The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made it very clear that adding CBD to CBD cooking recipes, foods, and drinks is strictly off the menu! Despite their repeated direction that adding CBD to food and drinks is prohibited, these products persist on the market. What should you know before buying CBD gummies, CBD drinks, or attempting a CBD recipe? Mainly that it could a bad idea for more reasons than being federally illegal!
Another big reason to pass on CBD cooking recipes and CBD edibles is their poor bioavailability (amount of CBD that reaches your bloodstream). The bioavailability of orally ingested CBD is thought to be around 10%, by comparison, the bioavailability of smoking CBD flower or CBD vapes is thought to be around 30%. If you take a 100mg CBD gummy, that means only 10mg will “actively” reach your body! However, if you smoke 100mg of CBD hemp flower, you could get up to 30mg.
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What is a good way to cook with CBD?
If you absolutely must, the most financially practical approach is to use hemp flower to make a CBD weed butter. Again, it is not legal to do this in most places, but theoretically, it is a method that people use to cook with cannabinoids that has been long used in the cannabis industry. However, there is no way of knowing the amount of cannabinoids in the butter.
How to Cook With CBD
In a situation where it is legal, a more appropriate type of CBD for CBD cooking recipes is a crude CBD extract like Rick Simpson Oil which is not commonly retailed. CBD distillate is another option, but it is generally cost-prohibitive.
The type of CBD distillate offered by most retailers is refined and intended for dabbing. It is not ideal for CBD cooking recipes. A more crude CBD distillate that is sold cheaper in bulk is what is most often used to make CBD edibles.
CBD Cooking Recipe Scams
Are you cooking with the right CBD? Most CBD cooking recipes require CBD extract that is not commonly available!
If you are cooking with CBD oil tincture, you are doing it wrong! This type of product enters the body by being absorbed in the blood vessels under the tongue. That is why it is a “sublingual” product. If you add CBD oil tincture to drinks or food it will be more or less inert because it won’t be able to be absorbed the way it was intended. There may be some trace absorption into the body, but not a significant amount. Most of it will just be excreted.
Another important consideration when CBD cooking recipes is that cannabinoids are fat-soluble. This means that they do not dissolve in water. An oily substance like MTC oil, olive oil, or butter needs to be combined with CBD concentrate before adding it in with other ingredients. To get the CBD to dissolve, it will need to be warned slightly. If you warm it too much you will destroy the cannabinoid molecules.
CBD Recipes to Look Out For
Many people are interested in saving money by making their own CBD edibles. However, there are a number of reasons why this is not a very good idea.
CBD Edible Recipes
Legal concerns and wastefully low bioavailability aside, the main issue with CBD edibles is that the CBD that is widely available to you is not the type of CBD that you should use to make DIY CBD gummies.
CBD Gummy Recipes
CBD gummy recipes may seem like a good way to save money, after all, they are very expensive and don’t deliver much CBD so you need to take more of them. However, you will run into the same issues- low bioavailability, high cost of appropriate CBD to cook with, and ultimately your “dose” is going to be less reliable because you are working on a smaller scale with less experience.
CBD Cocktail Recipes
Since CBD can impair liver function, it is very dangerous to mix CBD and alcohol! The combination of the two may result in increased inflammation of the liver, metabolic dysregulation, and abnormal liver stenosis (fat accumulation).
CBD Recipes For Dogs
The effects of CBD are even more unknown in animals than in humans. The FDA has not approved CBD for any use in animals. CBD cooking recipes for dogs are dangerous because no dose is known and no long term health and safety effects are known.
CBD for pets has a lot of interest, but if you are going to try CBD for your pet, at least get a product that is designed for them instead of trying to make it yourself. You will save time and money at the very least.
CBD Cooking Recipe Myths: Why are they so popular?
You are hearing a lot about CBD cooking recipes because the search phrase is popular. People are interested in making CBD recipes, and companies see that. To attract people to their websites, they write CBD recipes. The problem is that many of the people writing these recipes don’t actually know much about CBD or how it works in the body. But since these recipes taste good and can’t be done wrong (because they largely don’t do anything), they have been spread and shared around social media.
Final Thoughts: Buying CBD Edibles Online
Buying CBD edibles online is another area of caution. While most CBD companies have good intentions, the industry is not regulated. Whereas food companies are regularly inspected and regulated to ensure products will not harm consumers, the CBD industry does not require this and is not regulated.
This could mean that companies making products like CBD gummies are breaking the law twice over by producing an unregulated food product and by adding CBD to it. Keep in mind that these companies are not always subject to health inspections like in restaurants.
Do you still want to eat or drink their products without knowing if it was made in a garage or a commercial kitchen?
It is certainly a good reason to at least pause and do some deeper research!
The bottom line when it comes to cooking with CBD is that it is a major health risk with low financial value and less “effectiveness” in addition to being federally illegal. Products like CBD gummies and CBD coffee have effectively leveraged social media and online marketing to garner large interest. However, while these products seem like a tasty way to get your daily dose of CBD, they could have major adverse effects like liver damage!
