety of uses, one of its most important uses being its use as food. Due to its medicinal uses and the substance available in the plant which makes the food smell and taste better, it is highly used and added to food. For those who want to avoid smoking but still want to use cannabis for health, eating or drinking it is a perfect solution.

Uses of Cannabis as Food

•  Cannabis Tea and Soda

The leaves, stems, and buds of cannabis can be used for making tea by boiling. It is known to have medicinal effects and relieves chronic pain. Cannabis sodas can be prepared by adding cannabis tinctures.

• Cannabis Essential Oil

Cannabis essential oil is extracted from the flowers and upper leaves of the plant through steam distillation. It is considered to be effective in reducing illness and condition and is also known to regulate the appetite.

• Adding Cannabis to Cakes, Stews and Biscuits

Cannabis can be added to any food that contains animal or vegetable fats. Cakes, stews and biscuits are food where cannabis is most commonly added as it makes the food smell and taste better.

• Adding Cannabis to Drinks

You can even add cannabis to drinks like milkshake, yogurt and drinking chocolate for both recreation and medicinal purposes.

With the recent spate of states legalizing, or campaigning to legalize, recreational marijuana use edibles are becoming very popular. Pot shops are beginning to look more like bakeries than head shops. Infused edibles are discreet and allow easy dosing, so you can get your high anywhere including areas that don’t allow public toking. Edibles provide a different buzz than smoking or vaping. Eating your bud causes an intense high due to the THC having an easier time passing through your stomach membranes, much different than the way it absorbs through the lungs.

You can find pot shops selling infused cookies, brownies, gummies, candies, chocolates (yum!), and many more sweet treats. But what if you don’t have much of a sweet tooth? Great news! You can add marijuana to any recipe that uses butter, fats, or oils. Save yourself some cash and channel your inner Iron Chef by making your own cannabis infused foods.

But How?

The easiest way to add pot to food is make your own cannabis butter – cannabutter! 

• Grind you’re your favorite strain – mmm Swiss Miss – into a fine powder

• Add it to a small amount of clarified butter or oil

• Heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve

• Use your cannabutter on and in everything!

Helpful Tip!

1 cupcake, cookie, brownie, or serving (whatever) = 1 joint or spliff, so adjust the amount of pot you use accordingly. Experiment with different strains and amounts to perfect your edibles. There is a vast variety of marijuana out there for your nibbling pleasure. Find your pleasure at weedseedshop.com.

SOME COMMON SENSE ADVICE

For the love of whatever deity you worship, please get your cannabis from a reputable source! Contaminants are a real downer, there is nothing worse than contracting hepatitis from your “happy cake.”

• Know your grower

• Get recommendations from reliable sources

• Grow your own – legally of course, in a state that allows it

• Find a legal cannabis seed seller

Who’s Contaminating Your Weed?

Some growers add chemicals to enhance growth or to control pests and diseases. There isn’t research being done on the effects of pesticides and herbicides on cannabis – yet. Think about it though, do you want to eat or inhale a bunch of nasty chemicals? No way, that’s what cigarettes are for!

Stored weed can grow molds and fungi. Some of this can be washed off with water, but seriously, if I wanted fungus I’d go shrooming. Hydroponically grown pot has a lower occurrence of mold and fungi growth. Keep your kush in a cool, dry place for best results.

A few disreputable retailers have been found to add glass beads or lead particles to cannabis to increase the weight or to increase the appearance of potency. This very rare, thankfully.

Using cannabis in food is nothing new. A woman named Mary Jane Rathbun began making “magic brownies” during the 1980s AIDS crisis. This was not a stoner woman who had the munchies–Mary Jane was a hospital volunteer who treated many suffering, deathly-ill AIDS patients. She understood the benefits of ingesting cannabis, and knew it would ease the pain and suffering of her patients. Mary Jane spent hours baking treats for her AIDS patients and distributed about 100 per week. This little old lady showed that cannabis can be used to better our general well-being, and encouraged others to reap the benefits of marijuana in food.

Eating vs smoking

Eating cannabis does not have the same effects on the body as smoking does. When ingested in its raw form, the leaves do not contain any psychoactive ingredients. This source of food is loaded with antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and anti-cancer nutrients. When properly cooked, eating food laced with cannabis can be a more efficient way of getting the benefits of THC.

Cannabis as a food itself, is chocked full of vitamins and other essential nutrients. In fact, the plant is classified as a vegetable, just as corn and green beans! Cannabis seeds are a superfood that provide high levels of protein and Vitamin E. The seeds also contain more omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids than any other source grown naturally.

Using cannabis as a food source is also sustainable, and environmentally friendly. Cannabis grown naturally, and when farmed correctly, has little impact on the surrounding environment. This makes it easy, and sustainable as a natural food source.

Easy to prepare!

