It's far from a secret that CBD has shown to have properties that have raised many people's interest worldwide. Sometimes, this includes people looking for a way to cope with medical conditions and, in other cases, people who are just trying to live a healthier life.
But why is cannabidiol a vehicle for a healthier lifestyle? Isn't it derived from cannabis?
Research from the last decade tells us that cannabis has a wide variety of therapeutic properties. It has also driven us to realize that cannabis is not just a plant we can use to get 'high.' There is only one component in the cannabis plant with psychoactive properties. The other 112 cannabinoids are non-psychoactive; CBD is a part of this list.
Why infuse food & drinks with CBD?
As the research allows us to understand CBD's capabilities as a functional ingredient, most of the knowledge we have is anecdotal evidence. Because CBD is a safe substance to consume, it allows curious consumers to experiment with different applications, doses, and uses.
It doesn't stop there:
CBD is also an extremely versatile component. Because of how the human body can interact with cannabinoids, CBD acts on several parts of the body, which opens up to ingesting CBD as an edible.
With other substances, this kind of versatility is not a possibility. Many functional ingredients require you to take it individually, but users can take CBD as a topical, inhale it, or consumed it sublingually.
When consuming CBD, the fastest onset is delivered by inhaling it as a vapor or smoke. However, this can be detrimental to your lung health. Sublingual application is a reasonably efficient way to consume CBD, but it poses a severe disadvantage in dose accuracy. Edibles, on the other hand, provide a serious advantage in terms when it comes to delivering an accurate dose. While edible consumption of CBD is not the most effective and has an incredibly slow onset, it comes in handy when you feel like eating something tasty instead of the herbal aftertaste of sublingual drops.
Top 5 CBD products to make infusions with
Full Spectrum Keto Oil by Avid Hemp CBD
Avid Hemp Keto Diet Oil is a product for the Keto diet standards, following a diet rich in healthy fats and protein consumption. Avid Hemp makes this product with MCT coconut oil with the perfect amount of healthy fats that act as an effective carrier oil to CBD, making it more bioavailable and easily accessible to the body full. This spectrum CBD oil is extracted from high-quality farmed Hemp. This product's idea is to use it as cooking oil or an additional ingredient to your juicing routine. Add the oil to recipes and cook at a lower temperature to not damage the CBD's profile.
Water Soluble CBD Tincture by Hemp Lucid
Hemp Lucid makes a water-soluble and nano-enhanced CBD oil. The NanoTech used in this formula allows Hemp Lucid to ensure the market's fastest bioavailability and a highly efficient way to consume edible CBD. Hemp Lucid's recipe is made with full-spectrum CBD, enabling you to access other components' effects and benefit from their interaction with CBD. Because it's water-soluble, you can mix this product into your favorite drinks, like juices, coffee, and tea- pretty much anything you enjoy drinking. However, try to stay away from scorching beverages as not to damage the CBD's chemical properties.
Organic Raw Hemp Agave Nectar by Pure American Hemp Oil
Technically, this is an edible product in and of itself. However, consumers can also use Valor Organic Raw Hemp Agave Nectar in other preparations. For instance, if you’re a fan of making your BBQ sauce, you know that an essential ingredient is honey. Why not switch it up a little bit by using a healthier element like agave nectar, and if you can have that nectar infused with CBD, that makes it much better.
CBD Splash Drink by CBD The Remedy
This product turns a regular glass of water into a delicious functional drink. CBD Splash Drink enhances your water with 25mg of CBD isolate per serving and a handful of other active ingredients like Vitamin C that add to the wellness that this product can deliver.
How to make CBD infused food
Infusing food with CBD is not as tricky as it might have once been. Because one of the most common CBD products globally is CBD extract, it has become increasingly easy to infuse food. Just a few drops and into one of your ingredients, and voila. Or perhaps you bought edible CBD oil that can be added to your finished recipe as a garnish without diluting it into a different ingredient first.
But it wasn't always that easy. Before extracts were available in the market, the consumer would first have to make their extract, which would then be suspended into a carrier like oil or butter. We commonly refer to this mixture as 'cannabutter,' which we can utilize in recipes. Without a carrier, the extract is often not edible.
