CBD Edibles – Everything You Need to Know About Eating CBD

Even some of the most experienced veteran CBD patrons can have incredibly low tolerance for smoke. Who could blame them? The entire smoking experience is often an acquired taste, with the smoking fit often considered a ‘small price to pay’ for the benefits that the process provides. Fortunately, however, there are other methods of CBD intake that won’t require a sacrifice from your end. In fact, CBD edibles may even add yet another facet of enjoyment to the entire experience.

Walk through your average CBD specialty store and you’ll find that CBD edibles make up a huge chunk of their inventory. Available in a vast array of choices, CBD-infused food and drink products is the latest, greatest, and not to mention tastiest way to get your daily dose of those magical cannabinoids.

How are Foods Infused with CBD?

The keyword here is ‘infused.’ To make any sort of edible, manufacturers need to incorporate the cannabinoid into the actual mixture of ingredients. This can be done by using any oil or cannabis extract that’s viable for use in food or drink. In some cases, the cannabinoids may have to be activate with heat, which is often why baked goods are the common choice for incorporating CBD into homemade foods.

Do keep in mind that there are some manufacturers out there that might peddle a specific food item as a CBD edible without it actually being infused with the ingredient. These will typically use CBD in the form of a spray or a powder that’s coated on the surface of the food. Coming at far cheaper prices, they may seem attractive, but they will not be as effective as CBD-infused food.

Reading the Label on CBD Edibles

You already probably knew that reading labels is one of the most important things you need to do before settling on any sort of food purchase. And while you might know a thing or two about food product labels, there are a few extra bits of knowledge you need to fully understand a CBD edible’s label.

• Milligrams per serving – This tells you how much CBD (or cannabinoid concentration) is in the formulation. According to experts, the standard dosage for CBD is 25 mg twice a day, but that really depends on what you use it for. There is no established ceiling as to how much CBD you should actually take.

• Servings per container – The milligram content will correspond to how much CBD is in a single serving. For instance, one CBD gummy will contain roughly 10mg of CBD. But in the entire container, you get about 30 gummy bears, which is a total of 300mg. It’s important to know this because some products like chocolate bars and the like will actually have three or four servings per unit, which can be confusing if you take the indicated CBD per serving to account for the whole bar.

• CBD Source – In states where medical marijuana is legalized, it is possible to find edibles that contain higher levels of THC – the main pyschoactive compound in the cannabis plant. These are made with oil that’s derived from marijuana, and may cause the feeling of a ‘high’. On the other hand, hemp-derived CBD oil contains 0.3% THC or less, and is derived from industrial hemp plants.

• Oil Spectrum – Full spectrum oils extract the entire cannabinoid content from the cannabis plant and is said to be the most potent of all choices. They also tend to taste stronger and may leave a bitterness in your mouth. The broad spectrum oils are for those who want the strong benefits of cannabinoids without the risk of ingesting THC. Then of course there’s the isolate, which takes just one of the various types of cannabinoids in the plant. The most common is CBD, but there are many others being extracted and isolated as well such as CBG and CBN to name a few.

Some Warning Signs to Look Out For

The expansive selection of CBD foods can make it overwhelming to settle on a specific item, but be cautious – there are a lot of opportunistic sellers out there that want to take advantage of unsuspecting buyers. Watch out for these warning signs whenever shopping for edibles:

• Absent batch and lot number – The batch and lot number tell manufacturers when the specific food was made. If any issues arise with a specific batch – whether involving the ingredients or the process of manufacturing – the batch and lot number makes it easier to recall the problematic batch. Without this, how can you be sure that a manufacturer even cares to check back on previously released products to find out if they’re up to code? And even if they did, how would they be able to tell that what you bought doesn’t belong to the batch in question?

• No manufacturing or expiration date – Edibles will only be viable for a certain period of time. That’s because the cannabinoids will degrade and lose their potency, along with the ingredients included in the mix. Without a manufacturing or expiration date, it becomes difficult to determine how long a product’s shelf life should be. On average, edibles should be viable for only a few months and rarely extend to years, even for things like candy.

Are CBD Edibles Effective?

Yes, they are. But unlike smoking or taking sublingual tinctures, they take time. On top of that, the digestive process can break down CBD before it reaches your blood stream, reducing the bioavailability of the product as it infuses into your system. In layman’s terms, you might not feel such a strong hit with edibles as you would with the same dose if smoked, raw hemp flower. But hey, you can always augment that by measuring your tolerance and working your dosage up from there.

The best thing about CBD edibles is that because they stay in your system longer than all other forms of CBD product, they also have far longer lasting effects. That and of course, the electrifying taste that most of these products leave on your tongue. All things considered, it’s not hard to see why CBD edibles have become a mainstay on the cannabis market.