One of the great benefits to eating cannabis, and using it to cook with, is that you have an easier way of getting essential nutrients. There are many ways to ingest cannabis; first, you can eat the seeds themselves. You get the most health benefits from the cannabis seed, so this is a very efficient way of reaping the benefits. You can eat the seeds whole, or you can grind them up and use as a flour base for baking. It can also be cooked into food.

You can also drink the benefits of cannabis. A milk can be extracted from the seeds, and will still provide all of the nutritional benefits. You can juice the leaves as well, and drink the superfood, just as you would the milk. Again, you are still getting all of the nutrition as you would if you prepared it any other way.

Adding marijuana to butter or oil is probably the easiest way to cook with the substance. When you do this, you can cook just as you always would. There’s no need to worry about measuring or preparing the cannabis before you start cooking. If it’s in the butter and/or oil, you won’t even think about it!

There have been a positive change in experts’ mind sets and opinions towards the usage and consumption of cannabis as observed in recent times. Results obtained from well-organized scientific research have led to the support and advocacy for the legal use of the drug for medical purposes.

As marijuana (cannabis) continues to gain global medical reputation more countries around the world and several states in the US (totaling about 20 in number) have begun legalizing the produce. These new laws have helped and are still helping researchers to carry out critical study on how the drug can medically improve health by seeking to obtain better understanding and its impact on the body in general.

To this effect, the research led to the discovery of two vital chemicals cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which tends to improve human health and positively affect the functions of the human body. The former tends to positively enhance the function of the brain without any form of highness while the later can act as a pain reliever.

Effects of Consuming Cannabis as Food

Apart from the fact that cannabis has been used to produce quite a number of synthetic drugs, this produce has also been discovered to be highly effective when it is consumed as food. Research has shown that the consumption of food-based cannabis medicines tend to affect patients in a different way than when cannabis is smoked or vaporized. Edible medical cannabis which can be found in popular places today can be used to prepare food when infused into oil or butter.

Consuming Edibles as they are commonly called, may not really begin to take effect instantly unlike when they are smoked or vaporized. It could take up to 20 minutes or more before a difference can be observed. Since its dosages can be difficult to ascertain, it is recommended that at such a time only a small amount should be consumed so as to avoid over-medication.

It has been observed that the therapeutic effects derived from consuming edible cannabis which could take up to four hours, lasts much longer compared to other methods of its consumption. Compared to vaporizing and smoking cannabis, reports have shown that by consuming edible cannabis, patients tend to experience a more relaxed body effect than the common cerebral high which the former is often associated with.

For patients who prefer to opt for herbal medicine without having to ingest smoke, consuming edible cannabis will provide an excellent alternative to smoking. Consuming cannabis as food can help to tackle several health challenges such as seizures, diabetes, insomnia etc. It can be used as a sleep aid to induce sleep after consumption.

Please note that over consumption of medical cannabis can lead to adverse effects like, dizziness, lack of concentration, inability to focus, drowsiness, high and low blood pressure, euphoria etc.

Many people turn to cannabis when they cannot develop an appetite on their own. While some may portray those who use cannabis as hungry stoners who will treat any meal placed in front of them as a gourmet feast, the reality is that cannabis truly helps those who are in need and allows those who struggle to eat healthy to change their cuisine for the better. The Symbiotic Relationship Between Cannabis and Food

How does cannabis help people eat better?

Cannabis is a great choice for the picky eater out there, the person who would survive on junk food if they were allowed to do so. After all, there’s nothing wrong with a little greenery to work up an appetite to consume those leafy greens, right?

Consumption of cannabis is proven to produce an increased appetite and sometimes, this is the kick start that those with poor eating habits need to make an improvement. The munchies have been known to occur, but they do not have to force smokers (or those who prefer edibles) into poor dining choices.

What does science have to say about this?

For decades now, cannabis users have been preaching the gospel about how food simply tastes and smells better while under the influence. Most attributed this to stoned rambling, but scientific studies have shown that cannabis can be used to kick start the appetites of not only the picky eaters of the world, but also those who are suffering from serious, life threatening illnesses.

Nature Neuroscience recently published a report that used the results from a study done on mice. The study found that the brain’s natural cannabis receptors caused the mice to smell food from further distances and promoted food intake in mice that were fasting.

Since anorexia and other similar conditions take place due to an altered perception, cannabis could represent a healthy alternative for patients who are suffering from eating disorders. Cannabis is already used during AIDS treatment and is also recommended by patients who are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, as well.

How cannabis can help

No matter where your personal opinions may lie, it cannot be argued that cannabis is a natural, healthy herb, one

that can provide numerous health benefits when used properly. Not only does it promote happier moods and increased pleasure for those who use the herb on a regular basis, but it can also spur more healthy eating habits, for those who are healthy and more important, for those who are not.

As society’s stigmas towards marijuana usage continue to dissipate and the nation turns its attention towards the scourge of harmful drugs invading our cities, cannabis and its symbiotic relationship with food will only continue to receive more positive press, so cannabis enthusiasts are able to unite under a banner of good smoke, as well as good food.