Making your edibles from scratch is a long, drawn-out process that can go wrong any step of the way, so we suggest you stick to edible extracts and oils that allow you to skip this part. But we'll still attempt to summarize the process into a few steps without going into too much detail:
- Decarboxylate your dry-herb: This step of the process is done by grinding your hemp (high in CBD) and placing it in the oven.
- Infuse your butter or oil: There are a few different ways of doing this, but one of the most uncomplicated and most straightforward methods is to use sous vide.
- Place in the refrigerator: After your butter infuses in the sous, take the final mixture, and let it sit in the fridge.
After you go through this process, you should end up with freshly made cannabutter that you can use as regular butter in any recipe.
How to make CBD infused drinks
Drinks require a bit more expertise and technical resources to infuse correctly. This process requires you to make an extract that’s easily dilutable, which, depending on the type of equipment you have in hand, could be out of your capacity.
If you want to make your own CBD infused drinks, it’s a better option to buy dissolvable CBD oil. This way, not only will you be able to make CBD infused beverages in the blink of an eye, but you’ll also be able to enhance your favorite drinks with CBD instead of having to settle for a subpar drink.
Benefits of food & drinks with CBD
The advantages of consuming CBD in edibles or liquids should be clear by now, so we'll concentrate on explaining a few of the benefits that have to do directly with CBD itself rather than the benefits of consuming it through the digestive tract. Before we get into the weeds of it, it makes sense for us to note that CBD's benefits and effects are still lacking in-depth human trials that can provide conclusive evidence that confirms them.
However, there is an unmanageable amount of anecdotal evidence collected from frequent and new CBD consumers that points us toward the following list of benefits and effects. As these are anecdotal, we or anyone can't confirm their certainty before we have conclusive pre-clinical and clinical trials to justify them. But because of what we know of CBD and how the body interacts with the cannabinoid, we can say that it shows incredible potential to meet these expectations.
- Anticonvulsant: Multiple sources claim to use CBD as an effective anticonvulsant to reduce and manage seizure activity. While it is true that many people are now using it for this purpose, it is also true that clinical evidence for it is scarce.
- Antiemetic: CBD reduces nausea and vomiting. While these are symptoms and not particular ailments themselves, they are symptoms of other more severe diseases and conditions. So CBD, in this case, is used as a way to provide well-being.
- Antipsychotic/Anxiolytic/Antidepressant: Cannabidiol has been strongly linked to an activity in the brain. This finding has led scientists to believe that it could play a role in psychosis, anxiety, and depression. As with all of the other benefits on the list, this is not clinically proven. Still, the sheer amount of anecdotal evidence is overwhelming and prompts people to believe that the landscape is promising. Not only that, but if you've ever consumed CBD, you'll know that it can provide a deep feeling of calm and a sense of peace. If you've ever felt this, then you'll understand all the fuss.
- Antioxidant: This benefit commonly gets interpreted as a part of item number three on the list, and it can be. However, CBD's antioxidant properties have also been exploited numerous times in different product categories like skincare, beauty, and immunology. Again, we can't say enough that this is yet to be proven clinically.
- Anti-inflammatory: An effect commonly sought after in sports enthusiasts and people suffering from gastrointestinal conditions such as IBS and IBD. Some patients say that CBD's inflammatory impact effectively reduces gastrointestinal distress and muscle soreness.
- Pain Relief: CBD also provides analgesic effects on the body. Most of the pain relief associated with CBD is in topical products that can act directly on the sore area of the body, but some users have also recorded CBD's use for neuropathic pain.
Although there are many other different benefits linked to CBD claiming to treat symptoms of serious diseases, these are things that should not be mentioned or confirmed before the proper amount of evidence exists to back it up.
Hemmfy articles and blogs are meant to entertain and educate. However, we are not medical professionals and do not intend to give medical advice through them.
The knowledge around CBD and other cannabis-derived products is growing and constantly changing, as does their legal status. Hence, we recommend checking with your local authorities and a licensed physician prior to consumption.
Simon Cartagena
Simon Cartagena is a full-time cannabis copywriter. This has led him to write for companies like Hemmfy.com where he acts as Senior Content Writer and other world-renowned cannabis publications. Simon has created Content Marketing strategies and articles that have helped company revenues increase by up to 1,000%. Simon’s goal is to help people understand cannabis in an industry where misinformation seems to be predominant.
