The next time you prepare a meal or whip up your favorite cookie or cake recipe, consider infusing a little CBD to the batter. This cannabinoid can be easily added to just about any dish or drink.
CBD (cannabidiol) is a non-psychoactive cannabinoid and is found in abundance in the cannabis plant.
Recently, it’s been well-studied and shown to have a number of positive health and wellness properties, including reducing inflammation, alleviating pain, minimizing anxiety, and even protecting the brain from similar negative effects. [1,2]
While CBD certainly has some powerful medical properties, many users use it simply to relax and improve their mood and state of mind without experiencing the high that typically comes with its psychoactive cannabinoid counterpart, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). [2]
The conventional mode of cannabis consumption has been to smoke, vape, or consume it sublingually. But there are plenty of other ways to take advantage of CBD’s healing properties, including eating it.
More specifically, adding it to recipes and consuming it as part of a delicious treat or meal is becoming a popular way to enjoy CBD’s effects.
Here are some tips for cooking with CBD.
Be mindful of temperatures
When cooking or baking with CBD, be sure to take the temperatures into consideration as the cannabinoid can be a bit sensitive to extreme heat.
While mildly warming up the CBD oil can boost its effectiveness, using very high temperatures could destroy some of the active components in the cannabinoid. Anything over 350°F will cause the CBD to start evaporating.
When cooking, don’t expose the CBD oil to direct heat, as heating it up too much could cause the product to lose rich terpenes, which you want to keep in order to boost the effectiveness of the CBD. Plus, CBD that’s heated too much will start to taste bitter.
Start small
If you’re new to cooking and baking with CBD, start small and work your way up. Not only will using too much CBD make your dishes taste a little funky, it could result in effects that may be stronger than you would have liked. Besides, using too much will just be a waste of all your precious CBD.
Use refined CBD oil
Decarboxylated or filtered CBD oil is usually better when cooking with this cannabinoid. They’re typically lighter in taste and don’t have as potent a flavor, which will help it blend in better with your recipe.
While you want to be able to feel the effects of the CBD in your recipe, you don’t necessarily want to taste it. Less refined CBD oil tends to have a stronger, more bitter taste, so try to stick to more refined oils.
Focus on recipes with sufficient fat-based ingredients
CBD oil will be better able to infuse into ingredients that are oil-based, such as butter, olive oil, or coconut oil. Try to stick with recipes that call for at least one of these types of ingredients so the CBD oil has something to blend well with.
Baking with CBD oil is usually recommended because there’s usually oil or butter involved, making the taste of CBD oil easy to mask.
Cooking and baking with CBD oil might come with a learning curve at first. But with a little trial and error, you can create some amazing dishes and baked goods that will both taste great and give you the effects you desire. Have fun!
References:
- Corroon, J. & Phillips, J.A., “A Cross-Sectional Study of Cannabidiol Users”, Cannabis Cannabinoid Res., Vol. 3(1), July 2018, pp.152-161.
- Blessing, E. et al, “Cannabidiol as a Potential Treatment for Anxiety Disorders”, Neurotherapeutics, Vol. 12(4), October 2015, pp.825–836.
