A quick guide to everything you should know about adding terpenes to CBD isolate
Travel to Hong Kong and you may be treated by a local to a homemade meal. The rice steamer will go on first, making sure there’s more than enough white rice to fill everyone’s bowl twice. You’ll smell the pleasant tang of garlic as it sizzles in coconut oil. You’ll hear the perfectly sliced beef fall into the pan. A savory soy sauce will be dropped in and the salivating smells take over the room. Served as-is. The meal will be tasty. But it needs something added to it: terpene-filled cilantro. Added last to the sizzling platter, the cilantro delivers the soulful and earthy tastes that will convince you to learn how to cook this meal for yourself.
Adding an important ingredient is crucial to improving aspects of a product, and the same is true for CBD isolates.
For all its value as an isolated cannabinoid, CBD isolate has one glaring weakness: it can’t deliver the entourage effect on its own. In other words, CBD isolate doesn’t deliver any compounds which complement the actions of CBD.
While many people prefer CBD isolate since it avoids any additional cannabinoid ingestion, there is a way to create CBD isolates that benefit from added terpenes.
According to a 2018 paper, terpenes from cannabis contain their own unique medicinal properties [1]. Moreover, their medicinal qualities are coupled with low levels of toxicity, which makes them safe for human consumption. In fact, according to the authors of the paper, terpenes provide many benefits including:
- Anti-inflammatory properties
- Antioxidant effects
- Analgesic properties
- Anticonvulsive properties
- Antidepressant properties
- Anxiolytic properties
- Anticancer and antitumor uses
- Neuroprotective effects
- Anti-mutagenic properties
- Anti-allergic effects
- Antibiotic and anti-diabetic attributes
- And more
Through extraction techniques, such as short-path distillation, CBD, terpenes, and other plant compounds can be easily separated from the other cannabinoids, including THC. After separation, they can be collected in flasks and reconstituted back into any CBD isolate product. This way, the customer knows that they are getting a clean CBD product along with the original terpene profile found in the plant.
Don’t worry, CBD-isolate with terpenes added back into it still keeps the THC out and won’t show up on a drug screen. The only major difference will be the added taste and benefits of reconstituted terpenes.
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References
- Nuutinen, T. “Medicinal properties of terpenes found in Cannabis sativa and Humulus lupulus.” Eur J Med Chem. 2018. 157:198-228. [Times cited = 18; Journal Impact Factor = 4.816]
